Reel lives

And isn't that a key part of the director's role, to draw that out? To recognize it and capitalize on it or teach somebody how to do it if possible?

A big part of it. It's seeing. You can't make a film with someone unless you've looked at them in a way that's intense and maybe embarrassing. That's one of the reasons why people making films so often fall in love, because the look that's required is so like the look of developing affection and seduction. For instance, Garbo was fantastic in close-ups. Not so good in full-figure shots. She was a little lumpy; she didn't have the greatest body. You've got to learn that, you've got to see what people can do. Obviously, some actors can do it all, but not all of them.

It's very interesting when you trace careers to see when the awareness of that inner personality comes into being. Bogart, for instance, began his career as a villain. And he was really a very routine villain. He could do it, but no better than 10 other people at Warner Bros. at that time. And then gradually in the '40s someone got the idea that if you took Bogart's toughness and nastiness and you made a new kind of hero -- a loner, cynical guy that you're not going to win over easily, the sort of character in "Casablanca" -- he suddenly looked magical. That's when Bogart's stardom begins, after a full decade of supporting parts.

This is reminding me of conversations that I've had recently about classic films -- I think I was talking about Hoagy Carmichael, who I was so happy to see getting an entry in this new edition. I said, "He's the piano player in 'To Have and Have Not,'" and I was surprised to learn that so many people hadn't seen that movie. You can't really get through an American high school -- or certainly college -- without reading "The Great Gatsby," but you can easily do it without ever seeing a Howard Hawks movie, when he could easily be called the Fitzgerald of American movies.

This is true now. It wasn't true in the '60s and '70s. There was a tremendous burst of film activity then in higher education in America. That's when most of the film programs and departments started. People rushed into those classes and loved to look at the old movies and they became film buffs. I think the term "film buffs" comes from that era. It's changed again. You're quite right. Students today have suddenly gone back to zero and they've seen nothing. Which is sad in a way, and makes us all less film-literate, but from my point of view, it means that the book has a greater value! But you're quite right, the classics of American film are, I fear, fading away.

Not to mention classic foreign films.

I was at a so-called sophisticated dinner party last night and we went around the table and only one person in a group of eight, apart from me, had seen a Jean Renoir film. Now, 20 years ago, that wouldn't have been the case. He was well-known. And I don't know that it can ever be properly regained.

On the upside, are you pleased with the emergence of the DVD? I've found that I've learned so much about filmmaking from them through watching the extras and listening to the audio commentary, especially when it's done by someone other than the director -- from photographers and editors, for example. DVDs have hugely increased my appreciation of all the different kinds of people who work on films and what they do.

I think the DVD is amazing. What a godsend to film education and appreciation. It teaches you so much about how things are done, and that helps you enjoy it more. The only thing is that I remember an age when going to the movies meant going into a great palace, overly decorated often, sitting with a mob of strangers, feeling you were trapped in there, in the dark, watching an image as big as a house. Sometimes a face was a big as a house, and it needed to be because it was that emotional. That's a harder experience to regain. The screen has become smaller. It's become much more useful, much more manageable, but there is a risk of the emotional charge being reduced.

I think if you're teaching a class in film, you've got to use DVD. It's so classroom friendly. If the kids want to go away and do analysis of films, DVD is made for that. You can stop and start it. It's perfect. But at some point, and I think early, those kids should see that film under the ideal form, because visually it's different. Space means something else when it's as extensive as it is in a theater. The light is different when projected than when bouncing back to you from the cathode tube. The DVD has changed the life of every film buff, but I hope that the big image will never be lost.

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