Audio transcription

Searchers 2.0 introduction and post-screening discussion with David Pendleton and Alex Cox. Saturday June 9, 2012.

David Pendleton  0:00 

[INAUDIBLE] ... the Q&A. For the last 30 years Alex Cox has been an important part of the American filmmaking scene, as somebody who constantly reinvents himself, while at the same time constantly returning to certain themes and preoccupations. In order to maintain his career as a working independent filmmaker, he's worked in a variety of production contexts. And to make the Searchers 2.0, one of his most recent feature films from 2007, he worked in a collaboration that I think must have been inevitable. He worked with the great Roger Corman, to produce the film. Corman is of course a legendary producer whose B movies in the 1960s and 70s especially, gave the beginnings to the careers of innumerable actors and directors, and really helped to reinvent the American cinema in the 1970s. At the same time, the film itself is a return to the subject of the American West, which is a constant source of fascination and inspiration for Mr. Cox, both in his work and in his life. He currently teaches at Colorado University, and at the same time it recurs often in his films. Occasionally the mythic West as we saw last night in Straight to Hell Returns, as well as a more realistic look at the West in Highway Patrolman, for instance. The Searchers 2.0 kind of juxtaposes, in some very interesting ways, I think, the mythic and the real West. The U.S. Southwest, in this case. The title of the film, of course, refers to John Ford's classic Western from 1956 called The Searchers, starring John Wayne. That film is famously about race, about revenge, about what's considered home and what's not. Who's considered family and who's not. And I think all of these questions churn in Alex's film, as well. Some closer to the surface than others. Certainly the question of revenge is one that recurs constantly, or often, let's say, in Alex Cox's films, most notably in Highway Patrolman, in Death and the Compass, and in Revengers Tragedy. Another way of looking at the Searchers 2.0 is as a precursor, by just a year or two, of recent films like Hugo and The Artist, films that express a love for cinema at a time when filmmaking, when celluloid is disappearing. Filmmaking is becoming digital cinema with unforeseen consequences. Lots of opportunities and lots of pitfalls along the way. And so I think it's natural that certain filmmakers tend to to look back and to take stock at what's been done and what remains to do. Not that this is actually a terribly new phenomenon. I mean, I think you can look at the series of Hollywood films about Hollywood in the early 1950s like Sunset Boulevard, and The Bad and the Beautiful, and Singing in the Rain, which are kind of about cinema in the face of television. But maybe it's even more interesting to put the Searchers 2.0 in the lineage of films like most recently Monte Hellman’s Road to Nowhere, which are films that look at the darker side of filmmaking, or films that look at, in some way, sort of the psychic cost of filmmaking. I mean, that tradition stretches back also to Sunset Boulevard, or to The Big Knife, but then forward to films like The Stuntman, or Robert Altman's The Player, or especially Wim Wenders’ The State of Things, in which a certain anxiety about what are the ethics of photographing people or an anxiety about the power hierarchy, the power dynamics on film sets, hierarchy that gets much more fraught as budgets get bigger, sort of gets worked out, and often becomes in some of these films, sort of life and death issues. In this case, Alex, I think, plays it a bit more realistically, or more life-sized, the stakes are in this film, as befits the protagonists of the film. The two main characters of the film I think, are people who will be recognizable to anyone who's spent time in Los Angeles and has had any sort of exposure to the fringes of the film industry. They’re two working actors who have day jobs, who've never become famous, but continue to support themselves and want to be attached to filmmaking in some way. But perhaps the most interesting way of looking at the Searchers 2.0 is as a portrait of sort of a post 9/11 American West in the age of the Iran and Afghan wars. And here you can start to see how the question of revenge takes on a certain political urgency. Like Cox's other film in the West, Highway Patrolman, this film finds him working in a much more realist vein compared to the sort of over-the-top cartoonishness of Straight to Hell Returns, which we saw last night. Although there are lots of interestingly abrupt changes of tone towards the more ironic or satiric, anarchic, or even surrealist Cox of old. We're very grateful to be presenting what I think may be the first local screening of the film. And we're even more happy to be presenting the film with the filmmaker present. He'll be here to answer your questions afterwards. But now to say a few more words to introduce the film, please welcome Mr. Alex Cox.

[APPLAUSE]

Alex Cox  5:30 

I really feel weird when people call me Mr. Cox. It's very august. I'm very quite honored, thank you. And thank you for coming tonight. And thank you very much to the Film Archive for mounting this retrospective and for inviting me to come this weekend. I'm very excited to be here. I had a wonderful time today roaming the streets of Cambridge and seeing your fabulous university and so pleased to be here tonight! So I think what's funny really about Searchers is, it sort of—I really did have my career in reverse, because I started out doing a film for a big Hollywood studio—Universal. And it ended up, many years later, making a film for Roger Corman. And it's supposed to go the other way.

[LAUGHTER]

