Audio transcription

For more interviews and talks, visit the Harvard Film Archive Visiting Artists Collection page.

Straight to Hell Returns introduction and post-screening discussion with David Pendleton and Alex Cox. Friday June 8, 2012.

David Pendleton  0:00

[INAUDIBLE] …musicians. Everyone from Joe Strummer of the then recently disbanded Clash, to the entire Pogues, to Elvis Costello, to the then-unknown Courtney Love, and even a cameo by Grace Jones. The producers seemed to think that they were going to get a musician comedy. Think sort of Richard Lester does a Spaghetti Western. And in sense, the film is very much an homage to the Italian Western, or perhaps a parody of a pastiche. It's a very postmodern film in some ways, in that regard. And so what you have is this sort of mixture of these two different impulses. And it's a measure of the film's perversity, I think, that there's a number of musical numbers in the film for which the famous musicians have almost nothing to do. It's mostly the non-musicians in the cast that perform most of the music. And I think that it's that kind of perversity that's a sign of the film's youthfulness, of its ambition and its audacity of its punkness, in other words. After the success of Repo Man and Sid and Nancy, this was widely seen as a misstep. Although the film went on to have its own cult audience, largely as a part, as a result, I think, of the beautiful cinematography, the charisma of Joe Strummer, and again, the film’s willingness to thumb its nose at all the rules of proper filmmaking. In any case, Cox returned to the film nearly 25 years after he made it, just a couple of years ago, to re-edit it, putting back in sequences that were cut for the original release and tweaking some of the effects. And so one of the things that we'll talk about, maybe he'll tell us a little bit now or we can talk about it after the film, is why he returned to this film, how it's different from the original version. But in the meantime, here to introduce Straight to Hell Returns from 1987 and 2010, please welcome Mr. Alex Cox.

[APPLAUSE]

Alex Cox  2:04

What can I say after that? I mean, he said it all. I mean, that's all you need to know, to watch this film. But I suppose I should say why the film happened and why there are so many musicians in the film. Because in 1986 or thereabouts I was preparing to go—'85 or ‘86—to Nicaragua and make a film called Walker. But I was also trying to do a sort of rock and roll tour of Nicaragua with various musicians, which would be funded by a video cassette sale. And, you know, quite confident that this was going to be possible given the caliber of the groups involved, given that we had like Elvis Costello and The Pogues, and probably it would have turned out to be a Clash reunion, because probably it wouldn't just have been Strummer, it would have been Jones as well. And we all would have gone to Nicaragua and done this tour in support of the Nicaraguan people in a very difficult time. So all of these musicians gave us the month of August of that year, and they said that we won't go touring, we won't be in the studio, we will be available for our rock and roll solidarity tour in Nicaragua, with the Sandinistas. And as the month of August approached, we realized that, despite this amazing lineup of musicians, we hadn't been able to raise any money. There was no big media corporation that would sponsor a rock and roll tour of a socialist country, then as now, and so we found ourselves in a very difficult position because all these musicians had agreed to make themselves available during that month. And the producer of what became Straight to Hell, Eric Fellner, said, “I think that if you could come up with a film script really quickly, then we could do a movie instead of the rock and roll tour”. And so in two or three days, one of the actors and I, Dick Rude, wrote this screenplay based on a number of Italian Westerns, which we had seen. Strummer was very keen that it'd be an Italian Western. He was a big fan of the form. And he used to go to Almería and take his holidays there and visit the Western sets and go to the beach and all that with his family. And so we all love Westerns. So we wrote this Western script. Based on more or less—has anybody here seen a film by Giulio Questi called Django Kill... Se sei vivo spara? Yeah! Yeah! You all should see this film, it’s a pretty interesting film. The most Buñuelian of all Italian Westerns. Extraordinary film. And so Dick and I wrote this script kind of as an homage to Questi's film. And we went and shot it. Of all the films I've done, it had the best distribution imaginable. I mean, we had Island Records behind the film. It opened in multiple cities. There must have been 20 or 30 prints! Imagine, you know! But the film was not loved by the critics or by the audience of the time. But I liked it. And a few years ago, I saw Apocalypse Now Redux. Who's seen Apocalypse Now Redux? And what about that scene, where Marlon Brando puts Martin Sheen in a shipping container? And reads to him from the pages of Time Magazine. I think that’s the best scene in the film. I mean, it's an extraordinary scene. Nevermind the stuff about the French plantation or about the Playboy Bunnies and stuff. The scene with Sheen in the shipping container is extraordinary. And I just thought, “wow, well, you know, if Francis Coppola can revisit this extraordinary work, can’t I go back and fix the mistakes in Straight to Hell?” You know? And I was very fortunate because I was working with a number of special effects guys from the Phil Tippett company in Berkeley, in California. I had a very good relationship with a sound designer, Richard Beggs. With one of the original composers of the film, Dan Wool. And so we all got together with the cinematographer, Tom Richmond. Tom created a new color scheme for the film. So you'll see the film kind of looks like a Halloween pumpkin. You know, it's all yellow and orange and black, you know. And we kind of made the film we'd always wanted to make, but which the technology of 25 years ago didn't permit us to make. And the result is this thing that you're about to see, Straight to Hell Returns, which has more of everything. It has more Courtney, it has more Joe, it has more violence, it has more bloodshed, it has more skeletons. It has more music. It has additional songs written by The Pogues and by Strummer, but which we couldn't fit into the original film because it wasn't long enough. I hope it's not too long. It's only about seven minutes longer. But in any case, this is Straight to Hell Returns. This is the film that we would have made in 1986, if we could’ve and I'd be very happy to discuss it with you and to answer any questions that you may have after the screening. So thank you very much for coming, and thank you very much for having me.

[APPLAUSE]

 

Alex Cox  8:14 

I am at your disposal, if you have any questions.

David Pendleton  8:18

Maybe I'll start with just one or two questions, and then we'll just prime the pump as it were, then we'll open it up to the audience.

