An Interview with Gillo Pontecorvo Author(S): Joan Mellen and Gillo Pontecorvo Source: Film Quarterly, Vol

An Interview with Gillo Pontecorvo Author(s): Joan Mellen and Gillo Pontecorvo Source: Film Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Autumn, 1972), pp. 2-10 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1211406 . Accessed: 23/09/2013 16:02

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This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 23 Sep 2013 16:02:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JOAN MELLEN

An Interview with Gillo Pontecorvo The director of THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, which has become a classic because of its astonishingly newsreel-like reconstruction of the Algerian independence struggle, spoke with Joan Mellen in English. His remarks have been slightly abridged for publication.

As a Marxist, what has attracted you to making Algiers. The fight of oppressed people against films about the colonial revolution rather than colonialism, in any case, interests me because films about struggles in industrialized countries? it's one of the most difficult moments of the I have made so few films that my answer must human condition. And because our entire civili- be "by accident." I make one film every four or zation is constructed within this matrix. On the five years. In all, I have made four films.* I shoulders of colonial people, we draw all our was also supposed to make a film about a sec- strengths. And our manner of thinking and our tion of Fiat called "Confino Fiat," where they culture depend always to a greater or smaller put all the politically active workers during the degree on this fact. Even if you don't have col- Scelba government and the entire series of center onies, your manner of thinking, your culture, governments which brought a great repression derives from the fact that Americans came from to Italy. It wasn't shot for a number of reasons. Europe . . . I was also going to make a film But I might have done that film instead of last year about Pinelli, the anarchist who "fell" to his death from police headquarters. I was so *The Long Blue Road (1957); Kapo (1959); The Battle stupid, I let someone who had seen Sacco and of Algiers (1965); Burn! (1969) Vanzetti convince me that the theme was too

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close. Now, I'm furious not to have done it. But caused by the young Algerian girl . . . In the it's too late to make this film because a few days other branches of work we did much better. For ago we had another incident (the murder of instance, we had only one chief electrician and Calebresi, the police officer implicated in the when we arrived we asked people who usually Pinelli death) . . . One year ago the event put electricity in houses to work with us. Our seemed as if it were finished and you could electrician began to teach them what they must handle it. But now many other things have know to work in films. The Algerians were very happened. clever and very rapid learners. After a short What were some of the difficulties in shooting time we had nearly a normal crew. The same Battle of Algiers? Was it hard to get people to thing was done by Gatti, the photographer, who work with you? Were you assisted by the Bou- chose three young men and worked with them. medienne government? They took notes and made little designs of where Getting people to work with us was more the the lights should be, scene by scene. I can re- achievement of the Algerian co-producer than member the name of a young man who is now a the government. From the government we had good photographer there, Ali Maroc. He was the normal things, but these were more easily working and trying to learn exactly as if he were obtained than anywhere else when you want to in a course of cinematography. And it was very shoot in a street. You must have a permit and easy for Gatti because he likes this kind of situa- they give it very promptly. What was more use- tion. In any case it was very useful that the ful was that they gave us the possibility of using crew was so compact. We did a lot of work that some soldiers in the mass scenes. The Algerian usually presupposes an enormous crew-the and Italian producers were obliged to pay, but mass scenes for example. We saved money be- less than usual. We had excellent collaboration cause we did things in a nontraditional way. with the people who were brought to work with It is clear that you have made a film on the us. Even though they were paid, they partici- side of Algerian independence. But is this un- pated more than the usual extras . . . it was a dermined in any way by treating the violence most interesting experience because we went committed by Algerians and French in a one-to- there with a very small crew. The Italian pro- one relationship? You show the Algerians kill- ducer to whom I brought this subject told me ing someone, then the French retaliating, then that he would make any film I wanted, but that the Algerians, etc., whereas in the historical sit- this project was impossible. It meant "making a uation the French killed hundreds of thousands film without any meaning, in black and white, more than the Algerians, including women and without actors and without a story." He said children. There is only one moment in the film that "the Italian people don't care about black where we get a sense of this, when Ben M'Hidi people." I told him I am sorry, but Algerians says, "Give us your napalm and we'll give you are white like you. In fact, the Italian people our women's baskets." were very touched by the war in Algeria because This happens in an extremely tense moment both Algeria and France are so close to us. Still, of the film and it creates a proper balance of the they didn't want to make the film. One pro- problem. I thought it was enough. He says it ducer said, "only because it is you, I will give a at the moment toward which all the dramaturgy minimum guarantee of 45 million lira ($80,- has been pointing. Then you see the Algerian 000)"-which is nothing. The film earned this people being tortured and you hear the musical amount in Italy in six days! motif of Ali La Pointe. You feel the difference The crew was so light and we had so little between the French and the Algerians who are money that we began the film without even a defending themselves with anything they have. script girl, thinking we could find one there. There is another more important point. I After one month we had to call a script girl from think it is insignificant to say, "One side killed Rome because of the confusion in the footage ten, the other killed two." The problem is that

