Peter_Bogdanovich

Well, I loved being a part of that show. It was very invigorating, challenging and exciting. David Chase is a genius. He created an extraordinary show. I felt privileged to be a part of it.

I'd like to get away from the comic books and the cartoons. And get back to making pictures about people. The sad thing about the state of American movies today is that in the Golden Age of Movies - from 1921-1962, about, a convenient 50 years - there were adults making films for adults, despite the production code. Now we have adults making films for teenagers (male teenagers, mainly).

I think it's a sad state of affairs, frankly.

Well, I think there's no question that since THE SOPRANOS - THE SOPRANOS raised the bar quite high. There's been a number of shows, series, after that that I don't think would've happened without the SOPRANOS, like BREAKING BAD, or MAD MEN, for example.

And I think there's more creativity in series television than there is in most movies.

There's no mileage left for me, but that doesn't mean the public feels the same way. Younger people seem to like those superhero movies. They bore the hell out of me.

I'll tell you why, too: they're largely driven by special effects. And now that they've proven they can do anything in special effects, I don't give a damn anymore!

Pretty much the same way I felt when I wrote the book.

I don't think my opinion has changed very much. The book said what I felt.

It was a more emotional report from the front, so to speak.

And I don't know if I would couch it in exactly the same words.

But overall, I think what happened I described pretty accurately.

WHAT'S UP, DOC? was the most fun I ever had making a picture.

I thought they'd all be like that. The whole thing was fun.

That was not necessarily the case.

But it was a lot of fun making that picture. Barbara and Ryan were delightful, and introduced Madeline Kahn to pictures, and she was great - just a terrific experience, in that it translated to the audience - audiences had a lot of fun with it. And we had a lot of fun making it!

Yes. It has been. Our producers, Philippe, and Frank Marshall, have both checked the quality of the negatives in Europe - and it's in mind condition, very good shape. It's all there. So that was a relief to find that out. There's no problem at all with the negative.

Well, it wasn't really a work print. Orson edited a number of different sequences from the picture, but they weren't sequential, they were all over the place, just whatever he felt like doing. The Other Side Of the Wind is complicated by the fact that during the movie, you also are exposed to seeing sequences from a movie that John Huston's character was supposedly making. And those sequences are rather sexual, and surprisingly sensual. Orson didn't make sequences like that usually, but in this case he did, because he was creating sequences that were supposedly made by John Huston's character. And most of what Orson cut together were those sequences, probably because they're the most difficult - it's very hard to figure out exactly how to cut that material. So luckily, most of those sequences were edited by Orson.

Eh - well, I don't know that they ever discussed it. I mean, John once said "What is this movie about?" and Orson said "It's about a bastard director John, it's about us."

So in a sense, it was about a number of directors. I remember Orson trying to figure out who to cast in the picture. For a long time, he thought he would play it, but I remember very vividly standing on a street corner in Paris, just after we'd had a meal at a restaurant that Orson knew about that I could never find again, and Orson was saying "It's such a great part. WHY should I give it to John! Why don't I play it myself? But goddamnit, he's RIGHT for it!"

And so, as Orson said, it was about a macho, hairy-chested, John Ford, Raoul Walsh, Bill Wellman kind of director. And Orson really wasn't like that.

So it isn't really autobiographical in that sense at all.