Alex Cox  8:25

Because they’re in awe, they can't think of a question. So you have to do it.

David Pendleton 8:27

Well sometimes... you're in New England, sometimes people are a little shy to be the first to speak up. So I understand. I actually wanted to ask you a little bit—I'm very curious about the digital enhancements that you did. I know that you added in sequences that were cut out of the original release, but then you also changed some of what you shot. Including, as I understand, to make it gorier. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about your decision to go back. You mentioned in the introduction that there were things that you wanted to do that you couldn't do, and so I'm curious to know what it is about the gore that you wanted gorier?

Alex Cox  9:08

Well, I think in a way, I mean, it's a bit obscure and a bit strange, but I think the thing about the Italian Westerns was that they were quite violent without being very bloody. Because a lot of that kind of bloodiness, which existed in films in the 60s and the 70s, was technology-based, you know—or the ‘80s, you know. And it involved putting these packs on people, where you would have a little explosive thing. And then you would push a button and blech! All this blood would come out of them and stuff. And the Italians didn't have access to that stuff. That really only began in the American cinema, as we were talking about over dinner, with Bonnie and Clyde. We had a very interesting conversation, Bonnie and Clyde. Who's seen Bonnie and Clyde? Yes. That's a pretty impressive film, not just because of the bloodthirstiness, but because of the narrative, and the story, and the direction, and the acting, and the art department, the music. It’s an extraordinary film. But it was at its time, it was like a very important film, partially because of the way it showed violence and shooting guns and the impact of guns on people in a way that films had never done before. And then came Sam Peckinpah and then came The Wild Bunch. And then it became a kind of a generic thing. But it was never a generic thing for the Italian cinema because it had to do with technology. And it had to do with special effects techniques and stuff, which they literally didn't have access to and couldn't afford. So they were creating an atmosphere of violence, which lacked that technical enhancement. And so the first version of Straight to Hell remains true to that world. The second version of Straight to Hell exists as if we'd had access to all that Arthur Penn and Peckinpah technology. What I find interesting now in terms of—not that I  like to draw on film violence anymore. I mean, that’s a young man's thing, you know. But I do notice now that the effects of violence and the results of things like that tend to be minimized in film, I think, because we're trying to train a generation of people who maybe will be more accepting of violence. And I think what was going on in the 60s and 70s, where they were kind of more freaked out because of the Vietnam War and because of what was going on in the media on a daily basis. So in a way I've taken this global, your question was a very specific one about that, about the approach to it - but I also think it had to do to a certain extent with the Vietnam War, with the proximity of violence. And what we're doing - what's happening now is that we're being protected from those images, because we're in such an imperial kind of rampage, you know, that we can't address the results of it anymore, you know. Not that this is in any way a film of great importance in that context. Anyway.

David Pendleton  12:25 

No. You went exactly in the direction that I was hoping you would go, because it seems like there's often a kind of ambivalence in your films towards violence, which I find that in a lot of particular sort of post-Hollywood filmmakers who work in genre who were fascinated by lots of killing and explosions, but at the same time want to have this sort of critique of violence going on. And so I'm wondering, when you amp up the gore, like then, what happens to that to the critique?

Alex Cox  12:56 

I went out for a beer before we got together this evening. You have a very famous beer bar in town. And some people say it's the best brew pub in America. So I went out there and I got totally soaked in the rain, but I went and had a beer out there. But on the big screen TV is playing one of the Aliens films. I don't know which one it was. I guess it was number three or something. But I mean, it's just like, absurdly gross and violent and things like, you know, monster bugs bursting out of people and everything based on skeletons and skulls, as if we're afraid of skulls and afraid of death. As if we're in a war against death! As if it wasn't a part of our life! And so, it was extraordinary to view this entertainment horror show, created not by Ridley Scott, or by the second one, but the third one, [UNKNOWN] or whoever did the third one of those things. And I was thinking like, “boy, we are in a debased pit of violence, which makes this look like children's entertainment”. You know? And also I really worry about the hostility towards death, because as you get into a certain point in your life, you realize, people start to die and we have to accept death as part of life and so we shouldn't have such a horror of death perhaps, as some of these films imply.

David Pendleton  14:25

Well that ties it to–

[LAUGHTER]

Alex Cox  14:27

What am I talking about? Why am I saying this stuff? We’re supposed to be talking about Straight to Hell!

David Pendleton  14:30 

Because this is Harvard University, that's why. I mean, it seems like it ties into your interest in you know, like, Jacobean drama and that sort of thing, too. I mean, that there is this ambivalence towards violence and death and bloodshed. But we can talk about more fun stuff if you want. We could–

Alex Cox  14:47 

No, no, no, no! We should talk about anything at all. No, no, no! Because I’m certainly absolutely happy to talk about anything at all.

David Pendleton  14:53 

I mean, I'm sure that people want to hear what it was like working with all of those people in one place, at one time. And maybe one way to approach that is to think about– This is something you do a lot, where you mix lots of different kinds of actors in your films. There's professional actors, non-professional actors, actors from different parts of the world, people who are mostly musicians as opposed to actors, etc, etc. And I'm wondering, how did you direct this sort of motley crew? And did you have to work differently with someone like Shane MacGowan, who maybe hadn't had a lot of acting experience? Versus Sy Richardson, for instance?

