Girlfriends | Claudia Weill

[UCLA Film Programmer Paul Malcolm] Well it's an honor and pleasure to have you here again. I wasn't going to start at the end of the film but it's such a charming, ambiguous, sort of iconic, with that freeze frame at the end as the husband arrives, uh... it speaks to me about the way the whole film is. This really delicate balance of tone and themes and you almost kind of sum it all up, you know, in that final shot without sort of resolving it, really, the tension. So... beginning at the end where did that, where did that shot come from? Where did that ending come from? [Claudia Weill] Well, it's not the ending that was in the script. [Malcolm] Okay. [Weill] Okay. Uhm... there was a whole scene and it's actually Martin and...and Chris Guest... arrive on his motorcycle and as a scene between the four of them and it was just terrible. [Audience laughs]. [Weill] It was just like an appalling scene and uhm... I really didn't know what to do and I just started looking at all the footage like it was a documentary. [Malcolm] Mm-hmm. [Weill] And... I realized that the...what happened in the beginning was that Anne leaves and she's bereft and now Anne can go back to Martin. She's no longer bereft. She's created a life for herself. [Malcolm] Mm-hmm. [Weill] I tried to...what I tried to do was construct that situation uhm... out of outtakes. Like... we actually were drinking tequila so everybody was pretty "shicker" and it was and I told Fred and the sound person to keep...Fred Murphy, to keep rolling all the time. So all that stuff like, "Uh oh, Martin" it was just like between takes and ad-libbing and everybody kind of fucking around... [Malcom] Right, wow. [Weill] And uhm... I was able to...I didn't have enough of a shot of Susan looking down, so I just froze the frame. [Audience laughs]. [Malcolm] Art emerges from... [Weill] So it was a completely constructed ending. [Malcom] Right. [Weill] But it felt right because it was the book end to what had happened at the beginning. [Malcolm] Well it definitely feels right and it definitely feels very natural. You mentioned, you would...sort of documentary as...sort of thinking about documentary shooting to construct this end but so this film, to a certain extent, began as a documentary or at least the grant funding was for a documentary at the time... [Weill] Right, that's right. [Malcolm] ...and you transition in the middle of that project into your feature fiction debut. How did, what was going on at that time? How did you make that jump? Or why did you make that jump from documentary into fiction? [Weill] I'd made uhm by now I'd made like lots of documentaries and uhm... the last one being the film in China with Shirley MacLaine and this delegation of American women and I was uhm... I had just gotten to the point where I was sick of following people around with my camera waiting for them to say basically what I wanted them to say and then spending months in the editing room manipulating what they had said into what I thought... would work. I mean, I don't mean it quite that cynically but it occurred to me that you could write the script first. [Audience laughs]. Right? [Malcolm] Yes. And so... as opposed to at the end which is what a documentary is, so... I applied. Well... when I applied for this grant the first...from the AFI, I wanted to make a documentary about growing up Jewish in America. Which still interested in me. I mean it's sort of part of this film but uhm... by the time I got the grant, I really was no longer interested in making a documentary. So... with the $10,000 I spent $1,000 of it to hire Vicky, was a girlfriend, to... write this story about what happens between two young women when one gets married. And that was just the first third. It was three short films and the second was based, loosely based on "Bliss" by Katherine Mansfield. Anybody's read it? The young woman, an early marriage and they've given a dinner party and she sees her husband helping this beautiful woman on with their coat and she realizes her husband's having an affair with that woman. And that's the story of Anne's marriage. And then the third short was, Cleo, the woman... who he's having an affair with. So it was sort of Susan and Cleo. It was just this...sort of like three short stories. So with the $10,000 from the AFI or the nine thousand rest we, we filmed the first part which was... goes through the red wall. And, however, there's just seven minutes to the end of the red wall in the film right now. We actually shot like 40 minutes because I didn't understand you didn't need all that exposition. You didn't need to know how they met, how they became friends in college, you know, they're just much more extraneous stuff. Did I lose the track? [Malcolm] Well the transition document...from documentary to fiction... [Weill] Oh, right. [Malcolm] but I wanted to, I mean, that scene where she's painting the red wall... [Weill] Right. [Malcolm]...and we hear the audio from the marriage ceremony... [Weill] Yeah. [Malcolm] I mean, it's such an amazing economy of narrative in that moment. I mean there's a lot of other things to talk about before we drill down into the details... [Weill] You know that's because I didn't have any money. [Malcolm] Sure. [Weill] I couldn't shoot, I couldn't shoot a wedding, right, couldn't afford to shoot a wedding with a lot of people and stuff. So we... took some stills of a real wedding. [Malcolm] But there's also... And then the red wall it just, you know, I was just trying to figure out how to make the... the leaps. [Malcolm] Well the