But, I was introduced to Corman by Jon Davison, who was the producer of the film, who I've been friends with and trying to make a film with for 30 or more years. And this was how we finally did it. We were trying to raise money off the internet. It's funny, I was reading some of the publicity stuff on the wall there. I’d completely forgotten this, but we actually tried to do a sort of a Kickstarter thing, with the film. We put up a website and said, you know, “give us $75,000 and we'll make you Executive Producer.” You know, but I guess we were a little early with that, or perhaps the project wasn't quite as suitable as some for that way of raising money. So anyway, in the end, Jon took the film to Corman. Corman read the script and thought it was really funny. And so he said he would fund it, incurring the wrath of his wife and partner, Julie Corman, who didn't like it at all. And so we had to put him in the film, at that point, we had to really cement him into the project. And so you'll see, there's a very appropriate cameo, in which Roger Corman plays the executive producer of another film. A film within the film. I won't say too much more about it, except that it was also—I should tell you who shot it as well. It was shot by a New York cinematographer called Steve Fierberg, and Fierberg was the person that I originally wanted to have shoot Repo Man. That didn't work out, because he had just made a film for Paul Morrissey called Forty Deuce, yeah, which was shot on the streets of New York. A very impressive film, but all shot with handheld camera. And the executive producer of Repo Man didn't like that shaky camera stuff, so we had another cinematographer called Robby Müller shoot that film instead. But Steve and I have worked together on and off over the years. He shot fragments of Sid and Nancy. He shot second unit on Walker in Nicaragua. We get along very well and it was a wonderful opportunity to get to actually work with him at last night, on a complete feature, basically shot with a consumer video camera, such as you could acquire for yourself today for, you know, not very much money at all. So it's interesting to see how the means of production are in our hands. But of course, the means of distribution are not. But in any case, I hope that you will enjoy the film. And when it terminates, we will return and I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have regarding this or any of the other films that—[UNKNOWN]

[APPLAUSE]

So, thanks so much again, and I’ll see you—[UNKNOWN]

 

David Pendleton  9:18 

So the way—well, you know the way this works. For those of you who don't, I'll ask just maybe a question or two to kind of warm things up. But when you're ready to ask a question, there'll be people with traveling mics on the aisle so we can all hear you. And maybe we could start very simply, if you could talk a little bit about the genesis of the screenplay. Assuming that the film began as a screenplay, did you know that you wanted to write something that would be in some ways an homage to The Searchers, or a rethinking of The Searchers? Or did it start by thinking about actors and turn into something else?

Alex Cox  9:53 

I had gone to Monument Valley on two previous occasions, because an outfit from Austin, Texas, the Rolling Roadshow, had been taking this big inflatable screen around the country, screening films on the big inflatable screen outdoors, where they had been made. And so they showed Bullitt in San Francisco. They showed Repo Man in a parking lot in Downtown Los Angeles. And they showed Once Upon a Time in the West in Monument Valley! And then, a year later they went back, because it was the anniversary year of The Searchers, and the studio had struck a new print. And so they showed The Searchers in Monument Valley and so I went back for that. So this is a really interesting phenomenon, you know, and I was impressed also by this phenomenon of actors and of being in the vehicle with actors as you go to the set. And how it's kind of fascinating, but intensely tedious as well, because they all talk about stuff like, “Who's a better actor, Al Pacino or Robert De Niro?” You know, and they just get into it in such detail and go on such length, you know. And so somehow all of this stuff came together, you know, it kind of coalesced into this story. And I wrote the script. And I guess I must have given it to Jon Davison and just said—you know, because I've always, always tried to make a film with him, and he theoretically was retired at that point. But the last film that he'd made was the straight-to-DVD sequel to Starship Troopers. And so he felt he didn't want to end his career as the producer of Starship Troopers 2. And so he said he would come back from his retirement to do this. And so he took it to Roger, and that's how the thing came about.

David Pendleton  12:02 

But it is a great film about actors, and it's very affectionate in a way, about actors. Well, you get to combine the characters of actors and the characters of cinephiles, because these are cinephilic actors and so the way—

Alex Cox  12:12 

A lot of actors are cinephiles too, I mean, they really are, because they talk about that stuff. You know, “What was James Dean's greatest performance in the three films that he made?” You know, and they'll talk about that in enormous length, you know.

David Pendleton  12:25 

And you have created sort of a working group of actors that you use over and over again, some of whom we see in this film. Ed Panzulo, Miguel Sandoval, who's not in this film, Sy Richardson, etc.

Alex Cox  12:39 

Del Zamora

David Pendleton  12:42 

Del Zamora, exactly.

Alex Cox  12:42  

All those guys were in Straight to Hell last night, you know.

David Pendleton 12:44

Right.

Alex Cox 12:45

And in Repo Man, and in Sid and Nancy, and in Walker.

David Pendleton  12:51 

And Three Businessmen.

Alex Cox  12:53 

And Three Businessmen—well not so much—Miguel and me in Three Businessmen, because it's really a minimal—

David Pendleton 12:57 

I'm just plugging that because it's tomorrow night.

Alex Cox  12:59 

And it’s good—if you can see Three Businessmen, come see it, because it's all right.

David Pendleton  13:02 

Yeah, no, it's really good.

[LAUGHTER]

Well, that's also where you get to see that you are yourself a talented actor. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little, I mean—what is it that attracts you to these particular actors? That made you want to work with them over and over? Do you see a commonality to any of them, or certain kinds of commonalities to them? Or does it have to do with their performance styles?

Alex Cox  13:24 

I think it’s that we all got all together, you know. We all started out, we were in our 20s, you know, and the world was going to be our oyster. And all of a sudden you turn around and you're in your 50s, you know. And in the case of the actors, I mean literally, Ed Panzulo is a travel agent in San Jose, California. And Del Zamora was standing outside Office Depot trying to get picked up to go and be a construction day worker and, you know, the Mexicans would get really mad at him because they would go, “Listen, you're an American, man. You should go and work on computers or something like that.” You know, and Del goes, “You don't understand, I started out as a computer technician, you know. I was a computer guy in Roswell, New Mexico in the 70s, but then I came to LA to become an actor, and now I'm ruined. And so I have to stand here with you guys and try and be a construction worker,” you know. And Sy Richardson was thinking about selling t-shirts. So it all kind of coalesced, you know.