Alex Cox  15:32 

Yeah, no, I actually think that's a good question because I felt that in terms of my career as a director, this is where I became a director. Because previously I had written screenplays and stuff. But I've been in a very privileged position because we'd had—boy, with Repo Man, we had six weeks to shoot the film. With Sid and Nancy, we had like—I can't remember how many weeks it was—but it was like nine or eleven, or something like that. It was a long time to shoot that film. And then with Straight to Hell, suddenly we’re locked back into like a month long shoot, with a very big cast. And a cast that were kind of unruly, you know, because a lot of them weren't actors, they weren't experienced actors. Or they were actors, but they were on vacation, or they thought they were on vacation. And so I think this is the film where I became a director, because I really did have to wrangle them, you know, and figure out a way to negotiate my way through the film with all these different people. Some of whom were very experienced actors, and some of whom weren't. But somehow figure out a way of making a film where they would come across, okay, where nobody would seem like really bad, you know. Where everybody would come across as their character. And so, in a way, I think this is really my birth as a filmmaker. I was a film director. Whereas Repo Man, Sid and Nancy—although, you know, they have tremendous acting in them and wonderful technical credits, but my work on those films wasn't as hard as it was on this film or as on Walker. And so for me, in my trajectory as a filmmaker, this was like a great experience. Absolutely fantastic experience. And fun, too. It wasn't like it was a burden. It was a tremendously fun and happy experience. But it also was a lot of work. But good work. And I enjoyed it very much. And that's why I defend it, and that's why I did it again, and that's why I'm here tonight, because I really do love the film and I'm here to support it.

[LAUGHTER]

David Pendleton  17:42 

How much acting experience had Courtney Love had, for instance, when she made this film? Because this is something that we were talking about earlier. This is something that you've done throughout your career, is end up casting these people, either in their very first roles or very early in their career. Like Emilio Estevez, and Chloe Webb, and Gary Oldman, etc. And I'm wondering, how do you recognize who would be an interesting person on screen, and how do you work with those people when they're absolute beginners? And was Courtney Love one of those people?

Alex Cox  18:14 

Yeah, I guess that’s right, because the thing is, we were all beginning, because we were all beginners, we were all starting out, you know. I mean, I was a director. I directed some plays, but I’d only directed two films or three films. I wasn't very experienced. I was more used to working with beginning actors than very experienced actors. And so, I naturally ended up gravitating towards people, perhaps like Gary Oldman, or like Chloe Webb, or like Emilio Esevez, who hadn't had that much experience in features. Or maybe they'd done theater, maybe they'd done television, maybe they’d done some other stuff, but they hadn’t done this kind of project before. And then trying to balance that with people like David Hayman and Harry Dean Stanton, who were very experienced actors... because I was obviously a great consumer of films and a great lover of films and stuff. Repo Man is the first film where Harry Dean Stanton got a lead credit. The only other film where he ever got a lead credit was Paris, Texas. And then he went right back to being a supporting actor. Walker is the first film that Ed Harris got the lead role in. Sid and Nancy is the first film that Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb got a lead role in. So I think, in a sense, it was that we were all at the beginning of our careers. And so we would all kind of have the same worldview or the same idea of what we were doing. But it had to be balanced with people like Harry Dean. Or later, it had to be balanced by people like Derek Jacobi and Diana Quick, because you want to have a mixture. Or at least from my point of view, you wanted to kind of balance the principiantes with the very experienced, and with great actors, who have so much authority and so much experience of filmmaking. So it's like that, isn't it? It's like mixing the two.

David Pendleton  20:30 

Is there a question in the audience? Anybody brave enough to ask the first question? We've got a couple questions up here, and then we'll go in the back. Oh and then back there, too. Let's start with this gentleman here in the glasses. Raise your hand again. We've got a mic coming to you. If you could speak into the mic, so we can all hear your question.

Audience  20:44

Okay. My question is, how closely does the final film mirror your original script, your and Dick’s original script? And how difficult was it to get the musicians to adhere to that script? And a second question I have is, when you created the characters, did you have specific musicians in mind to play these characters? Or did you just create the characters and then figure out who can play these characters?

Alex Cox  21:18

So going in, let me go backwards and reverse. All the parts were written for the actors. So everybody that's in the film, like when we wrote Sims, that was for Joe Strummer. We wrote Norwood, that was for Sy Richardson. When we wrote Shane McGowan's character that was for him. Spider Stacy's character, that was for him. The butler, that was for Elvis Costello. Courtney’s character was for her. So every character was written for the actor. And I think even in a way, if you don't get the actor, it's a good idea as a screenwriter. If you have somebody in mind, it helps you. If you think, “oh, I would love to have Jack Palance play the lead in this movie”, it doesn't matter if he's dead, write it anyway for Jack Palance. Because you've got such an idea in your head for who the character should be that it'll help you in your writing. Now ask me again, the earlier question.

Audience  22:22

Concerning the script, does the film mirror your original script?

Alex Cox   22:28

Actually, I think the film does mirror the original script pretty well. I mean, I think that in a way the redux version mirrors it more closely. Because in my fantasies and in my sleep, and in my dreams, that is the film that I would like to have made, even if I didn't know it yet. But that was the film I wanted to make. So yeah, definitely.

David Pendleton  22:52  

Can I ask us a quick question? What about this decision then, to have for instance—what's the actor's name who sings, who does the Tom Jones impersonation?

Alex Cox  21:01

Fox Harris?

David Pendleton 21:02

Right. And again, it's sort of perverse. You have all these musicians and there's no big Pogues musical number, for instance. Or an Elvis Costello musical number, etc. I'm assuming that was a fairly conscious choice that you made early on, out of perversity? Or were there practical considerations involved?

Alex Cox  23:20  

Fox Harris is one of the best actors I have ever met. And he's in Repo Man. He plays the mad scientist, the neutron bomb inventor in Repo Man. He plays the guy at the front desk in the Chelsea Hotel in Sid and Nancy. He has a small part in Walker. Then sadly, he died. But I always thought, like, “Fox Harris is the best actor that I know”. So I was always thinking, like, “find a role for Fox. What is Fox going to play in this film?” The interesting thing about this movie is that Fox, although he was a superb actor, was tone deaf. Whatever it is musicians do about—carry a beat or whatever it is musicians do—Fox couldn't do it. And so we had this tremendous situation where The Pogues and Elvis Costello and Joe Strummer are all constantly trying to train Fox to sing that song. And it was for them, it was a nightmarish situation, because as musicians, they wanted him to do it correctly. They wanted him to hit the notes correctly and to stay on the beat and all that stuff, and he couldn't do it.