film is full of all of these really amazing little details and, like I said, there's a lot of bigger issues to get into before we burrow in but... we're here so. I love the scene in the cut from them in the bar where there's this sort of declaration of liberation. We don't need anybody to a laundromat... [Weill] Right. [Malcolm] ...where they both have big life news and that the quick cuts of them hugging really sort of masks Susan's response to Anne's news in this really dynamic way. I also think about the sequence of her when Susan's alone in her room and she sort of re-enacting or acting out the fantasy ambitions that she has. She is... you know, talking about shooting for Vogue and then the power goes out. [Weill] Right. [Malcolm] And there's a whole number of little...little moments, little details in that sequence. And then the final one that I thought was really striking to me was the little movements of objects around in the living room or her kitchen that then become the explosion for the march down the long hallway to the desk... [Weill] Right. [Malcolm]...that's gonna change her life. [Weill] Right. [Malcolm] These little details I wonder if those are connected at all to the kind of observational documentary style that you were working at that time? Or how these things came about into the frame? [Weill] Right. That, that's very interesting because I, you know... coming up through documentary and being a camera woman as well, I just... uhm... the kind of way people move away from each other when they may mean to be moving towards each other. Or they say things that are supposedly intimate, you know, that kind of... the way we sort of "physicalize" and the tininess, tiny gestures that give away what we really mean and uhm... there's nothing like there would be doing documentary to kind of really observe people and and understand sort of... be riveted by sort of what's going on underneath the surface. And I would go to movies and feel that I didn't really believe these two people were in this room having this conversation. Or I didn't believe.. I didn't believe the movies often. So I think I was kind of... documentary was kind of my film school and uhm... the film gets a little minimalist that way because it you know, observes tiny gestures but I think that the tiny gestures say a lot. [Malcolm] Wonderfully minimalist. Well speaking about the films you would go see where you didn't believe... [Weill] Yeah. [Malcolm]...what the characters were saying or what they were doing, I wanted to talk maybe...another...going broader was this film a response to what you weren't seeing in films in other ways? The, the, the, the, relationship between two women, a story focused on two women and at the same time where...this film was so sort of like, you know... of its own kind at this, at this point. There were some... obviously other films that were showing in the series being made around the same time but it wasn't necessarily like a movement had been recognized yet, or a "happening" had been recognized, so you were kind of really on your own... making up your own rules... so what were you responding to that you weren't seeing on the big screen but also where were you getting your influences from? Where was your energy coming from to make this happen? [Weill] That's a tough question. Uhm... I don't know. I, you know, I think everybody has the urge to to tell their own story in, in some way. And uhm... it was...the, the film is autobiographical emotionally, not necessarily each incident. You know, not necessarily... each specific character or anything but I think I just... wanted to tell us...I wasn't, you know, I think... I had really had blinders on. It was just... this was a story I wanted to tell. I didn't even know why I wanted to tell it. Uhm... I think I was interested in...there were very few female protagonists at this point in films. And I was very interested in having a protagonist who was not the traditional protagonist. I guess it's, you know, self-defense or something. Uhm... You know... can.. usually it's the pretty girl. It's...like my grandmother, when she saw a cut of the film, she said, "Why did you follow that vulgar girl who speaks with her hands?" [Audience laughs]. You know, "Why didn't you follow the blonde girl?" [Audience laughs]. And uhm... that's why I made the film! [Malcolm] Right. [Weill] You know, I mean it's the, it's the roto lineage (?). You know, it's the sidekick. It's the very funny girl or the kind of exotic, you know, exotic ethnic which in my day meant Jewish... [Audience laughs]. or Mediterranean or it's the one who wants to be an artist who's trying to figure out what her life's about you know. I don't, it was... I don't know. [Malcolm] Well there's a lot of really, I think uhm... on the nose, very complicated relationship dynamics that Susan has with multiple characters throughout the film but obviously her relationship with Susan and Anne is obviously central. One of the things that's so striking about that relationship is the way it's this back and forth between a desire to support each other but also a kind of jealousy or a kind of anxiety that the other person is succeeding before or faster or getting what they want and you really feel this, like, push n' pull between them not only in the time they spend apart from each other but when they're together there's this real... where did...where did that dynamic emerge from? Or what...how do you feel like that is representative in some way,? I'm curious. [Weill] I think...well...the...there's uhm... there's a book by Eleanor Bergstein