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 23 Sep 2013 16:02:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 4 4 PONECRVPONTECORVO they are in a situation in which the only factor the five, ten, fifteen people who were nearest to is oppression. Then they begin to fight and I the cameraand worked only with them. I didn't don't believe that when people fight, some fight even look at the others. I looked to see if the hard and some fight less hard. The Algerians expression on their faces was right. A crowd castrated people and also committed torture. scene can be spoiled if the expression of only You must judge who is historicallycondemned one person is not exactly what you want. It is and who is right. And to give the feeling that the persontwo metersfrom the camerawho con- you identify with those who are right. At the veys the feeling and determines whether the beginning I wanted to call the film by another scene is right or not. In this way you create the name, a biblical term, "to give birth in sorrow." feeling of a stolen moment duringan actualhap- But my associate producersaid, "You are mad, pening. If you don't have this kind of control, no one will go and see it with this dull title." you always have two or three people who are But this title gives an indicationof my intention. looking the wrong way and the scene is spoiled. The birth of a nation happenswith pain on both Were your nonprofessional actors familiar sides, although one side has cause and the other with the actual Battle of Algiers? Were they not . . . when the torture became theorized participantsin the historicalincidents described and scientific, it became an importantmoment in the film? of the war, and for this reasonwe began the film No, because the complexion of the people of with torture. Then we didn't persist in showing Algiers had changed completely. After the vic- it because our aim was not to put the accent on tory many people arrived from the rural areas the repression, but on something more worth- who didn'tknow what had happenedin Algiers. while, in homage to the people who fight for They occupiedthe houses in the Casbahvacated freedom. We didn'tcare if you could find sadis- by the others who were now living in the better tic people among the paratroopers;it is not in- part of the town, where the Europeanshad lived teresting. It is much more interestingto show before. We shot principally with them for a that you could find among them some who had simple economic reason: they needed the money ideas, confused ideas taken from their experi- and were happy to work with us. They didn't ence in Indochina and from half-digestedbooks know exactly what had happened,but they were they read. In any case if you put a colonel who in favor of what had happened. is completely normal and obliged by the his- You asked me before about the FLN leader torical context to do something, you condemn in Tunis who didn't know that the demonstra- the one who sent him, il mandante. This is the tions in 1960 were about to take place. We logic of colonialism .... wanted to give the feeling that when the river Was Battle of Algeria shot with any degree of begins to flow, nothing can stop it, even if some- continuity? thing gives the appearanceof stopping it. The No, for many reasons of organization. When finale of the film, the music which is the theme you have crowds, you must shoot all the crowd of Ali, is not finished,but open-endedmusic. It scenes to spend less money. The crowd scenes is left open to give the sense that it is not only which generallyseem credibleenough, and even for Algiers, but for all people in this condition. spontaneous,are the most organizedpart of the The condition goes on not only in Algeria. whole film. Becausewe did not have a very long How much of the originalscript changed from time to shoot, we drew all the movementsof the the time it was written to the final version? I crowd with chalk on the actual pavement, "ac- read somewhere that you changed the scene in tion 1, 2, or 3, this group goes around," etc. which the three Algerian women transform This is how we did the great crowd scene, the themselves into French women, that there was demonstrationdown the stairs. When this be- originally dialogue in this scene. came automatic,I no longer looked at it and my Again I am sorry to bore you with music, but assistant controlled it when we shot . . . I took for me the roots of a film are always in music.