David Pendleton  24:39 

And meanwhile, Elvis Costello has to be accompanying him.

Alex Cox  24:42 

And Elvis Costello is playing the guitar next to him throughout the thing and trying to kind of like speed up and slow down as Fox kind of goes in one direction and goes in another. But boy, it's worth it, you know. Or it was worth it for me because I just thought he was one of the most tremendous actors I'd ever seen. And also interestingly, when we did Repo Man, Harry Dean Stanton wanted to play two parts in the film. He wanted to play the repo man, but he also wanted to play the mad scientist. And he did a little audition for me, where he played the mad scientist with an English accent. I said, “wow, you did a really good job there”. I said, “actually, you know, I should cast you in a double role, but the problem is I've already cast Fox Harris in that role”. And Harry said—and Harry is a famously combative and difficult guy to work with—but Harry said, “Oh, Fox? Oh, well, he's the only other person that could play that role.” And, so the thing was, Fox was very well known within the acting community in Los Angeles, had been a tremendous actor, even though he never really had a big movie career. He's in a movie that Neil Young directed. Anybody seen that movie?

David Pendleton  26:09

Human Highway?

Alex Cox  26:10

Human Highway. Fox is in Human Highway as well. He has quite a big part in that. He was loved by The Actors Studio, he was loved by the acting community in LA, but for some reason—maybe because he was he was quite crazy, and you had to really sit down with him and work with him and encourage him. But he was a lovely man, and it was always worth it.

David Pendleton  26:37

Right. There's a question over here, and then we'll go back there. And then back to you over there.

Audience  26:43 

Yeah, I just wondered if the people who made No Country for Old Men have seen your film? And whether you've seen that film. And whether you think it's in the same bag, as it were. Not music and not comedy, but a lot of …?

Alex Cox  27:08 

I suspect that the guys who made No Country for Old Men and the guys who made Pulp Fiction saw this film. Yeah, I suspect that!

[LAUGHTER]

But, you know, we all see the films that have gone before us. I mean, this film is terribly influenced by films that passed before it, you know. I couldn't have made any of the films that I've made if I hadn't seen many, many great films by the film directors. And so I think in that way, we're all part of an ongoing process. We're all part of a process. My films are influenced by so many other filmmakers, and I certainly hope that Straight to Hell, Repo Man, and Walker, and Highway Patrolman, and my other films, I hope that they influence other filmmakers and lead them on. And that we can keep building on what we've done. But that we build in a personal way, that we build on it in a way that has meaning for us rather than just a kind of commercial kind of rip-off thing. Because that's the difference isn't it? If it means something to you personally, then it's different from if you're just doing it for some naive, commercial purpose.

David Pendleton  28:32

Yeah, in the back there. And then over to you on the side and then back.

Audience  28:36 

Thank you. I've got two questions. The first is: I'm just kind of curious. Dennis Hopper and Grace Jones have very short, sort of, cameo roles, and I'm just curious, what kind of a negotiation, or whatever you might want to call it, did you have with them, in terms of what they would be willing to do and how much they would be willing to contribute to the film? And the second one is: the guy—I think he just got the Palme d'Or at Cannes—who made Funny Games. I don't know if you've ever seen Funny Games? Okay, then scratch that question.

[LAUGHTER]

Alex Cox  29:21

That might have been the good question, though. What was the first question? I was thinking about Funny Games!

David Pendleton  29:31

Grace Jones.

Alex Cox 29:32

I’ll have to make something up. Oh, Dennis and Grace! Yeah! Dennis Hopper. I don't know. It’s naive, isn’t it? I mean, talking about naiveté, you know. Yo soy naif. Because I was such a fan of Dennis. And I wanted Dennis to play the repo man in Repo Man. But we couldn't make a deal because his agent wanted slightly more money than we had. And so instead the role went to Harry Dean Stanton, who was tremendous in the film. But I really wanted to work with Dennis still. And I offered Dennis a role in Sid and Nancy, and he couldn't do that for some reason. And then I said, “Well, I'm gonna do the film Straight to Hell. And the thing is, the pay is only $100 a day. So, you know, we'll pay your ticket to Spain, but essentially you only get $100.” But the thing was, because we'd kind of like, played this little dance, you know, and also, because I think Dennis was going through this transition. He was giving up drinking, he was giving up drugs and stuff. And so he wanted to kind of get in as many films as possible. And so he said, “Okay, I'll go to Spain, and I'll do a day's work.”  And so he flew to Spain. He played this part. Anybody know a filmmaker called Mary Lambert? She made a film called Siesta. Right?

David Pendleton 30:57

Right, right, right, right. With Madonna and Gabriel Byrne. Or was it Ellen Barkin and Gabriel Byrne?

Alex Cox  31:02 

Yes. And Jodie Foster and Grace Jones? No? They had all just finished the production of Siesta in the north of Spain. And Grace was still in Spain. And so the producer of the film, Eric Fellner said, “Can't we kinda invite Grace down for a day to do a cameo with Dennis Hopper?” And of course, a very attractive idea, right? So yeah, so she came down, and we were just lucky, because she was still in Spain, and we brought her down, we put her in a hotel, she did the roll. Then we had this amazing day's worth of cameos from Grace Jones and Dennis Hopper. And I swear that although there were only like eight or seven actors scheduled for that day's shooting, the entire cast of the film showed up on that day. Because everybody wanted to see Dennis Hopper and Grace Jones. And everybody just stood there, kind of staring as they did their acting. And obviously, although Grace is a tremendous personality, and a wonderful person, and a fantastic musician, the only person who has refused to do a duet with Lady Gaga is Grace Jones.

[LAUGHTER]

But they were tremendously easy to work with and very nice people. And they came and they went, and it was done. But, boy, I was so happy about that.