who wrote the book is called "Advancing Paul Newman." And the last sentence of the first chapter was, "This is the story of two girls each of whom suspected the other of a more passionate connection to life." And...that kind of inspired the film, I think. You know, because I think we project on each other our fantasies or our wishes of what... you know, "Oh, my God. She's been married. She has this wonderful life. This husband who loves her." You know, "Oh my God, she's free," you know, "She can do whatever she wants," you know. It's just... uhm... it's, these are complicated relationships in my experience. And uhm... and yeah, I was interested in exploring that. [Malcolm] So the film, the budget I understand was, like, under $140,000 dollars. I mean, $138,000 total. You've shot it over four years which has got to take a lot of energy to maintain... [Weill] Yeah. [Malcolm]...everybody to maintain the, the, the tone, the tone throughout, to maintain... the, you know, all of the inspiration and energy and then Warner Brothers buys it after it premieres at, you know, at a...did it premiere at Locarno? Premierie... [Weill] First it was uhm... I had finished the film but I didn't have enough money to get a print. [Malcolm] Right. Uhm... or...and I really wanted to blow it up from 16 into 35 because otherwise I was afraid it would never get taken seriously as a film. [Malcolm] Right. [Weill] So I got this invitation from Rotterdam, the Rotterdam Film Festival, which really avant-garde film festival and so I went to Irwin Young who's...was the president of Du Art, a great man, I think he's no longer with us and I said, "Irwin, I have no money but is there any way that you would blow up the film for me and then hopefully I'll be able to sell it and I can pay you back?" and he said, "Sure." He literally did the blow up for free. And so we, I got on the plane as it came out of the lab...I got on the plane for Rotterdam screened it and people in the audience... you have to understand I've been working on this film for four years. It was like an albatross around my neck. I'd gotten an answering machine- one of the first answering machines because I owed so many people so much money. I really couldn't answer the phone anymore and it was just really horrible and... and I go straight off the plane into the screening at Rotterdam. People are laughing and I can't...I don't understand. I figure they don't really understand English or something and then afterwards there's this article where it's "What is a commercial film doing like this at an avant-garde festival." Kind of an outrage review. And uhm... and I get a call from Cannes, from the Cannes Film Festival. [Malcolm] Okay. [Weill] Who then says well, "Please come screen the film for us, you know, we're very interested in including it" and so Cannes accepts it. And uhm... and so then I go back to the States and I realized, "Well now I have to sell it. Or get distribution." And uhm... so I, I came to California- my first trip. I stayed in the hotel that Eli Wallach told me to stay in, the "Alta Caca." [Audeince laughs]. Which is actually the Alta you know, on/off of Sunset? What's it called? I don't know if it still exists. Alta Loma? Alta something? [Malcolm] That was his nickname for the hotel. [Weill] Right. [Audience laughs]. Stay at the "Alta Caca" I said. So...uhm... [Audience laughs]. so I stay there and I'm literally looking up the phone numbers of the studios. I mean, I don't have a lawyer. I don't have an agent. I don't really know anybody out here. This is Warner Brothers, I'm looking it up. MGM, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. That's what it stands for, you know, I'm looking this stuff up and I call and I really don't even know what to ask for, so I said, "Who's in charge" and they say, [Audience laughs]. "Production or Distribution?" "Oh good, Distribution." And I get a, you know, I'll end up speaking with somebody who's in the lower level of Distribution. Then I say, "I have this feature film that I made. It's in 35mm. It just been accepted for the Cannes Film Festival. Here's a review from Rotterdam. [Audience laughs]. And uhm... "Okay, well screen it," you know, and then some underling screens it and then they show it to their boss and they show it to their boss and within a few days the head of the studios calling and the...and it became, like, a bidding war. [Malcolm] Ahh, okay. [Weill] I mean...it's not like, you know, uhm... and that's how I sold the film. [Malcolm] That's great. I mean, were you at all, I mean, obviously you needed to sell the film but were you at all worried about bringing your independent baby into the, you know, or your creation into the... [Weill] God, no. [Malcolm]...studio world? [Weill] No. [Audience laughs]. [Malcolm] Okay. [Weill] No, no. You know, I owed too many people too much money. [Malcolm] Right, right. [Weill] And I'd, you know, I didn't have uhm... we didn't have enough money to hire, I mean, actors even like at a SAG minimum which I think was $500 a week then. So I went to SAG and again you know made, said, "Look, what if we pay you half of SAG minimum and then If I'm able to sell the film, we'll pay double?" You know, twice as much as what they would have earned an...additionally, you know. They said, "Okay, that sounds good." I mean nobody had...there weren't any independent features yet. I think in New York, it was like Cassavetes and he was shooting both places and it was, you know, it was very different. So... uhm... everybody was kind of game and interested. [Malcolm] Right... just to take a