David Pendleton  14:19 

Right. But I mean, it strikes me as well—and this, I think, is something that's very little remarked upon in your films, is that a lot of the people that you've talked about are, shall we say, non-white actors. Like African American, Latino, and there's a way in which the casting of your films is often what's called, you might call colorblind, which is kind of an annoying phrase. But I'm wondering to what extent is this something that just sort of came to you naturally? To what extent was this sort of a conscious strategy on your part? Because you do it so naturally, that it never becomes an issue in the films. But it seems like so much the right thing to do, and such a natural thing to do, and yet nobody does it.

Alex Cox  15:02 

I think it's kind of conscious. I think it's kind of conscious, because of my deluded notion that I am a good person, you know, and that I should be employing minorities rather than only white people. But really, I think there's a kind of a limitation in the casting process. And in the way directors and casting directors look at scripts, because if it says, “so-and-so is a Black guy,” or “so-and-so is a Latino or Latina,” then they will try and cast a Latina in that role. But if it doesn't say that, they'll default immediately to a white person. And so, I think in a way to kind of try and get out of that construct, and to think of all actors as being eligible for all parts, unless they get excluded for some reason, is a better way to approach it, because you have a much broader range of actors to choose from that way. And the other thing is, it's tough to be an actor, you know, it's not that easy. The job is easy, and the job is fun, but getting the job is very hard. And it's the only profession left where legally the employer is entitled to say, “I don't want to hire that person because he's Black,” or “because he's disabled,” or “because she's a woman,” you know. It's the only profession left where legally, the employer can do that. And isn't that interesting? That's the way that a lot of directors and casting directors still approach their job, is they default to the white actor, unless the script tells them otherwise, you know. And so it's tough, man. It's hard to be an actor. I mean, it's a pretty great job, too. When you get the job, it’s great, it's the best gig in the world.

David Pendleton  16:57

You've acted for other directors, as well. Including—did you end up quite recently being in a shoot by somebody, or did that not happen?

Alex Cox  17:05 

I was supposed to work for a Mexican director called Felipe Cazals only a couple of weeks ago, but they ran out of money at the eleventh hour. They ran out of time. I think they had money. But they ran out of time, and I was going to play the ghost of Ambrose Bierce in a Mexican movie, but Ambrose got canned at the eleventh hour. They never shot his scene. But I've worked for some other Mexican directors. I've worked for Arturo Ripstein. I've worked for Luis Estrada in a film called—in two of his films, but one of them is called Herod’s Law. Has anybody seen Herod’s Law? If you can find it in the video store, it's really worth seeing. It's the most popular Mexican film of all time. And it's a political satire about election time in a small, provincial town in Mexico in the 1940s. And I played the bad gringo, but I'm just part of a big cast of characters. And it’s just a tremendous cast of Mexican actors. Really, really the very best of the Mexican actors who were available in that year. You know, who hadn’t died yet. And so yeah, so I worked for some—and Álex de la Iglesia. I acted for Dennis Hopper in a film that he did called Backtrack, where I played the ghost of D. H. Lawrence. So I was trying to kind of amass a collection of the ghosts of great authors, you know, but—little by little.

David Pendleton  18:31 

You were in Perdita Durango?

Alex Cox  18:33  

Yes. And I'm in Perdita Durango. I am the henchman of Jim Gandolfini, who—this was before The Sopranos. So Jim was just like this good actor, you know, and I was his henchmen. He was an FBI man, and I was like his Mormon second-in-command, you know. So I do very little except follow Jim around, you know.

David Pendleton  18:55 

That's a great film, though.

Alex Cox  18:56 

Oh, and he's a great actor. I mean, Jim Gandolfini. I don’t know what he's doing now, but I mean, I thought he was a wonderful actor. Very talented.

David Pendleton  19:04 

Well, speaking of Arturo Ripstein, you have mentioned in the past, part of your adaptation of long takes, or plano secuencia, as you call them in Spanish, comes from working with Ripstein, from seeing his films. And I was wondering if you can talk a little bit about incorporating the plano secuencia, or the long take, for instance, into Searchers 2.0 where a lot of it takes place in a car, for instance.

Alex Cox  19:29 

Yeah, which means in a way, you can't really get away with a plano secuencia in a car, because by the very nature of the geography of the car, you need to be able to cut, you need to see the people in the front seat and the backseat, you know, and the person in the driver's seat and the person in the passenger seat. And unless you shoot the whole scene through the windshield, which will get quite boring, you have to have some kind of, you know, some internal montage going on. But I did feel—I mean, this was back in the days—remember Dogme? Anybody remember Dogme? Those guys from Northern Europe, and they had come up with this list of rules that they'd made. That you couldn't have a gun. You couldn't have any music that wasn't—

David Pendelton  20:16

Diegetic.

Alex Cox  20:18

Diegetic—that's right. You couldn't have special effects. You couldn't have any lighting that wasn't visible within the—I mean, obviously, they broke—you couldn't have a director's credit—obviously, they broke all these rules immediately they'd made them. It was more of a sort of a publicity campaign to establish themselves in a serious agenda. But the one thing they didn't address was film editing. And I did feel at that time that film editing had already got very, very predictable. I mean, you know, you can sit in the cinema and you can go like that. Cut, cut, cut. You know exactly when the cuts are coming, you know. And so the plano secuencia—the idea of doing everything within the scene in a single take was a way of getting away from the very, very reactionary and kind of boring editing strategy which had fallen into place. And that was back in the ‘90s. And it's worse now. Editing goes much faster now, you know. You're like that! But you can still predict all the cuts. And films shouldn't be like that. And the Dogme guys really should have addressed that as well, and also committed to not doing any internal editing. But that's harder work, you know, it's hard work to do that. You have to really think about it, and you have to really pay attention and you have to have rehearsals and all that kind of stuff, you know. But it's more fun in the end, because it's more of a challenge. And it's great for the actors, because the actors get to play all the scene in one, instead of breaking the scene up into little bits.