David Pendleton  32:41 

Well, but that cameo turns out– They turned out to be important characters in a way, right? The film was full of sort of shaggy dog-like Macguffins, and shaggy dogs, but it seems like at the end, they bought up the town.

Alex Cox  32:52 

Yeah, because Dennis and his clan are the principal bad guys in the background. And so whenever you see like a petrol station and you see on the thing it says Farben gas olió, and then you see it at the end of the film, that the whole town has been taken over by the oil company, and they're building the oil wells in the town and all that stuff. So, yeah, yeah. So it has something to do with the tradition of the Italian Westerns, like Damiano Damiani, A Bullet for the General and the Corbucci films, which have a certain —or Tepepa, that great one—so there are certain... something going on with Spaghetti Westerns as well, with the political nature of Spaghetti Westerns. Although I don't think that Dennis and Grace necessarily knew getting dragged into it–

David Pendleton  33:40

Right. Right.

Alex Cox  33:41 

–what was up. But you're right.

David Pendleton  33:43

I think it retrospectively makes the town come to seem like this oasis of outsiders, that now is going to be completely corporatized, if I'm reading the end of the film correctly.

Alex Cox  33:53 

And that's also a classic Western thing, because the whole Western thing is– There’s a great book, Gunfighter Nation by Richard Slotkin, that talks about Westerns. And he says that Westerns are divided into these two things. There's the kind of populist Western, and there's the progressive Western. And the progressive Western is the canon, the momentum of William Walker, the imperialist momentum. And the populace Western is like, Jesse James, or Bonnie and Clyde. I hope in a certain sense, we fall into the diminishing category of the populist Western film.

David Pendleton  34:35

There was a gentleman at the very beginning, that his hand... back, way on the aisle there.

Audience  34:42 

How are you doing? That was terrific. Thanks so much. The question I had was, this whole episode started with the opportunity to put together that concert tour in Nicaragua. I see an incredible similarity between that and Dylan and Jeff Bridges in Masked and Anonymous. Did you get some credit for that?

Alex Cox  35:01 

No, I know nothing about it. I can't claim any credit at all.

David Pendleton  35:10 

Yes, we're going to this woman over here, and then to you over there, and then to you over there.

Audience  35:18 

Hi. First, I want to compliment you for the bookending of the two scenes with the cars. The matching scenes where the car stops and the person says, “What's wrong with this car?” and then it stops, and then it goes up, and stops again. It was exactly the same, but different people but, going through the same kind of scene.

Alex Cox  35:40 

Well it's like Dylan. It’s like he said it. Dylan, “everything is broken.”

Audience  35:43 

Right. My question is, you've talked a lot about a film's place in history, or in the continuation of film. So when you first made this one, you seem to be clear about where that one is and how it affected people. This one, where does it go? Does it go back and join the first one? And it's an elaboration of it? Or especially coming now in your career, where does it fit? Does it have a new place in history? Or? Certainly in your history it does. But where do you want people to see the film itself?

Alex Cox  36:24 

I guess I don't know really, because it's too hard for me to answer that question. You'd have to ask Francis as well. Where does Apocalypse Now and Apocalypse Now Redux fit in his trajectory? His much greater and more significant trajectory. I don't know. This is the one of which I am the most proud, because we put more work into it. Everybody that was involved in it, that was at least alive, got back involved and put more work into it. So I think of the two Straight to Hell’s, this is the better one. But that's only my opinion. And there might be people who saw the original one who thought it was just fine. It's the same film, but better. In the same way as Apocalypse Now is, and the redux. They’re kind of the same film. But the redux has that great film with the shipping container.

David Pendleton  37:25

Thank you. Yes, this gentleman here in the middle, and then you over there, and then you over there. Just grab the mic, please.

Audience 37:35

Hi. Yeah, you had described this as, I guess a minor populist Western. And on that note, I was curious about, I guess the ambivalence that the program director had mentioned in your movies, in general. Like, to take Repo Man, which is maybe like the ultimate punk rock movie. And there's so much great music in there, but the movie begins with the main character sort of turning his back to the punk rock movement. And maybe that can be seen as a revolutionary movement. However, the characters in that, and in this and and say, Sid and Nancy, are all maybe clowns or buffoons, or kind of juvenile and silly. So I don't know if you wanted to comment on that at all.

Alex Cox  38:32 

Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the thing is, to talk about something is not necessarily to glorify it, or to say that the protagonists are excellent people. To talk about something is to talk about it, or to depict it. And so, in Repo Man, the character that Emilio Estevez plays—it's so easy for him to go from being a punk rocker with the Suicidal Tendencies T-shirt and all of that stuff, to being an enforcer for General Motors Acceptance Corporation. All he has to do is take out the earring, because the haircut’s the same, you know? And so that's the point of Repo Man, is to say how little difference there is, unless there is an authentic something in the heart that drives us. How easy it is to switch from being a radical to being a reactionary. How easy it is to switch from one side of the table to the other side of the political table. Or the moral, or the aesthetic, whatever it might be. That's the point of Repo Man, is how all this stuff is just... unless you have it in your heart, It's all just show, and it's bogus. That's why there's that scene in Repo Man with The Circle Jerks in there playing the lounge band, you know. And again, he says “I can't believe I used to love these guys.” But he's one of those guys.

Audience 40:03 

Yeah, but also to that point, in most of your movies, everybody also seems to be only out for themselves and I can't think of any characters that really have that element in their heart, that you're speaking of.

Alex Cox  40:21 

Are we not all out for ourselves? Are we not all out for ourselves? I mean, how could it be otherwise? How could we not—as animals—not be looking out for ourselves, because we're not looking out for ourselves? Who is gonna look out for us? We're just animals, you know, like little dogs. Like a lost dog in the alley trying to eat the trash. You know, it'd be great if someone would adopt us. It would be great if you all went down to the pound tomorrow and adopted those dogs. But some of those dogs aren't gonna get adopted, man. And they're gonna have to look out for themselves. And that, in a sense, that's our life, right? How could it be otherwise?