chance. [Weill] Yeah. Yeah, [Malcolm] Well the film, as I understand, got great reviews and was a big success when it first came out. Is that, I mean...it got...it played...played well. But I wanted to sort of look at the last I guess the last five years the film has really had a resurgence of... [Weill] Yeah. [Malcolm]... interest- Lena Dunham, Greta Gerwig- a number of this current generation of filmmakers has really started championing the film as an influence on them. Or even people saying, "Wait, the work you're doing... Claudia Weill done it, did in 1978, you should watch this movie." And then making these connections and so the film has been screening around over the last few years... [Weill] It has. Yeah. [Malcolm]...at a number of different places. How does that... felt to you as sort of inspiration to the next generation of filmmakers or maybe skipped a generation of filmmakers working today? [Weill] Feels great. It feels great. I mean I'm always amazed that it's still plays. You know or that it still feels relevant. Or that it doesn't... I don't know. How does it? Maybe...I can't tell anymore, really? [Malcolm] Well I think the film, and then I'll turn it over to the audience, we'll have mics on the aisle so I'll call you and wait for the mic we'll bring it over... but it's, it's a very specific time and place. Obviously in New York, Manhattan. [Weill] Wasn't New York beautiful? [Malcolm] Yeah, it's amazing. [Weill] The streets [Weill] Yeah, I know. [Malcolm] I mean the whole vibe of the way... [Weill] Yeah. [Malcolm]...places and characters interact in the film is a, is a, is a... is an amazing aspect of it but it captures a very specific time and place uhm... in these characters lives but that is a, I think, that's a moment that so many women go through. [Weill] Mm-hmm. [Malcolm] I'm just guessing but, you know, but, I mean... but so that, that moment from... [Weill] I keep going through, I keep going through, I keep going through... [Malcolm]... yeah, between school and establishing your career and the doubt, the anxiety, the fear, the excitement, the elation...all of that stuff is so universal and timeless were you thinking about that when you were putting the film together at all? [Weill shakes her head "No"]. [Malcolm] Oh. [Audience laughs]. [Malcolm] Okay. [Weill] I was just, you know, trying to... do it, yeah. Just...tell my story, you know. I was just, like... [Malcolm] Well, it's, I mean it's obvious a huge I mean, it's having this huge influence and it's huge resurgence so it's...I think, I think it's a classic. I mean, it's...it's a perennial. So... questions from the audience? Question from the audience? Let's go over here on the side in the back. We're gonna bring a mic back to you. [Room noise, waiting for question]. [Audience question 1] Hi, I loved your movie a lot. That was my first time seeing it. All my friends love it and I just hadn't seen it so I thought it was a great opportunity and I thought the casting was perfect. Every actor, like, across the board. Did you know who you wanted to have in it? Or...what was the casting like? [Weill] You know, except for Viveca Lindfors and Eli Wallach everybody else read for the parts. And they, they were just young actors who came in and read and and uhm... it quickly became obvious, you know, who was right and who was... I mean, I was just very lucky that, that I was coming of age at the same time as Chris Guest, Bob Balaban and Melanie and Anita Skinner. With Eli it was...uhm... I first wanted...uhm... Paul Mazursky to play the rabbi and I knew him and so he came in and, and we read together. He came in like and he, you know, he read and I read Susan. And It was so embarrassing. [Audience laughs]. That uhm... and then I felt like, "Oh, I couldn't possibly direct him." And he was sort of busy because he was making "An Unmarried Woman," right? And uhm... And then I thought about Eli Wallach and...and I had met him at like an opening, an art opening. And he, we had a nice conversation and I was able to reach him and call him and so I said, "Do you, you know, I'm making this little independent feature and there's this part that you would be amazing. It's a rabbi who falls in love with a young woman who shoots weddings and bar mitzvahs for him." And I said, "I'll do it. I haven't been offered a romantic lead in years." [Audience laughs]. He was just, he just didn't, you know, said...didn't say, "Yeah." I mean, it wasn't like, "Send me the script and we'll see" or blah blah blah, you know. I said, "We even [unintelligible]." He said, "You can just work it out with my agent, Biff Liff." Which I thought was a joke but there actually was an agent called Biff Liff at William Morris. And uhm... [Audience laughs]. [Weill] So I call up the agent and, you know, we sort of...I said, "Well you know, paying fifty percent of minimum." You know he's shocked. So he says, "Well, what about billing?" he says. I said, "Well, you can bill me." [Audience laughs]. [Malcolm] Hah. [Weill] Thinking isn't that how it works because, I mean, that's how naive... I generally was. And then he explained to me what billing was and so forth but [Audience laughs]. I don't remember how I got Viveca Lindfors but I just thought tonight she was so great, wasn't she? The gallery owner. She was just great and that was her son, Kris Tabori. Who I wanted to imply she was having it... like an affair with. I mean, it's not her son in the movie, right? [Audience laughs]. [Malcolm] Understood. Other questions from the audience? Over here in the...right here...Oh... [Unintelligible comments from the audience]. Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't see the hand. There you go. [Audience question 2] I just wanted to ask how old were you when you started making this film? [Weill] I was... probably 26 when I applied for the grants. It was my 30th birthday the night that we shot that horrible scene with the four that I... for the end that I didn't use. And I finished it, I guess, when I was in my thirtieth year. Yeah, about...yeah. [Malcolm] We have a question in the... woman in the back. Oh, you...right there. Behind the gentleman in the red sweater, sorry. [Room noise, waiting for question]. [Audience question 3] Hi, Claudia. Thank you for speaking. I screened this film a few years back here in L.A. with Melanie Mayron coming to speak and so it's my second time seeing the film but I noticed so much more this time and hearing you speak about where you were at in your career just resonate so much with my own experiences, or lack thereof, and I'm curious how from selling the film at Warner Brothers your perspective on yourself and the career and how you addressed your next feature shifted as you entered the studio system as a director? [Weill] Well, entering the studio system was an education in itself. You know, uhm... I was not especially tactical or political. I just knew how to say kind of what interested me or what I liked or what they didn't like, so uhm... I was not educated for the dance that takes place in the studio system. Uhm... I...Eleanor had written this wonderful script for "It's My Turn"...Eleanor Bergstein, who was talking about, who also wrote... help me out someone? [Malcolm] Is it "Dirty Dancing"? [Weill] "Dirty Dancing", right. Thank you. Afterwards and... you know, it was like learning a whole 'nother...craft. Trying to, trying to make a feature in the end...in the, well... it was really specific because Ray Stark was the producer and he was a really tricky dude. So... [Audience laughs]. you know, he did like to sort of mind fuck you and uhm I just did not know how to deal with that. [Malcolm] Mm-hmm. [Weill] So I kind of got on his wrong side. Uhm... I mean what happened was that after...he was very, you know, he thought this was really cute that he was gonna have a woman director and he you know, it was time for me to hire a DP and I didn't know any DP's except for Fred Murphy in New York who was, you know, in naybit (?), so I started screening a lot of movies to see who I would, you know, would make a good DP for this next film. He calls me in the screening room and he says, "Sweetheart...stop screening. I've hired you a DP who's gonna be perfect. And the one thing I knew is that I had the right to hire a DP. So, I said, "Well... if you've actually hired a DP then you can hire another director." And he was furious. [Malcolm] Mm-hmm. [Weill] "You ungrateful girl, to have any idea what an opportunity I'm giving you." You know, it was like... [Malcolm] Yeah. [Weill] It was just, you know...and, and uh...and then he started calling me Barbara [Audience laughs]. because he made a lot of movies with Barbra Streisand and then she had left him to make movies for somebody else. So uhm... it was a complicated relationship but this was a different [Audience laughs]. this was a different, you know, this was a really a different era. You know he would come on set and sort of run his hand down my back and say, "Oh, you're wearing a bra today." [Malcolm] Well...yes...that's but, you know, it's...I mentioned earlier it... [Weill] So I mean I just imagine trying to make a film with those kind of obstacles It's like, you know. [Malcolm] You were, you were quoted in a...mentioned in an article that I found in New York Times in 1980. [Weill] Yeah. [Malcolm] Probably came out just around the release of "It's My Term" where you were quoted in the article as, I mean, basically saying that, I think the exact...well, I don't have the exact quote but paraphrasing a bit was that you were also felt under an extra level of scrutiny in the sense that, "Oh my gosh, she took five takes," and the rumors would spread, "She took five takes of this shot" and all of a sudden there was this pressure, like, five takes was too many. [Weill] This was the same time as Michael Cimino was taking 179 takes, you know, bringing down the studio, so. [Malcolm] Right and you do five takes and they're, they're just as nervous and but it... I mean, you talk about a different era, the other thing though about the article was it was talking about the dismal statistics of women behind the camera. I think it was, like, 1 percent of all Hollywood films that year were directed by women. And I think we haven't really broken double digits yet. [Weill] No. [Malcolm] It's like 40 years later. I mean the same article could have been written today. [Weill] Easily. [Malcolm] Slightly updated statistics and that's about it. Except maybe the sexism isn't so overt now? Maybe it's gone underground? I can't speak to it. [Weill] It's less overt, I think. [Malcolm] Because they know not to uh... [Weill] Yeah, I mean, there rules now. There laws but...uhm... [Malcolm] But from, from "It's My Turn"... [Weill] Mm-hmm. [Malcolm]... you, you, you, you've had a long distinguished career as a theater director. You've done a number, I mean, just a ton of great Television. But I'm just curious, do you feel like you had the career that you wanted to have? And what, I mean, and to what extent do you think this, the nature of the studio system... was just, I mean, your relationship to it, ...the relationship you wanted to have to it? [Weill] Right. [Malcolm] How