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Remembering D.W. Griffith

GtJNGt SA6A KOLLER EDITOR•CINEMA CANADA 6 WASPIINGTON KVE,APT 3 ONT CvF my; 1 I recall visiting in LA in 1981, PEARY: You're being interviewed in part to more interested in Canadian cinema than, soon after he had moved there from tell us about the first incarnation of Take for instance, someone from Hungary, or Toronto, for the premiere of Stripes. I was One, published and edited by Peter England, or the States. However, we were standing out in the backyard of the house, Lebensold. How did you get involved? just not very English-Canadian nationalist; noting the glorious view below of LA, and I MEDJUCK: Somewhere in a file in Toronto I and we definitely were affected by Take remember Medjuck shaking his head saying, have a letter Peter sent me about Take One being located in Montreal. In the "I wonder if I should have left Toronto." A One. I think it's from the fall of 1965. Peter beginning we published some of our articles Canadian case of the intellectual lost and and I had gone to McGill together and had in French. estranged in Hollywood? Would Joe been active in the McGill Film Society. We PEARY: Was there a leftist bent to the early Medjuck, ex-University of Toronto film pro- showed films cheaply, many that hadn't Take One? fessor and a founding editor of the original been seen before in Montreal. That's where MEDJUCK: Certainly neither Peter and I Take One, become an F. Scott Fitzgerald- I learned the history of films. Peter, Adam were ever wild-eyed Communists, but what like victim of the cruel studio system? Symansky, and John Roston decided to start we published reflected the times, the late Not quite. Instead, Medjuck endured, a film magazine in Montreal and, since I was 1960s and early 1970s. found comfort, and undeniable success. As going to graduate school at the University PEARY: What impressed me about early 's producer, Medjuck's name is of Toronto, they wanted me to be the Take One was its eclectic populism. There