[LAUGHTER]

Audience 41:00

[INAUDIBLE]

Alex Cox  41:17 

Oh, because we seek it! We seek it! We seek to do better than we are. We seek to move beyond our mere enfeebled status as individuals. We seek to move to a place—or I would like to. And that I think is the thing about films, how great films are. Because when we make a film, we cease to just be an individual. That's why we all, as film lovers, and as filmmakers, we kind of buy into the auteurist theory, of the one person who does the great work. But really a film is a combination of the work of many people. You think about Citizen Kane. It's not just about Orson Welles, genius that he was. It's about Mankiewicz, and it's about the cinematographer, and it's about the art department. And it's about the editor, because Welles didn't like to stay in the editing room. He left that work to somebody else. That's the most beautiful thing about film, or about the theater, or about music, is how it's a collaborative enterprise. So I was speaking as an individual in the answer to that question, but my goal is always to be part of a collaborative enterprise, in which we all work together to create a really great—a really, really great piece of work. That's the goal.

David Pendleton  42:51 

There was... you had your hand... Oh that’s right, I'm sorry. Yes. Go ahead.

Audience  42:55 

You sort of answered my question, which was, the theme of the Spaghetti Westerns, was that one man's principle is another man's opportunity. And I wanted to get your notion of how you dealt with that theme in this movie. But  you've been answering that question in the last few minutes.

Alex Cox  43:21

That's a great analysis, though. That's a really great analysis of maybe not just Spaghetti Westerns, maybe it even goes broader than that. Yeah, but that's right. Yeah.

Audience  43:32 

And I wanted to just, point– I love what you had on the car, “nothing in life is worth it.” When in Nicaragua, when you– Actually in Guatemala, when you travel, often on the buses it says “Sólo Dios sabe.” "Only God knows whether or not I'm going to survive." So it was like the opposite. The very opposite. But thank you for a wonderful–

Alex Cox  44:03 

But I think that's also the duality of it all. And that's the duality of Buñuel! And not all, maybe not all the great filmmakers, but certainly we don't know what's going on. We don't know what's going to happen next! So on the one hand, it all just seems like we're in this nightmare universe where we're all alone. And yet, at the same time, we're not all alone. We're all part of a group. And so how do you square that circle? How do you square your own sense of isolation, and your own experience of being so isolated and so alone, with the pleasure of being with so many other people and the joy of working in a group. And that's the mystery of it all, because we're only human. We’re only human animals. We haven't got it figured out.

David Pendleton  44:58 

Actually, to put in a plug for tomorrow and Sunday: this question of being alone versus being part of a group is like a central preoccupation in Searchers 2.0, I think. And also in Three Businessmen, where it's sort of very—not to give any spoilers away—where it’s very nicely worked out. This sense of are we randomly separated or are we part of a bigger group?

Alex Cox  45:21 

Yeah, because that really is the thing about Searchers, I guess, is that—this film that I made—not just Searchers, but Three Businessmen as well. These guys who feel so isolated, and yet by the end of the picture they’ve achieved friendship, which is really worth something.

David Pendleton  45:43 

But I wasn't trying to wrap things up here just yet, because there were still a couple of other people? Okay. Oh, that's right. You and then this gentleman here in the orange T-shirt, and then you back there on the aisle. Oh is that Dan? Okay. Hey, Dan.

Audience  45:55 

Hi. Is this working?

David Pendleton 45:57

Yes.

Audience  45:58

Hello. I tremendously enjoyed this film, as I did Death and the Compass on Monday. And I was wondering... I would like to relate those two films, however strange it might seem, to relate Borges to Westerns. Borges actually loved Western films. He thought it was the modern day epic. Only alive through Western films. So I was wondering, when you read Borges’s short stories, and you chose - you picked “Death and the Compass”, you also read other more epic Western-like stories and had maybe considered doing a Borges Western?

Alex Cox  46:50

The Borges story that I wanted to do was "El Aleph."

Audience  46:55 

Oh, okay. Even not so much Westerns then?

Alex Cox  46:59 

Yeah, but “El Aleph” was the one—for a filmmaker, that's the one you want to make. And it turned out that because of the way that process was going, the BBC and the European film companies which had—or the television companies—were making a Borges project, they'd only licensed a certain number of titles from the Borges estate, from María Kodama. And so I said, “Aleph”. I'll do “The Aleph”. That's the one I want to do.” And they go, “oh no, that's too difficult.” And I go “no, it's not. I'll do it.” And they go “well we don't have the rights.” Okay. So then I said, “well, what have you got the rights to?” And they had the rights to various Borges things, including “El Sur”, “Emma Zunz”. And–

Audience  47:47

But that’s epic. “El Sur” is epic.

Alex Cox  47:50

It's true, but Carlos Saura had already got “El Sur” so I couldn't do it.

Audience  47:55 

So many others. “La Fiesta del Monstruo.” “The Monster's Party.” That's like a Western. That's rowdy.

Alex Cox  48:05 

You're right, but the thing was they only had a certain number of titles.

Audience  48:10

The technicality.

Alex Cox  48:12

Yeah. And so that was it. Because it's about copyright and it's about the ownership of the rights for the film and stuff.

Audience  48:16  

We’ll have to wait until she dies.

Alex Cox  48:18 

Yeah, but I'm still trying to do “The Aleph.” I went to Argentina last year, to the Mar del Plata Film Festival, and I said, “if you guys can - somehow we can work out ‘The Aleph’ I'm still available.” And I've got the script written.

Unknown Speaker  48:31 

We'll see what we can do!

Unknown Speaker  48:33

Yeah, yeah, exactly! Please, go to work!

Audience  48:36

Thank you.

David Pendleton 48:37

Sir, go ahead and raise your hand, so we can get the mic to you.