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I was not happy with this scene when I was pre- Yacef Saadi, whose enemies were against this. paring the script with Franco Solinas. He felt They were not very profound criticisms, but one way, I didn't feel that way. But I had noth- sometimes they were very severe. They de- ing to propose in place of what we had. Some- pended on one's political position. But the film times you don't like something, but you have no was an obvious success, the first film about the alternative. The terrible day in which I was sup- struggle for national liberation. posed to shoot this scene arrived. We began at When was The Battle of Algiers finally shown 8 o'clock and by one o'clock we had not shot in France? anything. In the script there was a joke among It was shown first in Italy, because the film is the girls waiting for Djafar, a light moment an Italo-Algerian coproduction. Second, or at which I felt was very false. It broke the unity nearly the same time, it was shown in Algeria. of the film. Finally, because I was desperate, I In France the producers of the film did not even said that in an hour we must begin to shoot. We try to show it for three years because the situa- went to eat and I was beside myself. I ate alone tion was so tense that we were sure it was im- without the crew thinking of how I could shoot possible. The French delegation had walked out the scene . . . finally I thought of a percussion of the Venice festival when the film was shown. piece I had recorded on a cassette machine be- It was shown in France finally one year ago. fore the beginning of the film . . . I decided to We had the permission of the censor. We took try this because I thought it was very beautiful. great precautions for the opening because we Suddenly I said, "It's very easy, it's done." I were afraid of trouble. We had more than fifty cut all the dialogue; who cares about the dia- private showings for political and cultural per- logue? I didn't have the girls laugh; I made the scene very tense. And the rehearsal was with this music, but with loudspeakers, very loud. Immediately it generated a terrible tension, not only for me, but for the three girls in the scene, who were not professionals but picked up in the street. They began to feel it. The scene became very short and, I think, moving. In one hour we had done the whole scene. It was very, very satisfying for me. Was The Battle of Algiers popular in Algeria? I have heard that the first time the film was shown many wounded people went to see it. It was the greatest box-office success ever. But this was to be expected. It didn't depend on the film. Rather, it was because it tells the story of the Algerian people for the first time. sonalities and for journalists. And we had a Among political people some made criticisms. marvellous reception that we would never have And even this depended on the fact that after believed possible. Even the newspapers said liberation many groups were fighting for per- marvellous things from positions that might well sonal power. Those who were far from the be dangerous. They said that the film doesn't group which co-produced the film (The Casbah offend France. So we were very hopeful. Film Company and Yacef Saadi, military com- Three large theaters were ready to open the mander for the autonomous zone of Algiers dur- film when they received threats telling the man- ing the Battle of Algiers), objected on two agers of the theaters that "we are going to kill grounds: that the film was too kind to the French you, your wife, and your children." These men, and that we showed someone who was alive, who were not paid to be killed, said "No, thank