David Pendleton  21:45 

And in some ways, does that harken back to your theatrical roots as well? I mean, it's maybe a little bit more like theater, at least in the sense of working with the actors or having them be able to sort of string together a couple of moments and a few lines.

Alex Cox  21:57 

Yeah, and I think that's why actors like it, because every scene becomes like a little theater piece, you know. I think it's more of a thing that actors like, than the movie stars like. I think the movie stars probably don't enjoy it because it means they have to stay around longer.

David Pendleton 22:12 

And they have to learn their lines.

Alex Cox  22:15 

Yeah they have to know the lines, and they have to interact with the other actors properly, you know. And movie stars, a lot of the time they want to show up, they want to shoot their scenes first, and then they want to leave, you know. And so the other actors, the supporting actors end up acting opposite the prop guy. Which isn't correct. But movie stars are a different kettle of fish from actors.

David Pendleton  22:39 

Are there questions in the audience? Yes. Alex behind you has got a mic, look to your left.

Audience  22:46 

Thank you, Alex. I think I have 1002 questions for you because I've been such a fan of yours since the 80s. But right now, the big one that comes to mind is, I have seen different things in your movies that are kind of things you like to work about, the things you like to write about. But when I try to describe your movies to people, it's a little harder. So I didn't know if—do you see like a single thread through many of your films that you've been trying to get out? Or is that not even something you’re even worried about?

Alex Cox  23:20 

I'm sure there is one. I'm sure you could watch them all in a row. In fact, you could come here and watch them all in a row, you know.

[LAUGHTER]

And there probably would be some constant thing going through them. But what is it? You know, I don't really know. I mean, there's cars, but I mean, there's lots of cars. But then this is a car culture, I mean, I grew up in a car culture too in England. People are mad about cars, obsessed with cars, you know. And now that I have a job in Colorado and I live in Southern Oregon, so our commute is to drive from Southern Oregon to Boulder, Colorado, and then back again over the Rocky Mountains. And, you know, a young person can do this in 24 hours. It takes us like four days, you know. But the thing is we have to do this because we have these dogs, so we have to travel with the dogs. And so now it's all become a kind of a human/animal/car relationship, you know. I don't know if that answers the question.

[LAUGHTER]

David Pendleton  24:21 

Yes, in the back there.

Audience  24:26 

Thank you. I appreciate your generosity here. There's a way in which this film in particular is deeply funny, and yet at the same time, there's a sort of a tightness that makes it kind of hard to laugh too long and too hard, which is just sort of interesting to me. But I guess what I'm kind of curious about is, you have talked about the way you enjoy working in collaboration with the people who make a movie with you. And so could you talk a little bit more about working with the actors, and specifically, how you get the effect of there being kind of the goofiness, but not quite—I don't know how to describe it, other than sort of their performances are sort of a commentary about the role, while at the same time they're doing the performance somehow, something like that. Anyway, and then I'm also curious about the commentary on the Clint Eastwood ending of the Michael Moore movie, which actually struck a nerve with me because I met him a few times. I like a lot of what he does, but I found that ending quite disturbing. And I'm wondering if you did too, the way he treated Clint Eastwood at the end of the movie—oh, Charlton Heston! Thank you.

Alex Cox  26:03 

So the first thing is the actors, right? And the actors—

David Pendleton  26:07 

And this sense of like, almost maybe a Brechtian distance between them and the character? Is that kind of what you were wondering? Or a certain irony, perhaps, to the performance?

Alex Cox  26:18 

I mean, I think the thing is that they're kind of smart guys, you know, and they kind of get the script. And if they get the script, and they're gonna play it the right way. And so if you give them their head, and you let them go, you know, and do something interesting—I mean, I really don't mind what the actors do, you know. If they want to sit on the table, or if they want to go underneath the table. Or if they want to play the scene in the backyard instead of in the room. I really don't have an opinion, because I figured that the actors know the character better than I do. Because as the director, you've got a lot of other responsibilities as well as directing the actors. You’ve got to deal with the whole logistic issues and what the camera person's doing, how you're going to cut it together later. You know, have we offended screen direction yet? You've got all these other considerations. And so if you can let the actors go, really let them—you know, let them loose, it means you have to have a lot of trust in them and you really have to rely on them to be very good. And I've been pretty lucky with that. Occasionally I've miscast people. And that's very difficult because if you miscast somebody, those performances tend to get cut very, very short, you know? But if you cast it right, then you can trust the actors, and let them go, you know. And so it's like, when Pansullo has that scene where he describes the plot of The Searchers, you know, he gets it just right, you know. He gets it just, just right, you know? And so I guess it's a question of casting. If you cast it right, then it's going to be okay. And then the director's job is a lot less difficult, because you've got these professionals who are going to take care of that for you.

Yeah, and I felt the same way about that Charlton Heston thing. I know that—obviously, I mean, I'm not a gun person, and I'm not a big fan of the NRA, you know. But if you think about Charlton Heston, the March on Washington, the day that Martin Luther King made his most famous speech, the “I Have a Dream” speech. Who was there in the audience, you know, who were the handful of Hollywood celebrities that turned out to be there that day? Even though they'd been called on the telephone by the FBI and told they would be blacklisted if they went to attend the King event—not just the King event, but the civil rights event. Charlton Heston, Steve McQueen, Marlon Brando. Allie McGraw. These were liberals, you know, and Heston was a real liberal. Heston stuck up for Orson Welles when Universal wanted to fire him off of Touch of Evil and said “No, I will not accept that you fire this guy. This guy is staying,” you know? So, I think we all kind of fall into this trap of demonizing people, or viewing them as only one thing, you know. But people are more complicated than that, and Heston—obviously, we might not approve of everything Heston espouses, or everything anybody espouses, but I think we have to give him credit that he's more than just—it's not really, it's not that clever to take advantage of an elderly man who's not thinking that clearly. And so I did feel a little sympathetic with Pansullo’s character when you get so angry about that, because I did feel it was wrong to treat Heston that way. But of course, if I'd had family members killed at Columbine, I might have felt quite differently, you know.