did that sort of impact your decisions? [Weill] I, you know... what's always interested me is telling stories. I really love, whether as a documentary or a feature or play or television, how do you tell this story? What's the story? How do you tell it? Uhm... I've just always been fascinated with stories, so... for me, to move from features into starting and directing theatre in New York- Donald Margulies was a young playwright, just starting out- and I brought his work to Joe Papp at the Public and started directing there and Manhattan Theatre Club and it was, like, fabulous. It was amazing. What...it didn't feel like, "Oh, a...lesser thing"... [Malcolm] Right. [Weill]...you know and then when I started doing television, it was...television was just brilliant and, and the, the needle has moved, you know, from movies being the the art form of the 21st century, to really its television now. So I never felt that because I didn't make more features that I didn't... [Malcolm] Right. [Weill] ...have the career I, you know, the I didn't have a real sense of a career. [Malcolm] Right. [Weill] Uhm... that being said I'd really be interested in making... a feature now. [Malcolm] Right. [Weill] But... [Malcolm] We love to see it, of course. [Weill] Yeah, I don't know that I have the energy or commitment at this point or the, you know, the "Type A" fuel that you need to do that anymore. [Malcolm] But did, did your experience on "It's My Turn" suggest to you that Hollywood was not where you wanted to tell the stories because of all the other stuff you had to put up with? [Weill] I think it might have been possible to do some good work in Hollywood. I think that I had such a caricature... such an extreme caricature of a situation [Malcolm] Right. [Weill] That I, you know, I didn't see any reason to stay there and try and...do it again. [Malcolm] Right. [Weill] You know [Malcolm] Right. [Weill] But I don't...that's not what every situation is like. It just was like let me out of here. [Malcolm] Right, right. [Weill] You know. [Malcolm] Yeah. Other question from the audience? I think, right here, yeah. [Room noise, waiting for question]. [Audience question 4] You're amazing and inspiring and I hope you feel all the love coming from this audience. [Weill] Thank you. [Audience question 4 continues] It's really extraordinary. [Audience clapping]. [Audience question 4 continues] Can you talk about the emergence of your directorial style as its represented in this film- visually and in terms of working with actors? From, from what you're saying you were kind of a neophyte when you started. [Weill] Mm-hmm. I'd be very interested to hear how you worked with this cast and how you developed the visual style of film? [Weill] Well... Fred and I worked...Fred Murphy who shot the film and I worked really closely together. I had been a still photographer- weddings and bar mitzvahs. Uhm... I uhm... I don't know how to describe the visual style. It was very limited by the equipment we had, you know. We had a 16 millimeter camera. We had four 1K's, those are pretty simple lights. That was it. That was the package. And once we rented a nine light which is a sort of a big fluorescent, well... I mean, you can put day or, you know, tungsten or blue light in it and uhm... basically it was, you know, it was to be as naturalistic as possible for you to feel that it's real, for you to feel that you're looking in on somebody's life. This print by the way it was super dark. It was like hard to see the film and it was also kind of soft, I think. So, I'm sorry, I apologize for that. It was like hard to watch. [Malcolm] Us as well. [Weill] Huh? [Malcolm] Us as well. This print came from Warner Brothers. [Weill] Right. And the colors popped around. Did you notice that one shot would be pink and the next shot be yellow and that shot would be blue? Like it hadn't been timed or something. Color timed, I mean. But that...you asked me something else? Oh, about working with actors? Well again, I was after, you know, I think the tone of the film is perfectly captured by Michael Small's score. Uhm... and which has a kind of humor to it and a kind of a sweetness but also a kind of like, "You don't have to take this too seriously." So that if she's sitting there crying, you can feel it but you can also realize she's gonna be okay. You know, you don't have to despair for her, right? So...uhm...that kind of humorous, that tone of kind of uhm... being engaged but also having distance. It was something that was real important to me. In terms...I work differently with all actors. You know there's no one way of working. And uhm... I love working with actors. They just give you so much. Like with the scenes between Chris and Melanie like at the party and, and the scene when they're hanging the hammock when he comes in both of those scenes were improvised. Because Chris was a great comic mind and Melanie would get on his wavelength and they could just riff. But other scenes I would never improvise. Or, you know, if it wasn't with somebody like him I wouldn't consider that. Bob Balaban you just have to let him loose. [Audience laughs]. You know, he's just so real but he...you know who that guy is. You know he wants her life as much as she wants her life, you know. You understand what the problem is even though you like him. I mean, I like him. Is that answering your question even remotely? [Malcolm] Aside from the taxi driver... [Weill] Yeah. [Malcolm]...who is grotesque and horrible there are no real unlikable characters in the film. Everyone is complicated- makes bad decisions, makes