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 23 Sep 2013 16:02:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 6 6 PONTECORVO you." They didn't open the film. So for another a long shot of the sugar cane fields on fire, there six or seven months after having had the ap- are a few notes, a nota tenuta that I wrote. Su- proval of the censor, the film did not open. They perstitiously I put this in during the recording. tried to open it in rural areas outside of Paris, We put away what had been written for that where there were students and workers, but even moment in the film. I played it on the piano and there the fascists put bombs in the theater three the orchestra played it immediately after. Be- times and huge quantities of dirt were thrown cause in all my films I had done some of the on the screen. Later the French director Louis music, I was afraid not to have done it in this Malle took the matter into his own hands and film as well. brought about the showing of the film. I think that any director begins with a little The use of sound, and music in particular, is fear the morning when he goes to the set to one of the most outstanding qualities of your shoot. But I go with great fear. Sometimes I films. arrive without knowing where to put the camera The rapport between music and image for me and what to do with it. If I've thought of the is extremely important. First of all because the scene before and tried to compose the theme of only thing I like deeply in my life is music- the music, if I have found this theme, my be- more than movies. I wanted to become a com- havior is completely different. I become ex- poser, but for economic reasons I could not, tremely sure of myself and I know exactly what because you must have enough money to study to do or not to do. When I discover the music, for eight years, eight hours each day, to become it is as if one were going in the dark on the the director of an orchestra or a composer. And stairs, and you had something to hold onto so so I began to study music when I was already that you could be sure and not hesitate. The too old. I worked with a friend, a French com- same thing is true for me when I have the music, poser of atonal music named Leibowitz. I would the sound. I know, for instance, that I can stay begin from time to time for three months and I on this face just a little more than usual or just would always stop for financial reasons. a little less because you must do this and not Perhaps it seems strange, but movies fulfill another thing . . . some of the desires which impel me to write When I have no music, I don't know. I wait. music; not all, but some. The most beautiful It is always an embarrassing situation when you moment for me in movies is when you begin arrive and don't know how to place the camera, to make the sound. At this moment I am really what to do, because a thousand solutions may be happy. For all my documentary films I wrote correct. The crew creates a strange silence so the music. "Wrote" is of course overstated be- as not to disturb you. And this silence disturbs cause I can't write, I haven't studied. I can play you much more because you know that they are and discuss with another composer. I say waiting . . . Apart from the story that any "another" because I am in this strange Italian movie has to tell, there is sometimes, although category "melodist." In Italy there are two cate- not always, another story-which tells the inner gories, melodist and composer. A "melodist- story: the hope, the sorrow, the fragility of hap- composer" can't sign something alone, and this piness or hope, the absurd, the great themes of is right because he must have someone who can the human condition. For me when I am ready do the orchestration and write the music. But I to tell this second story, to express its presence, have collaborated on the music in all my films. I depend very often on music. I don't want to The only one in which I have not done this is make a theory of this. I speak only of what Queimeda, (Burn!). We had only two months happens to me, what I experience personally. I in which to do the editing and they came close know that many people believe that music is to Christmas when the film had to open. For something joined, tacked onto the imagined superstitious reasons I invented a little theme. work unjustifiably. Each person expresses him- When the child puts his hands up, followed by self in very different ways. When I express my-