David Pendleton  29:55 

But it ties also into one of the concerns of the film, which is this question of like, what is ethical behavior toward somebody when you've got a camera with you? You know what I mean?

Alex Cox  30:05 

Yeah. And also, what the heck, anyway? What does it matter what an actor thinks, or what I think, you know, who are mere entertainers? Why put such weight on the opinion that the people hold? But that I guess, is the nature of the show business game.

David Pendleton  30:28 

Next question, does it—yeah, you here in the middle. Kevin?

Audience  30:36 

You just actually hinted at what I was going to ask, which is, I'm very attracted to the idea that the decisions you make as a director, in regards to your actors, are not just aesthetic or narrative decisions. They have political repercussions or personal repercussions in their lives. I was wondering if there's anything you would not just never ask an actor to do? Even if it made sense as a character in a film, but maybe something you think directors too often ask their actors to do and are not sensitive to the fact that making decisions as a director is not just a, you know—it's not, “I did it for the movie” is not really a high moral purpose in—

Alex Cox  31:15 

I mean, I hope I would not ask them to be in a very dangerous situation, where they might get killed, you know, because it's a terrible thing when that happens. And you don't ever want to be in a situation like that, where you've created a situation in which some disaster occurs. So, now when we began of course, we didn't do that. When we began of course, we just—you know, like, Corman and De Niro, and all those guys, when they were working on whatever the gangster movie that Corman directed, Bloody Mama, or whatever it was, and they had one scene where Corman said to Robert De Niro, you know—Corman told us this story when we were making this film—he said to De Niro, “You drive down that mountain road, okay? As fast as you can! The cops are going to be chasing you and you're gonna be firing your gun out the window and Shelley Winters is going to be firing her machine gun. Go!” And so off they go, and they do the chase down the mountain road. And they get some good footage and then, you know, they're gonna do a second take. And Roger says to Robert De Niro, “Look, that was great. That was really good. But next time, you know when you were going around the corners and stuff, you were getting a little close to the edge of the cliff there. So don't drive too close to the cliff edge this time when we do the second take.” And Robert De Niro says to him, “Roger, I don't know how to drive.” And so Corman goes “Okay, well we've got that shot and now we’ll do something else.” You know, so—even though we never used to think about health and safety and risk assessments and all that, but you do have to think about the parameters in which you're working and if you take out 10 actors and 25 crew people, you have to bring home 10 actors 25 crew people too. It’s a big mistake to do anything but that. But if you do cast it right, then you really can kind of give it up to them, you know?

So there are other things I wouldn't do. I would try not to give them a line reading, which is a terrible thing. Nobody likes to be given a line reading. And I wouldn't put the tape on the floor before they get there. Because as an actor, I've arrived on set, and the tape is already there. And you kind of go “oh okay, and you want me to put my feet there, right? Okay, ready?” Because the actor likes to think that they're a creative partner in the enterprise. And if you make them a creative partner, it works much better, you know. But a lot of directors are very technical. A lot of directors are much more interested in the special effects, the action sequence, what they're going to do in the cutting room. And so, it does depend on the temperament of the director as well.

David Pendleton 33:58 

Thank you. Yeah, there’s a question. Claribel has got a question in the back. Oh, all right, you go ahead, you first, and then we'll go in the back.

Audience  34:07 

I had a question about the movie last night. What were you thinking about when you had all those kind of Last Supper scenes in the movie last night? I mean, you know, the degree of opportunism between the two groups. One is a little less willing to kill. The other’s a little more willing to do it. But was there some meaning to those supper scenes that you kept repeating?

Alex Cox 34:45 

Steal from the best!

[LAUGHTER]

I mean, because you're stealing from Renaissance art, Leonardo Da Vinci, and you’re stealing from Luis Buñuel and Viridiana. But really, the idea actually came from the dolly grip. The guy who was pulling the dolly. Because it occurred to him, it was a nighttime sequence, and if we did coverage on all the actors it was going to take all night long. You know, the sun would come up, and we would stop. And he wanted to go to bed. So he said, “Why don't we do this as a dolly shot, which reveals all the actors as if it were The Last Supper?” And of course, I'm a sucker for that. I go, “Oh, great idea! Let's do that!” But really, it was just 'cause he didn't want to work all night, you know? But it worked out okay. I liked it. I mean, the whole idea of the long table with people only sitting on one side, it's become such a classic image, you know, and can be used for so many purposes—can be used to, you know, to create a religious myth, or to undercut a religious myth, or to get you home early. It’s good for all those things.

Audience  36:14 

When you were reading the history of Walker, how was it that you were envisioning your tangible goal? With the history of events in that period?

Alex Cox  36:26

I can't hear you.

David Pendleton 36:27

The history of what in that period? Oh, when you're re-reading the history of Walker.

Audience 36:31 

Yeah. When you were reading the history of Walker, how was it that you were envisioning your goal to finish the film with all the history that was going on?

David Pendleton  36:42 

In other words, like, how are you relating Walker's history to what was happening in the present day?

Audience  36:49 

Right, with the Sandinistas and the—

David Pendleton 36:53 

And the Contras.

Audience  36:55 

Right.