The Interview e C By Gerald Peary high in the credits for some of the box- Toronto correspondent. Peter and his part- were informal, fun pieces about maverick office marvels of the 1980s and 1990s, ners had a falling out over the next year, Hollywood directors, along with very serious including , Beethoven (and and I became a Take One minor partner. articles on intellectual European cinema. Beethoven's 2nd), Twins, and last year's The first issues were, I think, graphically MEDJUCK: I don't remember ever formu- Dave. Also, Medjuck bought a house, in a quite interesting. It was the age of offset, of lating a politique, but we did seem to have modest LA neighbourhood, and two chil- underground magazines, and printing was our favourite filmmakers: Jean-Luc Godard, dren have come along. cheaper than it had ever been. We were Roger Corman, Alfred Hitchcock and Yet, the intellectual is still there, in doing two-colour graphics in the beginning, Michael Snow. To a large extent this reflect- Medjuck's passionate love of jazz, Eastern printing on a kind of high-class newsprint. ed the interests of the writers we attracted. European novels, and the obscure movies of We had some very interesting artists: I remember the first letter we got from Chantel Ackerman and Marguerite Duras. Vittorio and Terry Mosher (better known Michael Goodwin. Mike lived in San Even better, the friendliness: Medjuck is now as Aislin) did covers for us. Francisco and was a film critic for Rolling legendary for his kindness to old pals com- PEARY: Take One cost only 25 cents. Stone. He sent us an article on Andy Warhol ing to LA. There's always time for a personal MEDJUCK: At the beginning. We were which Rolling Stone wouldn't publish. We tour of the studio or a visit to his house. This always reluctant to raise the price, yet said, "This guy can really write, and we're interview was conducted in the summer of whenever we raised it, we found circulation interested in Andy Warhol." We used to run 1993 at Medjuck's LA home. went up. We definitely had not reached a special Godard issues, but he was very pop- price resistance, but we did have store own- ular then. We always wanted to discover PEARY: This is the first time you've been ers complain that some customers thought people. If an article was well written and interviewed. Is there anyone you emulate as the title Take One meant a free magazine. made a film or director sound interesting, an interviewee? PEARY: Was there a desire to push the we printed it. Critics discovering film direc- MEDJUCK: I've learned some interview virtues of Canadian cinema? tors was a relatively new thing in North techniques by watching Arnold Schwar- MEDJUCK: No, and we were criticized for America. I remember Jon Landau writing a zenegger. He's very focussed. Most people this. Though our first cover was of Norman piece on Don Siegel for Rolling Stone and get carried away by their own egos, just McLaren, we didn't see Take One as push- saying, "where else will you read stuff like wanting to talk. Arnold actually thinks ing Canadian cinema but pushing good cin- this?" I remember tearing out several arti- about what he's saying, what its impact will ema. People of our generation, just out of cles in Take One and sending them to be. He knows to whom he is talking. He's college, were very interested in films in gen- Landau saying, "Hey, this is a magazine that not being manipulative. He just keeps in eral, and in French and American culture. does it." mind why he's being interviewed. Since we were in Canada, we were certainly PEARY: What was your contribution to the editorial side of Take One? Shivers and Rabid. Meanwhile, he made MEDJUCK: I started some columns like , and went to Cannes and sold "Overlooked and Underrated" because I it to AIP head, Sam Arkoff. had a thing about films which were ignored PEARY: In the late 1970s, Reitman was by critics. I think I wrote one of the first known also as a theatrical producer, for reviews in North America of a Leone film. I 's The Show, in rarely wrote articles. I did interviews. My Toronto and New York, and for The favourite is the one with Michael Snow. The National Lampoon Show on Broadway. first interview I did was with Warren Beatty MEDJUCK: What Ivan really wanted to do at the Montreal Film Festival in 1967, before was a show based on the Lampoon's high the screening of Bonnie and Clyde. The only school yearbook that eventually became film of his I liked was Lilith, which he didn't . Ivan worked several years like, so the interview wasn't a great experi- getting the script right—in one of the incar- ence. Last year I met Beatty several times nations it was Charles Manson in High on a film project. That happens every so School—and he hired director John Landis. often. I find myself meeting or working with PEARY: What did the success of Animal someone who we wrote about in Take One. House mean for his career? Also a lot of people who wrote for us now MEDJUCK: Ivan discovered that producers work in film or television: Jonathan Demme, don't get much respect in Hollywood. So, if Kay Armatage, Phyllis Platt, Jay Cocks, etc. he wanted respect, he'd have to start Recently I was working with a writer named directing again. I remember going to France Lem Dobbs, who had written Kafka among in 1978 for the summer and returning to other things. One day, he came into the Toronto to find that everyone I knew was office with an old issue in which I'd inter- working on a film which Ivan had concocted viewed Sam Peckinpah. He asked me to and was directing—Meatballs. autograph it. Take One lasted 14 years, until PEARY: After that, Reitman moved his 1980. Times had changed. We were making operations to Hollywood for Stripes, an attempt to be more popular and have a Ghostbusters, etc. Danny Goldberg, who larger readership. I think in some ways that co-wrote Meatballs and Stripes, went with if Peter and I had our druthers, we'd have him. Then you joined them in 1980, the become Premiere. same year the original Take One folded. PEARY: I recall a sexy Take One cover of MEDJUCK: I remember a meeting in the Ivan Reitman's 1973 Cannibal Girls. I under- Courtyard Cafe at the Windsor Arms Hotel stand that you and Ivan met much earlier. in Toronto. I was with Danny, and I asked MEDJUCK: John Hofsess, who wrote for us, him, "Is it a good idea? What's it like down said he'd just seen this student film, and we there?" I'd never been to LA. Danny said, should review it in the magazine. I had a "You don't understand. Ivan is smarter than projector in my house, and Ivan came over most people there. He is really good at with Orientation, starring Danny Goldberg. this." We projected it, and I thought it was really PEARY: And he genuinely likes popular good. It was about a guy going through ori- movies, which made it comfortable in entation with a beanie on, who sees another Hollywood. guy making a movie and decides that's the MEDJUCK: When I first met Ivan, he saw way to meet girls. The kid makes a movie, every new movie. He was very interested in and gets the girl. Ivan blew it up to 35mm William Castle and Roger Corman, and I and sold it to 20th Century Fox, which remember running into him at all-night hor- showed it all over Canada with the Dustin ror shows. And he really liked comedies. Hoffman movie, John and Mary. I was about PEARY: Reitman seems to have an extraor- "A lot of things have four years older than Ivan and Danny, and dinary sense about which comedies will be changed in my attitude, already in graduate school, which seemed a genuinely popular. lot older. But I was very impressed with MEDJUCK: He thinks that if he makes a but I can't tell whether them, guys who actually made movies. So movie that he likes, and it's good, people it has do with the we got very friendly—Ivan, Danny, Peter will go see it. You know, when we were and I—and we started a film distribution doing Ghostbusters, everyone thought we business, or being older, company called New . were nuts. It was very expensive with special or having children, or We got New Line films from New York, effects, and everyone kept comparing it to including John Waters films, No Vietnamese 1942, the Spielberg movie. It's only after its living in Los Angeles, Ever Called Me Nigger, and Godard's success that people said, "Hey, it had Bill or in the States instead Sympathy For the Devil. But Ivan really Murray and , how could it wanted to make films, not be in the distribu- flop?" The studio didn't want to make Dave of Canada:' Joe Medjuck tion business, so he eventually dropped out. with . They didn't want to make But we stayed friends. He went to Montreal it for what it was going to cost, and they and worked as a partner for Cinepix, even- didn't want to release it when it was tually producing 's released. But Ivan had read the script and