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 23 Sep 2013 16:02:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PONTECORVOPONTECORVO 7 self, it comes principally from the music . . . stay as far away from the action as they can; sometimes the imagination seems completely they need a telephoto lens. And granular effects dead, when you write or when you shoot; it can come from the fact that very often newsreels happen at any moment. The camera that you are "contratype," using a negative made from have put in front of a face is unable to find the a positive because the original has been lost. necessary emotion to go beyond the banality of And so the problem for me was to find some- this face to find underneath the person's real thing which looks like reality as people know humanity. I am able to create this difficult con- it through the mass media, without being so tact between you and the exterior world, you sloppy and so ugly. and other people, you and the difficulties of the human condition thanks only to the music. For this reason, for me, music is extremely important and it is important not only for the counterpoint between music and the image, sound and the image, but really for providing a key to communication. And to communicate means to understand people. And so for me if films were done without music, I would prob- ably do some other kind of work. And when I say music, of course I don't mean only music, but silence, all that is constructed with sound- noise, moments of rhythm, all this. There is also another mania in my work, photography. I consider that in films until now we all, all directors, have used photography in a passive way. If you really pay attention, be- You can't go on for two hours with the bad tween good photography and mediocre photog- quality that you can accept in newsreels. I was raphy in movies there is not a great difference. seeking a photography that resembled newsreels, In a way both are always dominated by objec- but without these weaknesses. In Kapo we tivity. This is not creative photography, but achieved this, but not very well. In Algiers it passive. If instead you visit an exposition of was better because we realized that it is not photographs or look in a library book about effective to do it all in the laboratory later. You photography, you will see how much they try must prepare beforehand. Certain kinds of de- to find new ways and how much difference there veloping baths produce granulosity, but the is between one photography and another. So I same kind of baths also provide great contrast. think this is one of the future ways in which To give only one example, you must shoot with movies can develop. And in a little, little, little a very soft stock and diffuse the light because way, extremely little, I have tried not to be pas- later the extent of the contrast will be too great sive in my use of the camera. because of the methods you must use. This is In Kapo and The Battle of Algiers we made only one of the thousands of problems involved a lot of tests before beginning to create a granu- in this kind of photography. Another difficulty lar effect and to gain a feeling of truth. We is that if you always shoot with diffused light, wanted to recreate the reality that the majority covering the sun with filters, you risk photog- of people know, the reality that reaches them raphy without vitality. I tried these things to through the mass media, through television. On have the totality of the frame in soft light. And television they use certain kinds of lenses and there is a point of focus with a concentration of they use them generally because if there is a fire light which doesn't cause too much contrast but or shooting, the men who work for television is sharp enough.

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For the "Jesus Christ" [the projected new You must surmount this problem. Unhappily. film], the problem is very much more difficult. Why have you chosen the figure of Jesus as All the Visions-the Jungian part of the film, the focus of your next film? It seems a surpris- the subconscious presence, not only in Jesus ing choice since Battle of Algiers and even Christ, but in all the oppressed people of this Queimada indicate a commitment to struggles period-are inevitably contaminated visually by in the present. One would expect this subject of the daily reality people are simultaneously ex- Pasolini, but not of you. periencing. For the part of the film that shows Pasolini made a very valuable film in The sad faces, poor houses, killing, the oppression of Gospel According To St. Matthew. He was deal- Romans and difficulties of life in general, I wish ing with a "sediment" which was deposited in to have photography like that of Algiers which, the popular mind over a period of 2,000 years- now that I have done it, is very easy to do, like and he accomplished this. We are trying some- a documentary. But for the other I need something different . . . to speak of the historical thing completely different. Christ. What interests me is the antiauthori- I want to fight against the dictatorship of the tarian component which was very strong in lens. What makes a painter so free and what Christ. I believe that even if Christ sought to constrains us so much is that his art passes only move solely on a religious plane, despite his idea through his hand and his eye, while we must of himself and of what he was doing, he was pass through something, the camera, which really deeply revolutionary. He was in opposi- makes us prisoners of reality. Try to fight tion to the old authoritarian and repressive so- against him. He is a terrible enemy. It may ciety, the Jewish society of this period from seem strange, since we have not yet finished the which he drew his origins. I am interested in the script, but I am already making photographic process by which society, any kind of society, tests for my new film, to try to have the Visions, arrives at a point of total crisis, as has ours today. the scenes for example in which we want to The old slave society was ready to collapse create the impression that God is speaking to and give way to the middle ages. It was near its someone, as free as a painter might have them. end and it was time to prepare a new kind of We want to convey the presence of a subcon- society. When a society is at this point, it very scious typical of a certain ethnic group in an often happens that men, thinking that they are intense existential situation. advancing traditional ways, do exactly the oppo- For this I am looking for something resem- site and prepare what we generally call new bling the pointillism of the painter Seurat where values. This is characteristic of that period. the very strong, burning white devours the rest Therefore, I call my film not the story of Jesus of the design. I am looking for something which Christ, but Time of the World's End. It is a derives from two very different painters who biblical term, but for me it conveys a time of vast are nonetheless close to each other: Hierony- change. I find a great similarity with our period mous Bosch and the Goya of his "dark painting" of total crisis, with its expectancy of new values, (la pintura de la quinta del sordo). This is a awaiting even a new way to approach the revo- magic painting with strange faces of peasants lution. and strange shapes. But the Goya and Bosch We are living after the occurrence of certain will be only for the Vision part of the film. deceptions, after the "parthenogenetic" attempt The goal is to allow freer possibilities for the of the socialist revolution to happen all at once photography. And the best result I have found and by itself, full grown, like the supposed virgin so far comes from shooting in 16mm, very over- birth of the Messiah. After a certain disillusion- exposed 16mm. But this is only the first at- ment we are seeking a new way of looking at tempt. Perhaps we will shoot in some different revolution, at change and at the birth of new way. It is not useful to try any experiments values. With this approach we can encompass until you solve the problem of the photography. the "new left," many Spontaneist movements,