Alex Cox  36:56 

I was looking for a film to make in Nicaragua. And because I'd gone down there on one of these tours that you can go on as a sort of a concerned person, you know. We were down there in ‘83, when they had the election where the Sandinistas were elected. After the revolution four years previously. And I had met in a hotel that day—because they closed all the bars and restaurants, so the only place you could get a beer was in a hotel. And I ended up in this hotel in León, in Nicaragua with two guys who'd been in the Sandinista army and had been invalided out, because they'd been wounded. And so we were talking to these guys and they go, “Well, what do you do?” You know. “Oh, we're filmmakers!” You know, I was there with Peter McCarthy. He was one of the producers of Repo Man. And we go, “Oh, we’re filmmakers from LA!” And they go, “Oh well, you should come down here and make a film.” And, so I started to give them some line of nonsense. Like, “Oh, well you know, it's very difficult to raise money for films and blah, blah, blah.” And they weren't having any of it. They were going, “No sure you can, you know, you guys come from America, the land of money. Go back there, get a load of money, bring it down and spend it in Nicaragua, on a film that will tell people something about this nation.” So I was just impressed by that. I was impressed by their boldness, you know. And that what they said to me was essentially true. So I just thought, “Well, I gotta try and figure out some story to tell in Nicaragua.” And there was the famous story—famous down there, not famous in our culture, but famous in Nicaragua. The story of William Walker. And so the more I thought about what can I make? What's the sort of film that we could make in Nicaragua, that we could spend a lot of money in Nicaragua and help the economy a little bit. And bring journalists down, so the journalists would write positive stories, as opposed to the largely negative stories that were in the media at the time. And the Walker story just seemed to be the right one. Because it had an American central character. Because to appeal to an American or European audience, they look for an American actor, you know. And so it just seemed like that was the story to do. And it was quite miraculous that it happened. But the story was secondary to the desire to go there. And I think that happened a lot really, in the terms of the films that I've done. You know, I wanted to go to a place, so then I would think of a story to tell there, to justify the trip. And if you see Three Businessmen, that's like that as well. It's a trip around the world in a single night. And the story kind of follows the decision to go around the world in 24 hours.

David Pendleton 39:56 

All right, we'll go down here again, and then back up there. Yes, you. Yes, I'm sorry.

Audience  40:11 

Your soundtracks just fit your movies so well. I just wondered, when you're going through the process in your mind of what you're picking for your music, is it just things that you happen to like? Or that they strike you? Or do you use people telling you, “Hey, this would be something good in that part.” Or what is the process for your soundtracks?

Alex Cox 40:33

I defer entirely to the composer, because I have no musical talent whatsoever. So I always defer to the composer. I always just ask them what they want to do. And show them the script and then show them the rough cut, and keep them involved throughout the process, starting as early as possible. So on this, the composer of this film is a guy I've worked with on many. many films, or several films. And Walker—the soundtrack is by Joe Strummer. And he was in Nicaragua throughout the shoot, you know, and stayed with us while we were editing the film in Nicaragua, as well. And so he was intimately involved with it. And, he came up with the idea of using all instruments that existed—that were period instruments that would have existed at the time. Even though he'd come from an electric rock and roll background. But no, I always defer to the composer. I just knew in this one, that we wanted to have something that would catch the ear of Del Zamora’s character. At the very beginning when he hears that music, and would also mean something to the audience. And so, obviously, “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Grieg, you know. Everybody's heard that piece of music, you know, and so, to incorporate that into the score of something else seemed like a good idea, because it will be a hook that would catch both the lead character and the audience too, at the same time. But I always defer to the composer.

David Pendleton  42:09 

I'm gonna ask a question, going back to Searchers 2.0, before we go back to these other ones. There's a couple of moments—I don't know if I counted all of them—I know that definitely the two leads, there’s a moment of direct address, where they look directly into the camera. And maybe Delilah has one of those. Maybe it’s all three of them in the car. And I don't think I've ever seen you use that in your films. Maybe in Walker?

Alex Cox  42:30 

You’re probably right. No, that's probably right. This is the only one where they talk to the camera, yeah.

David Pendleton  42:33

And I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about what was happening at those moments, that made you decide to use that since it's a very striking device.

Alex Cox  42:42 

I mean, it just occurred on the set. The first of those scenes that we shot was the one with Delilah, where she talks to the camera and says, “these guys are full of bullshit, you know, and it's not like that. It's like this.” And she did it so well, she was so good, I just thought, “Well, you should just say to the camera. Don't play it to those actors,” because she's always playing to those two actors, you know, “just play it straight down the—play it down the barrel." So then, of course, when she'd had one of those moments, then the other guys had to have one of those moments too. And so I had to come up with a moment where Del would have his to the camera speech and where Ed would have his to the camera speech. So let's be more democratic. You know.

David Pendleton  43:23 

And so—yeah. Haden has a question in the back.

Haden Guest  43:25 

Yeah, Alex, thanks so much for sharing this wonderful film with us. This film is so full of, I think, pretty profound ideas, and one of them being this idea that the Western is simultaneously the most quintessential and yet most problematic of American genres. And I was wondering if you could reflect a little bit about your relationship to the American Western, as distinct from the Italian Western and just your fascination with the American West and with violence. And the sort of distance and yet, a proximity that you've had with narratives of violence and masculinity and such. And then also, this is, in fact, the very thing that you are working on next. This book on the American Western. So I was wondering if you could maybe talk a little bit about, again, your relationship to the American Western, and then also this latest book project, which sounds really fascinating.