good decisions. But everyone you feel like you're always rooting for everybody in the film at some point. I mean is that sort of a... [Weill] That's real important to me. Yeah, you don't want any easy... easy, I mean, even the taxi driver, you know, obviously he's had the mumps and he says, "I got a problem." [Audience laughs]. [Malcolm] It's a serious problem. [Weill] You know and he's, and he's looking for help. Not in a way that's particularly...attractive. And you know but, but nevertheless I think... didn't...you know, I mean, what is it? You always have to look for somebody's...perfect, everybody has their own perfectly good reasons for what they're doing... and you have to find them, I think. As opposed to just demonize them for what they're doing. I mean, that's what makes that's the fun of it, I think. It's harder to do it in life. [Malcolm] Did you have...oh, I'm sorry, a question in the back. In the very back. [Audience question 5] Hope you don't mind a trivial question but... [Weill] Please. [Audience question 5 continued]...what was with the neck braces? [Audience laughs]. [Weill] Oh yeah. I wanted to imply they were having an affair. [Audience laughs]. So they got in an accident together... an accident together. I just thought neck braces would be good. [Audience laughs]. Yeah. Huh? You got it? Good. See? I mean, as...as I kept filming I realized you didn't need a whole lot of exposition. Right? You just needed something. [Malcolm] Other questions from the audience? Oh, right here on the aisle. [Room noise, waiting for question]. [Audience question 6] You mentioned Cimino in comparison to the heat that you were getting, if he hadn't completely screwed the pooch, do you think that there, there would have been a longer run of personal driven films, like yours, at the studios? Or was it...if, if, if it hadn't crashed and burned with him was it still kind of gonna fade out anyway? [Weill] Uhm... I have no idea. I don't have a good sense of film history and, you know, what the rest of the industry was like at that time. [Audience question 6 responds] Well just from you vantage... [Weill] Yeah... [Audience question 6 responds]...and your own experiences? [Weill] Hmm. I don't, I really don't think I can answer because uhm... why did the personal films fade out? Do you, do you think it was because of Cimino? [Malcolm] Well certainly I think it went...for the studio interests, I mean, in the '70s- late '60s, '70s- they were looking for new voices, looking to reach new audiences and, I think, that definitely had an impact on their willingness to take a chance on a quote-unquote "auteur"... [Weill] Right. [Malcolm] and... a visionary but, you know, it's one factor among many and I think that affected so many of the women directors working at this period as well. But you just...you can't, you know, to take that into account. I'm curious about, since we're talking about auteurs, one of the quotes that gets brought up a lot with "Girlfriends," is Stanley Kubrick's comment about it and basically, if I understand the context, was... I think it was a "Playboy" interview, they asked him to talk about Coppola or Scorsese or any of the big auteurs who were emerging at that time and he chose to talk about "Girlfriends." And he said that he thought it was basically the most, the only American film that could stand up, that he had seen, that could stand up to the European uh... auteurs and the...of the New Wave and the, and the sort of sophisticated dramas that were coming out of...art house films that were coming out of Europe at the time. I wondered when did you first hear that quote? And how did you respond? How...what was your feeling about it? [Weill] I saw it in a bookstore. In a book on Kubrick. [Malcolm] Oh, okay. [Weill] And it was there and I couldn't believe it. Yeah. [Malcolm] And this was...well after the film had come out? [Weill] I had children by then. I don't know. It must have been like '86, you know. [Malcolm] Okay. That quote now seems to include it in almost every... [Weill] I know. [Malcolm] retrospective... [Weill] I know. [Malcolm]...comment about the film, it's pretty amazing, so. [Weill] It is amazing. He's, he's... actually it's true. If, if there were any influences on me it was you know, French films and Italian films, English films. [Malcolm] I think he, I mean, I'm not gonna contradict Kubrick. I think it's just I think he's absolutely correct. I mean, it has a very European vibe to it. I mean, although, it's very specifically American. [Malcolm] Any other question? Let's go right down here again. [Room noise, waiting for question]. [Malcolm] Yeah, the mic will come from behind you, sorry. [Room noise, waiting for question]. [Audience question 7] Speaking towards this, the demise of the personal film [Weill] Hm-mm. [Audience question 7 continued] and specifically within this film, the, poem about the war with my mother... [Weill] Isn't that a beautiful poem? Honor Moore. [Audience question 7 continued] So what was your feeling about that, that poem at the time you included it in the film? [Weill] Well, I thought it worked well for the character, for Anne. I love the poem. I loved the notion of colonizing Venus. Uhm... and, you know, it's, it's always a hard thing- you have a character whose a poet and a character whose a photographer- you need to find their work... somehow, work that feels like it might be coming out of them. And uhm... I just thought, you know, Honor was kind enough to let me use that and there was another poem, I mean, there was other scenes of Anne reading poetry but