Audience  48:42 

All right. So this is a question for my friend who couldn't make it, but he introduced me to your work so I owe him that. In Repo Man, all the products, the generic labels, the food, the beer. Was that a commentary or a statement? Or was it just cheaper to do it that way, than to put actual labels on anything.

Alex Cox  49:02 

Oh no. We tried! We tried to get product placement for Repo Man, initially. The beginning. This is back at a time before there was a microbrewing culture in the U.S. That only came up in kinda late 80s, early 90s. So all of these fantastic breweries that you have now, like the Cambridge Brewing Company or something. None of that existed in 1983. There was one beer that was drinkable in the U.S. at that time, and it was Mickey's Big Mouth. I don't care why you say! It's true! Mickey's Big Mouth was the only drinkable beer in 1983. And some people like Rainier Ale, but Rainier Ale was no good. Mickey's Big Mouth was the only drinkable beer. And we tried to get product placement from Mickey's Big Mouth and they turned us down. And so then we just thought, “fine, we're not gonna have anybody product placement in this film.” And I've tried to pursue that model ever since then. So what we did instead was we went to Ralph's supermarket in Los Angeles, because they had come up with this generic branded goods, where they literally sold cans of beer that said “Beer”, and bottles of wine that said “Wine”. They didn't have a thing that said “Food”, but we made those cans up. But, literally, it was a response to our rejection, in the area of product placement, that led us to that generic place. Although, we did have product placement from one company, and that was the Car-Freshner Corporation of America. Because when I was studying for the Repo Man experience, driving around with a repo man in a car, he told me that everybody that gets their car repoed has one of those little Christmas tree things hanging from them. Or in the glove compartment or wherever. And, when he would repo a car, I would drive it back to the repo yard. It was true, every one of those cars. Everybody who has one of those, who has one of those cars: you're a loser! You're a loser!

[LAUGHTER]

Everybody that has one of those things in their car is a loser and you're gonna get your car repoed.

[LAUGHTER]

I know this from personal experience. But what the Car-Freshner Corporation of America did for us, was they gave us a bunch of these things without the smell.

[LAUGHTER]

Right? Because they smell so bad that the actors couldn't stand to be in the cars. So we did have product placement from the Car-Freshner Corporation of America. And also you see what good business they did as a result.

David Pendleton  52:02 

And everyone has them ironically!

Alex Cox  52:04 

And yet, isn't it strange? That ironic product placement, and yet it worked.

David Pendleton  52:13 

Dan has a question on the aisle there, if you want to take him the mic.

Audience  52:21 

Thanks for being here tonight Alex. I was wondering, have you always been such a huge fan of punk rock music and do you have any wild stories with working with The Circle Jerks or any of those crazy hardcore bands from LA?

Alex Cox  52:33 

I have no wild stories at all. I used to go to those shows. I used to go see them, and go completely screwed up and go to see these shows, and go mad. But I'm completely deaf in one ear because I used to stand by the speakers in the Starwood. And so I am totally deaf in this ear, because of so many years of standing by the speakers on the right hand side of the stage, watching The Circle Jerks, and Fear, and Suicidal Tendencies and all this stuff. So, beware of rock and roll.

[LAUGHTER]

David Pendleton  53:05 

Did you follow the punk scene? Because, the late 70s–

Alex Cox  53:08

Yeah, yeah.

David Pendleton 53:10 

Yeah. What, you were studying at Oxford, and then you went to film school in Bristol?

Alex Cox  53:14 

But that was too early, because the punk thing came in ‘76. Right.

David Pendleton  53:18 

Right. And that's the year when you came to Los Angeles?

Alex Cox  53:20 

And I came to Los Angeles in ‘77. So I did see the beginning of the punk scene. Because in England, the punk thing began in London and Bristol in ‘76. And so I remember seeing in 1976, I remember seeing a guy from a band called The Cortinas—a Cortina was like a Ford, a cheap Ford car in England—and I remember seeing one of The Cortinas walking down the street with a leather jacket. On his back was written “1976.” And it was 1976. I just thought, “wow, this is interesting, because this is some kind of commentary on where we're at.” I know it sounds so lame, maybe, but also, it had something to do with what was going on at that time. And where we were at that time. And so that was my beginning, in a very modest way. And then when I came to Los Angeles and the hardcore thing started breaking out two or three years after the English thing. But the hardcore scene in Los Angeles was really the inspiration for Sid and Nancy, because if you see the scenes of the dancing and the mosh pit in Sid and Nancy—none of that happened in England, that was all about the hardcore scene in Los Angeles and Huntington Beach. Nothing to do with New York or England at all. And so in that sense, Sid and Nancy is a complete invention of punk fantasy. Which is why people who are really into the hardcore history of punk have a criticism of it. Rightly so.

Audience  54:53 

But the garbing was real.

Alex Cox  54:55

Oh, yeah.

David Pendleton 54:56 

Now there's a bunch more questions. Let's go to you here, and then you afterwards.

Audience  55:03

[INAUDIBLE]

Alex Cox  55:08 

No, the flies... well, some of the flies are real. And some of the flies are animated. So the one that's crawling on Joe's face while he's dying, that's a real fly. Because what the actors would do is, they would cover themselves in a mixture of water and sugar, so as to attract flies.

David Pendleton  55:31 

Why would they want to attract them? To make it a more dramatic death scene?

Alex Cox  55:35 

Of course! Yeah. I think we actually had a kind of a deal, that they actually got an extra dollar, or something...

[LAUGHTER]

...if they got to fly to land on them.

David Pendleton  55:44 

Or five, if it walks, if it crawls in their nose or flies in their mouth.

Alex Cox  55:48 

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But then also you see the animated flies also appear at the beginning of Revengers Tragedy as well. There’s a big scene aboard a bus, with a whole bunch of flies, and dead bodies and stuff. And they're all digital flies as well.