Alex Cox  44:26 

But I think you said it. Because I mean, the Western is kind of like a blank slate, upon which you can impose anything. A Western can be a right wing film, it can be a left wing film, it can be a progressive film, or a populist film. It could be good. It can be bad. It can be high budget. It can be very low budget. It can be shot in the canyons outside LA. It can be shot in Spain. It can be shot in Yugoslavia. It can be shot in Monument Valley. It can be shot in Canada. It can be shot in Mexico. It has such a broad scope, that a Western can be the excuse for just about any story you want to tell. And for me personally, I think it was always about the landscape. I just loved those landscapes. I mean, just to watch the end of this film, and to see the helicopter footage of Monument Valley. And that footage, you know—we were so lucky because that footage cost us $500. Because a friend of mine in Liverpool knew this guy who'd been working for Nintendo. And he was shooting backgrounds for video games. And he had all this footage that Nintendo hadn't wanted as backgrounds. And so I said, “Well, give it to us. Let us have it.” And so we worked out a deal and we paid him $500 for all of that extraordinary, high definition video footage of helicopters above Monument Valley, you know. And I don't even need cowboys or horses, I can just look at the landscape. In fact, that would be an interesting Western, if it was just shots of the landscape and movement through the landscape.

And the project I'm trying to do now, or I'm going to do now. I haven't yet begun it. I'm kind of researching it, but I haven't yet begun the process. But, I'm going to write a book about cowboy films, seen through the prism of John Wayne, who’s another one of those problematic characters like Charlton Heston, who we think of in one way, but we kind of undervalue him if we only think of him in one way. And it’s called The Big Trail. It starts with Wayne and Raoul Walsh making The Big Trail in 1929 and ends with The Shootist, which was made as Wayne was dying in ‘76. But it's not just about John Wayne movies. It's about the trajectory of the American Western during that forty-seven-year period, and what it meant, and what the films meant. And I think that the thing about Wayne is, he's an enigma, you know. You can impose anything you want on John Wayne. If you look at John Wayne in Stagecoach, or in The Big Trail, you can view Wayne as a beautiful young man with a real moral and somewhat liberal, or libertarian liberal perspective. And then obviously the Wayne of later years. Of The Searchers and some of the lesser films, it’s like a very, very right wing character, you know. And a rather gross character. And so how Wayne changed. The young Wayne and the old Wayne is kind of like the young Elvis and the old Elvis, you know. And so, how that transition happened. How he changed, how everything changed during that time frame. It seems like an interesting thing to have a little look at anyway.

Audience  48:11 

So the snow scenes, by the way, which are especially beautiful, I thought. This is to me, it was a fun film, and satisfying, intriguing. And you did mention that making a film with readily accessible equipment is one thing, but the distribution is another. So, can you talk about what happened with the distribution of this, and what you had to deal with, and how that worked out? And I'll think of the other one in a second, maybe.

Alex Cox  48:50 

The thing about the distribution is just, this is the eternal problem, because if you make a very inexpensive film, the financier probably has only done it as a sort of a little ego trip, you know. I mean, they've put down $50,000 or $200,000, or whatever it is. But they've done that because they are a wealthy person who can afford to do it, and they don't really need to recoup that money. And I've had this experience a couple of times. I've had a great time making a very low budget film, but then there's no real desire on the part of the financier to actually see that money come back. But whereas, from the point of view of the director, and the producer, and the actors, it's very important to see that money come back. And especially now that films are so kind of locked down into this sort of mode of the studios making far fewer films, and much more expensive films, and just keeping them in the cinemas for longer. It's kind of a problem, because the independent sector, it’s existing merely because people like making films. But it ceased to be monetizable, you know. It's difficult. People are still making films, but how do they get out there? How do they make it? How do they reach an audience? How do they make a profit? You know, how do we make a living? I don't know the answers to these questions.

Audience  50:15 

The other question was about Walker. I found it interesting after the movie, thinking about Walker—totally nuts— and the kind of, the link to American intervention in Nicaragua and a lot of other places, and thinking, “well, maybe American intervention, U.S. intervention really isn't that different from the total insanity of Walker?” And I wonder if that was sort of, maybe your view as you were making it, as you were making the film. That really, there really isn't that much difference. That really, U.S. intervention is a kind of nuttiness. Insane, crazy violence with really—anyway.

Alex Cox  51:01

All imperial powers are crazy, not just American imperial power, but the British Empire. You know, all empires are crazy. You know, the Spanish Empire. What can be madder than Aguirre, the Wrath of God? That Spanish conquistador who's like floating down the Amazon with all those monkeys on the raft. I mean, the imperial project leads to madness, and leads to an enormous waste of money and enormous disasters for everybody involved. And yet, we just seem to be driven to these things, don't we? We seem to be driven over and over again to repeat these same mistakes. It's far easier just to go and make friends with people than to try and subjugate them, but we never seem to learn that. And certainly, I mean, as a Limey, you know, I can't speak, because my guys are as guilty as anybody that's ever lived in that regard.

David Pendleton  52:01 

Well, oh, yeah, there’s a question right here. Yeah.

Audience  52:07 

Yeah, getting back to what you were saying earlier, about how John Wayne and Westerns change over time. I was really surprised a few years ago, when you did a follow up to Repo Man as a comic book series. And because, first of all, I think Repo Man has a perfect ending. So I was really surprised you did a follow up in the first place. But when you did that, Waldo was so different. Why go back there in the first place, and why change the main character so much?

Alex Cox  52:37 

Well, that was the artist. That was the guy that did the illustrations. He was the guy who made him like this tall, skinny guy with white hair.

Audience  52:56 

[INAUDIBLE]

Alex Cox  53:05 

10 years later.

[LAUGHTER]

And anyway, that's what happens to him in Repo Man. I mean, the interesting thing for me, about that character in Repo Man, was how he was a completely blank page. I mean, how he could be on one evening, he could be like a Huntington Beach punk, with his Suicidal Tendencies t-shirts and his little earrings and stuff. All he has to do is take out the earring and put on a suit jacket, you know, and he's a repo man. He's an enforcer for the banks. And it was really that, it was the idea of how thin the transition was from being a youth rebel—you know, icon—to just being an enforcer for the status quo, you know. And how people change. And how easy it is to change, even if they're not aware they've done it. So I think that's inherent within Repo Man, but I was interested in seeing what happened to him next. And I think if we had actually made that as a film, the two films together would be quite an interesting pair. Because, you know, in a way—even though that was a film of like the Clinton years—but in a way the Clinton years were even more locked down, as far as what your options were, than they had been in the 80s, you know. Or it certainly felt that way.