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 23 Sep 2013 16:02:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PONTECORVOPONECRV 9 even the Jesus movement which has turned in a one who is full of purpose. And this is his great bad direction. But all this ferment means that defeat. the searching process is going on. Some of these This is why he wants to free Jose Dolores, not groups are confused, but the soil from which only because he is his friend, but because if Jose they come is the same. And in this way I find Dolores escapes, he will not feel so dirty. He is great similarity between the period of Time of desperate when Dolores refuses. He sees his the World's End and now. own emptiness before his eyes. And you know The conception of Sir William Walker in we had to stop shooting when we came to this Burn!, played by Marlon Brando, is confusing. scene because Brando was afraid. It may appear Why would the Royal Sugar interests choose to strange, but Brando, because of his sensibility, represent them a person who has become so dis- after years and years of sets, after years and solute, who has fist fights in the slums, an alco- years of success, is very often afraid of difficult holic? Yet despite what seems an inconsistency scenes, extremely afraid. And he is tense and in the conception of the character, Brando nervous when he is in such a situation. In this carries the ideas of the film and you use many, situation he was not able to function. many close-ups of him. The dialogue was originally longer. And sud- Because with one expression, he conveys more denly the same thing occurred that happened than ten pages of dialogue. And he is the only when the girls changed their appearances in The one who can do it. His eyes simultaneously ex- Battle of Algiers and we cut out all the dialogue. press sadness, irony, skepticism, and the fact I told someone to go buy a recording of Cantata that he is tired . . . Walker changed because 156 of Bach, because I knew that it gives the he discovered that there was nothing behind the exact movement of this scene. And I cut all the side he helped. The same thing happened to dialogue. Without saying anything to Brando, many intellectuals after the last war, the decep- I said we will shoot now, we have waited too tion growing inside them and the emptiness at long, we will try to shoot. I put the music on the same time. at the moment when I wanted him to open his Men like Walker, full of vitality and action, arms and express his sense of emptiness. I put then change the direction of this vitality. They on the music without telling him. I said only go to sea, buy a boat, drink, beat people up. "Don't say the last part of the dialogue." He They don't believe in anything. When they ask agreed. He was happy to do this; he said it was him to return to Queimada, he wants to go be- stupid to use too much dialogue. From this cause he liked his youth, he liked Jose Dolores, moment he was so moved by the music that he and he needed money . . . He does the same did the scene in a marvelous way. When he things he did before, but like a mercenary, with- finished the scene, the whole crew applauded. out belief in anything. It was more effective there than on the screen Then, at the end of the film-this person who later. The sudden tension we obtained was sur- doesn't believe in anything cannot understand prising. And Brando said this was the first time those who do. he had seen two pages of dialogue replaced by His defeat is a comparison between himself music. But he was happy. and who Dolores, grows up. His development Were you as satisfied with the use of nonpro- symbolizes the maturing of the third world, a fessional actors in Burn! as you had been in The moral growth which continues to the moment Battle of Algiers? Which of the people were when Jose Dolores refuses to speak any longer professionals? to Walker. Walker is defeated because he can Only two, Teddy Sanchez (Renato Salvatori) no longer manipulate. His consciousness is that and Brando. Prada was President of Caritas of the European who can be very friendly, but for Colombia and a lawyer. He was very sur- who must always be the one who decides. Walker prised when I met him and said, "Do you want encounters, in contrast to his emptiness, some- to play in my film?" He was happy to do it.