they''re no longer in the film but... I just thought it was a beautiful poem. You believe that... Anne might have written it. [Malcolm] It's also a scene that sort of points to the complexity of having a friend- when two, two artists who are friends- and how they, you know, look to each other for feedback. [Weill] Right and don't...aren't always able to support each other, you know. It's important to be honest and but you don't know, you know sort of impose yourself on each other and just when she's running to work, and she can't really listen. [Malcolm] Yeah. [Weill] She's actually you know on the can and... late. [Malcolm] Yeah the challenges of, of two people living together, creatives. Let's go right here in the middle. Right here, the gentleman in the middle row here. You just...can you pass the mic down to the gentleman in the middle, please? Thank you. [Room noise, waiting for question]. [Audience question 8] When I heard you characterize the Michael Small score having this balance of pathos and comedy and warmth and lightness it made me think of Melanie's performance. It was just extraordinary. That had those colors just braided throughout and I had the occasion of seeing "Car Wash", which was a couple years before this, and I remember... [Weill] It was right in the middle. [Audience question 8 continued] Oh, okay. So...right because your film took so long to make. [Weill] Yeah, we shot the first part. Then she did "Car Wash." And she also did the Mazursky film, "Harry and Tonto"? Is that the one? [Audience question 8 responds] I don't remember her performance in that but, so, I just saw... [Weill] She did a few films and then came back and we shot some more. [Audience question 8 continued] So "Car Wash" had that same... her character had all this pathos but, yet, she was very comic. [Weill] Yes. [Audience question 8 continued] She couldn't be beaten down by the sadness and it was a very tiny part. But what I wanted to ask you is were you aware that you were getting that [Weill] Oh, yeah. [Audience question 8 continued]...richness and depth? [Weill] Yeah, we did a lot of auditions, a lot of reading and that's what was so amazing about her is that she, she was limpid you could feel the emotions just coming off her but at the same time she had that sense of humor... uhm...that would deflect... uh... yeah...that's, that's why I cast her. It was just... you know, so...yeah. [Malcolm] So we have one more question from the audience. Right here. [Room noise, waiting for question]. [Audience question 9] Yeah, I have some two quick questions: One, is where was her apartment building, the exterior shot? [Weill] Oh, it was right next to Ethical Culture. I think 64th Street between Broadway and Central Park West. [Audience question 9 continued] And the other one is: what was the inspiration for the hitch-hiker character? [Weill] Oh, Ceil? Uhm... you know, on a spectrum... uhm... Anne next to Susan seems freer but Ceil on a spectrum is further out. I also wanted to you know, uhm... deal with homosexuality, with...the flirtation with it, the possibility of it. And... yeah it... [Malcolm] There is that interesting shot at the party where she comes down the hall [Malcolm and Weill together] and the two women are kissing. [Weill] Right. [Malcolm] I mean, I thought that was a very interesting detail too particularly in context of Cessilie...Cecilia's character, [Weill] Right. [Malcolm] Ceilas' character, so yeah. [Weill] Yeah it was just another thing I wanted to explore. You know, not to feel obligated to... to have a homosexual relationship, to...if you didn't feel it. I mean, just to be who...for her to be who she was and for it to be no big deal. [Malcolm] I mean particularly as the film is to a certain extent about finding oneself, finding ones identity. I mean... [Weill] Right. [Malcolm] there's a certain unmooring that she goes through when Anne leaves. She's sort of on her own, wants to be on her own, experience that but then she kind of becomes unmoored in a certain way. [Weill] Yeah, she's kind of devastated. I mean, similarly speaking and then we've got to wrap up. So I don't mean to take the last question. If anyone's got any questions raise up. Her relationship with the rabbi, Eli Wallach, where did that emerge from in the, the script writing process? And how did that, you know, what did that help you say about her character? [Weill] Well that she was very, you know, uhm... I think, you know... there's something very attractive about an older man... [Malcolm] Mm-hmm. [Weill]...who can kind of see you and is riveted by you, fascinated by you, can see your struggles and and uhm... in a way that I, I don't know it just seemed like a it was autobiographical, what can I tell ya? [Audience laughs]. [Malcolm] But it did allow us to, I mean, that story also did allow us, to allow you, to bring another woman into the story, his wife, and in that one scene you get... [Weill] Wasn't she stunning? Tanya Berezin. She just passed away last month. A brilliant actress. In that one scene, it's probably my favorite performance, that moment where she comes through, "You ever seen a football game? Keep it that way." [Audience laughs]. [Malcolm] I mean, there's a whole history in that one line, I mean, their whole relationship unfolds. [Weill] Yeah. It's just great and it's not necessarily... maybe, it's just, maybe it's just not whatever. You know, I just...she was great. [Malcolm] Well, Claudia, it's real honor for us to have you here. So, thank you very much for coming. [Weill] Thank you. [Malcolm] An amazing film. Thank you very much.