David Pendleton 54:27 

And then you did Repo Chick as your most recent—or Repo Girl is it?

Alex Cox  54:32

No, Repo Chick. Repo Chick.

David Pendleton  54:33

Which I haven’t seen. I haven't seen it. Is that related to the comic strip? Or is this going in a whole other direction?

Alex Cox  54:37 

Repo Chick is a kind of a variant of Repo Man with a female protagonist. But whereas he was like a lower middle class kid from The Valley, she is like the richest heiress in the Los Angeles area, but deprived of her millions and threatened with a jail sentence. She's forced to get a job, and so she ends up in the repossession business. But she's repossessing airplanes, boats, houses, churches, trains. And the conceit of the film, if you ever see it, is that they're actually all model railroad characters. They're all little plastic model railroad characters, that tall. So they have a whole bunch of things they can and cannot do. You know, she changes her costumes, but nobody else does. Everybody else always wears the same outfit. Nobody drinks or eats anything because they're made of plastic and they don't have any digestive system. And they're all afraid of getting to the edge of the table in case they fall off. So it'sit's another idea of—I think, in a way, it's kind of like a prison. I think of LA as a little bit like a prison, you know. And so it's the prison revisited in a different way.

David Pendleton  55:54 

Right. Are you okay to take one or two more?

Alex Cox  55: 56

Oh, yes. Yes. Yes.

David Pendleton  55:58

Are there other questions? Or if not? Well, you know one thing. I’ll just ask another question. You describe yourself as a Limey, and there was a question earlier about what ties your films together. And I think part of it is—and it came up last night—is the sense of the individual versus the group, right? Sort of the age old theme and like, what is it to belong? Or how do you find yourself belonging? And I'm wondering, do you see yourself as belonging to a particular school of filmmakers? To a particular nationality? Or are you somebody—do you think of yourself as an American filmmaker, or as a British person who is an American filmmaker? Is that sense of belonging or identity, is that kind of an identification that's important to you?

Alex Cox  56:40 

Yeah, I don't really think about it very much, because I think I've lived in the States for such a long time. I mean, for better or for worse, I'm kind of part of the American cinema, or the margins of the American cinema. And in terms of England, I'm not part of England, if one thinks of England as being like the metropolis of London, you know. I never lived in London. I come from Liverpool. You know, Liverpool and London are like Los Angeles and San Francisco. They hate each other with a great passion, you know, which can never, never be resolved, you know? So—

David Pendleton 57:17

And yet in ​Three Businessmen,​ for instance, there's this idea of some sort of transnationality. You know what I mean, that you can be this sort of floating under some sort of world global system kind of thing.

Alex Cox 57:27

Yeah. And everywhere is the same. That the guys in ​Three Businessmen​, you know, they have that experience everyday, where they wake up, and they can't quite remember where they are. “Where am I today? What motel room is this?” You know. And I don't feel like that. I do feel kind of rooted in a couple of places. Now, you know, thanks to the dogs, mainly. But also I think that I'm also marginal. I think it wasn't intended to be that way. I didn't plan to be marginal.

But I think in a way that that is good for art, because I think the good art appears on the margins. You know, the good art always appears on the edges of whatever the thing is. Within the center, we have this expression, “the dead center,” and there's a reason for that, you know. And the really interesting art that gets created, and the really interesting work that gets done always happens on the margins of whatever's happening. So I think I'm a part of those, I hope I'm a part of those good margins.

David Pendleton 58:33

Yes.

Audience 58:37

Actually, I was trying to think of how to frame a question about marginality, which I couldn't figure out how to do. But when David brought this up, I was thinking, you've talked about living in Oregon and traveling, or they traveled to Boulder. And yet, your films take on this marginality, which is different, it seems to me than—I mean, I would have assumed kind of a cozy marginality to Oregon and Colorado, rightly or wrongly, and for dogs. And yet, your film work is taking on the edges of—sort of the challenge of how far we can be on the edge. And I don't know exactly where the question is, but it's sort of how you put these lives together or don't.

Alex Cox 59:31

That's drama, though, isn't it? I mean, we write drama about stuff that's more exciting than our own lives. And we watch movies that are about things that are more exciting than the lives—or more extraordinary than the lives that we live. You know, I hope for, a happy life and a peaceful death. But you know, in movies. No! You want to see people confronting great tragedies and difficulties, and dying in extraordinarily Baroque ways, you know, because it's more entertaining in a movie, or in a stage play, or in a book. You know? I mean, I am! I'm totally—I'm a happy person. And yet, but that's the thing as well, and that’s the thing about the characters in the movie. I am simultaneously very happy and filled with dread, you know?

[LAUGHTER]

'Cause, just look at what's going on. Look at all the stuff that's happening. Look at the species extinction, the rate of species extinction, you know. And once those species are gone, they're not going to come back for millions and millions of years. If at all. And we're just cavalier, in the way we treat our environment, and the way we treat the world we live in. But it doesn't do to be miserable all the time, either. What good would that do?

Audience 1:00:45

[INAUDIBLE]

Alex Cox 1:00:47

Yeah, thank you! Well, thank you to you! You are too, I bet! You're the same way.

David Pendleton 1:00:51

And thank you for bringing us these wonderful films from the margin, and for being here.

Alex Cox 1:00:54

Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

©Harvard Film Archive