take one film in canada winter 199+ PHOTO: UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS

said, "This is what I want to do. I will make it MEDJUCK: We often make "gang come- but a bit disconcerting. We're so used to work. Kevin Kline will be great, and people dies," and we are a gang. We work togeth- being together. will go see it." I remember a couple of years er and hang out together all the time. PEARY: Considering your art house Take ago having a big fight about a picture with a Besides Ivan, there's Danny, one of Ivan's One days, do you ever get tired making studio. The guys from the studio said, "We oldest friends, who runs the television divi- upbeat, mainstream Hollywood movies? think you're wrong, but it's on your head," sion, and Michael Chinich, a casting director MEDJUCK: I'm not very interested in pes- in a very grudging way allowing us to do it. I who is our new director of development. He simistic movies personally. I think they're was ready to get angry. But Ivan remained works with me on scripts. Sheldon Kahn, counter-productive. I find a lot of things calm. "That's why we paid all this money," who edited Ghostbusters and Beethoven, is have changed in my attitude, but I can't tell he said. Certainly with Ivan, the buck stops on staff. Mike Gross, who was art director whether it has do with the business, or with him. of the National Lampoon, often shares pro- being older, or having children, or living in PEARY: Do you ever have disagreements? ducing credit with me. He is very visually Los Angeles, or in the States instead of MEDJUCK: I make my opinion known and oriented. I tend to work on scripts and cast- Canada. All of these things have affected make sure everyone involved understands ing, and Mike tends to work with art direc- me. I mean, I am still interested in filmmak- my point of view. But I have a lot of respect tors and cameramen. He designed the ers like Jane Campion, but those aren't the for the people I work with, and if they all posters for Twins and Ghostbusters, and he films I know how to make. On the other disagree with me I tend to back down. For often does second unit. Universal is building hand, I really like the Fugitive and I don't better or for worse, we're usually in sync. a six million dollar building for us, Northern think I know how to do that either • PEARY: Is there an "auteurist" theme to Lights Entertainment offices. Right now, Gerald Peary teaches and writes about Ivan Reitman productions? we're in separate cottages, which is lovely Canadian film in Boston.

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