David Pendleton  56:07 

Hang on, there's a guy in front of you that hasn't quite... yeah, you there.

Audience  56:16

[INAUDIBLE]

Alex Cox  56:21 

Thank you.

Audience  56:22

[INAUDIBLE]

Alex Cox  56:39 

No, Highway Patrolman​ is a pretty big budget film. ​Highway Patrolman​, when it was made was the most expensive Mexican film, up until that point. More expensive films have been made domestically since then. But as a Mexican film, that was ​the most ​expensive Mexican film, up until that point. So that's why we have such a big cast, so many locations, because we've got all of these guys, all these actors like ​Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez​ and ​Pedro Armendáriz​, and a ​tremendous​ cast of Mexican actors. And that was because we had a very decent budget. And the budget was provided, oddly enough by the Japanese. Because at that point, the Japanese economy... the economy wasn't booming, but they were still looking to kind of expand, to put money into other features, and other films, and other projects abroad. What they've done more recently is, because of the economic crisis they've pulled back, and they’re financing solely Japanese films. Which is probably right, from their perspective, having been so bullish in terms of funding international films. Because they funded my films, they funded Jarmusch’s films, they funded Iranian films. The Japanese were like the supporters of independent film internationally for so many years, but we can't expect to rely on JVC forever, even though they were so supportive, and so great. So, ​Highway Patrolman​ was a result of that partnership with a Japanese producer called ​Kuniaki Negishi, ​who was my distributor, who was the executive producer of the film. And he saw the film, not as a Mexican film, but as a samurai film. Because in his mind, he saw the story entirely in that way. As somebody who wants to do good. Somebody who wants to do correctly. Somebody who wants to represent authority, and who finds it all unraveling. I thought that was a great thing. I thought that was a tremendous relationship. I thought the relationship that we had going with the Japanese was so great. It would be great if we could re-establish it. But obviously, they're more focused on domestic production in the current economic climate.

David Pendleton 59:11

And I should point out that we'll be showing ​Highway Patrolman​ again on Monday if you didn't see it.

Alex Cox 59:15

And come and see if you can, because I really do think of the films that I've made, it's the most correctly done. I mean, it's the most proper film that I've done. And it's gonna–

David Pendleton 59:25

It's a beautiful film.

Alex Cox 59:26

It's really worth seeing.

David Pendleton 59:27

Here, and then you in the back and then maybe we'll wrap it up.

Audience 59:31

[INAUDIBLE]

Alex Cox 59:45

Well. What did I learn from repo men and riding around in their cars? I don't know if I learned very much really now, in retrospect.

David Pendleton 59:53

How much of the code that Harry Dean Stanton talks about–

Alex Cox 59:58

And that was gorgeous, because what Harry Dean did was he– Harry Dean pulled all of these little bits of the screenplay together and made them into that repo code, because they were all just isolated lines of dialogue. And the genius of Harry Dean, coming from that background working with Jack Nicholson, working with Monte Hellman, working with all these great directors and great actors. Harry Dean, he wanted autonomy, he wanted to run things, he wanted to be in control and stuff. And so one of the things that he did that was very—even though we ran into fights and stuff—but one of the things that he did that was very, very good was to create that repo code. And so for me, part of that experience was just learning to defer to the actor, which you do have to do as a director. Even though as a director, sometimes you have to kind of impose your will for the good of the film or for the good of the story, but also you do have to respect the actor because, boy if you don't like actors, you probably shouldn't be a film director or stage director, because actors are– They are like gold. Did that answer the question? Okay.

David Pendleton 1:01:15

Yes. And one last question there in the very back. Is that mic working? Okay, just speak loudly.

Audience 1:01:27

Thanks. So the shot where the blood splatters on the lens. Did you do that in just one take? And IG Farben, most people probably know, were the producers of Zyklon B for the extermination camps. And was this just reaching for something just totally ludicrous? Or was there anything else maybe involved in your choice of IG Farben for the oil company?

Alex Cox 1:01:58

Oh, no, we don't do anything for ludicrous purposes. It’s all for a purpose. There's a reason behind it all, even if it doesn't seem like it. But no... first question of blood in the lens. Actually the blood on the lens, the blood did hit the lens in the original version. What we've done in this enhanced version is augmented the amount of blood that hits the lens. But that was always there. If you return to the original 35mm print, it's there also. The IG Farben thing— and this was the thing also, that I think Strummer felt as well—is that the corporations have a free ride, you know? Because somehow they don't have to pay any kind of a price. Even if individuals get punished, corporations like IG Farben, IG Metall, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, BP, they get away with murder every day of the week. And sometimes they get away with genocide. And because we have in our culture, or because the media and the political class have the idea that in some way the corporations are above us, we're never allowed to criticize them, and we're never allowed to have any kind of redress.

I'm gonna end this on a completely political note. Because I gotta say, when people complain about President Obama—if you saw the political debates between Obama and Uncle Fester, right? Whenever it was. Four years ago? Who was that guy? It wasn't Uncle Fester, it was– But you know that guy, right? There was no difference in their political stance whatsoever. They were both going to bail out the banks. And after they bailed out the banks, they were going to go for what they called entitlements. Entitlements is a code word for privatizing social security and giving it to Wall Street. There was no difference between those two political candidates. And certainly in terms of foreign policy and how that has turned out. There's been no difference whatsoever in the foreign policy of Obama or Uncle Fester. And so in that sense, I think, Boy! Man! We've been taken for a ride! And until we can actually say something about that, we can get behind the 99% and not stop following the 1%, we're a bunch of fools! So anyway, that's what I think. Ahr! Thank you so much for coming!

David Pendfleton 1:04:57

And come back tomorrow because–

Alex Cox 1:04:59

And come tomorrow night. Come tomorrow night!

David Pendleton 1:05:01

Searchers 2.0​ is also a great film about the state of the US over the last 10 years. So come back tomorrow. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

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