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And another nonprofessional was Mr. Shelton, as soon as she touched him, he remembered who in reality is the administrator for British that he had to do something. But instead of Petroleum for Colombia. It is not very difficult doing it, he would quickly put his head down. to make people act, not in the theater, but in . . .To get him to glance we would direct his movies. You must consider all the help the attention first to one spot, then to another, lenses, the distance of the camera, the move- mechanically. And Brando said "If you are suc- ment of the camera, the position of the camera cessful with this scene, I know someone who can give you. will turn over in his grave-Stanislavsky." At the beginning Evaristo Marquez (Jose Later, when Marquez began to play almost well, Dolores) was completely unable to do anything. Brando said, "now Stanislavsky is spinning in I had not even done a test with him because I his grave . . ." liked his face so much. I thought his face was The scene in which Jose Dolores returns to perfect for what we wanted. I was afraid to be his people, defeated, smiling sadly at the people afraid. I was afraid that if I made a test and he who are so glad to see him, was done with the wasn't good, I wouldn't use him. So I risked it. Stanislavsky method. We tried to make Mar- And after fifteen days I was so desperate that quez recall, by analogy, something he had felt I called my producer saying that despite what I in his youth, to reproduce this feeling. So we have always said, namely that anyone can play started from the Stone Age and finished in the in movies, this is an exception. Because he is sophisticated age of Stanislavsky. completely unable to move, even to turn around. Yet it's a disaster to re-shoot fifteen days of work. So we stopped shooting with him. I changed the program, shooting all the scenes with other people during the day. During the evening, until I fell asleep, I tried to work with him, explaining the ABC's of what we were ask- ing. I was helped by Salvatori, an Italian actor BOOKNOTE who would very kindly repeat the text during At last we have an inside of what on in that the day when he himself was not shooting. My story goes netherworld to which consorship has retreated: the Code wife and the script girl also helped Marquez and Rating Administration which gives films their fatal with his lines. We were all around him. I X's, GP's, and R's. The Movie Rating Game, by Stephen played his whole part a thousand times. After Farber (our Los Angeles Editor) has just been pub- ten he was better. We have in the lished by the Public Affairs Press, 419 New Jersey Ave- days really nue S.E., D.C. 20003 It is a film the first scene we shot with him which Washington, ($4.50). per- was sonal and detailed account of Farber's six harrowing not good, but everything he did later is of a months as an "intern" (with Estelle Changas) on the completely different quality. rating board. Like Shaw refusing not to speak evil of At the beginning we constructed his per- a deceased British censor, whose career was "one long folly and panic," Farber documents the board's formance in a mechanical way. If I wanted a origins, confusions, systematic interference with film-making glance of irony, I would change his position in behind the scenes, exaggerated delicacy about sex the scene. I put the camera higher and on his coupled with complacency about violence, and isolation face so that he was obliged while looking at from the industry's only remaining regular customers- the camera or at Brando to have his head down. the young viewers whose intelligence, sensitivity, and the board insults. Farber The was for experience systematically problem him to remember to put his notes the current board tendency for repressive "psycho- head down during the previous phrase. The analysis" to rush in where religion no longer treads, and script girl, who was out of the frame, touched makes some sensible and moderate suggestions on how his leg at the moment when he had to his the board and its functions should be overhauled. Rec- put ommended for head down so that he would be able to do reading, especially anyone tempted to it a believe that the rating system has "solved" the censor- second later. The next problem arose because ship problem. -E. C.

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