WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1349 - Michael Mann

Episode Date: July 18, 2022

When Michael Mann talks with Marc about his 1995 crime epic Heat, he has such command of the deep backstory and destinies of all the film’s characters, it seems like he has a whole Heat Universe in his head. Which is one reason he wrote the new expanded story Heat 2: A Novel. But Marc finds out that Michael does this type of extensive research and world-building for all his films, and they talk about everything from Thief to The Last of the Mohicans to The Insider to Ali to Collateral to Miami Vice and so much more.  Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated

category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die we control nothing beyond that

an epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel to show your true heart is to risk your life when I die here you'll never leave

Japan alive FX's Shogun a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney Plus 18 plus subscription required T's and C's apply.

Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuckadelics? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast, WTF. Welcome to to it if you're new here welcome if uh if you're regulars nice to see you thank you

thank you no no no thanks nice to see you uh if you're new just hang out uh you'll get the hang of it just sit and listen that's all sit and listen or listen wherever you're gonna listen drive and listen run and listen walk and listen cook and listen or listen wherever you're going to listen. Drive and listen, run and listen, walk and listen, cook and listen. I don't, whatever you got to do, whatever you got to do. If you're in the hospital, hope you're feeling all right. If you're using me to get to sleep, which I find many people do, good night, sleep well. All right. I don't want to be too heavy.

If you're just trying to doze off a little bit. If you're sweating while you're listening to me, it's fine. Hey, wherever you got to take me. If you're on a plane, whatever you got to do. Today, I talked to Michael Mann. Michael Mann is one of the great directors and I don't know everything about him I did go and watch a lot of films I had seen of his like Thief and Manhunter and I re-watched Heat right before I talked to the guy he's also the director and writer of movies like the Last of the Mohicans The Insider Ali Miami Vice And he's here because he's now a novelist. He just wrote Heat 2, which he plans to make into a movie.

But right now it's a book and it comes out in a couple of weeks. But I've been very taken with the work of Michael Mann lately. I watched Thief like three or four times times i watched it when it came out i watched it again in between when it came out and when i talked to james khan i watched it just before i talked to james khan it was james khan's favorite work that he did r.i.p uh we lost james khan and i just i do need to tell you that i recorded this interview with michael man before james khan and i just i do need to tell you that i recorded this interview with michael man before james khan died but uh but james khan loved thief but it was exciting to talk to the guy enjoyed it hands-on all the interviews are hands-on i can never

sweep through an interview i can't autopilot an interview. Everything's all in. So Vegas, the shows were great, and the area was great, and I relaxed. I didn't go to a casino at all. I ran into, well, I knew he was out there. He hit me to being out there. John Swab, the director I talked to about body brokers,

he was out there just burning off some, he had a deal on a room and he just finished shooting a movie, so he was taking a break and we hung out. We did a little secret society situation, and then we had some breakfast. He gave me this amazing book. He gave me a copy of Larry Clark's Tulsa. It almost made me cry.

He's friends with, I think, Larry Clark's guy, the archivist, the estate manager, whatever. But it's one of the great books of photography, one of the great phonojournalistic, a pioneer of the raw shit. But it's like a first edition signed to come with a print, came with a print. Larry Clark's Tulsa. What a great, those two books that Larry Clark did, Teenage Lust and Tulsa, man, just game changing photographs. And I was so fucking thrilled. Couldn't believe it. It came out of nowhere. What a guy. He came to both shows, talked movies and talked sobriety and talked life and had a nice time for a few hours. I went to the club, the Wise Guys Club.

Keith opened up a club. He's got the club in Salt Lake City. He's got another couple in Utah, but he opened up this Vegas joint. But the shows were just, the club is great. I don't, it's, that arts district is, it's great. You don't even feel the fucking weight or the pull of the strip and four shows and they were i mean those club shows man when there's no distance between me and an audience 150 people i'm gonna put it out there and those second shows

get loopy and weird and riffy. That second show Saturday night was dirty and good. I've been doing this a long time. And I've got to be honest with you. I'm fucking good at it. And Little Esther, Esther Povitsky was great. Great opener for me. And I'm just trying. I'm using openers a little more now so I can get this.

So I can get the time to where it needs to be, like 73, 75 minutes. Tight. Figure out what needs to go, what doesn't need to go. My father was there. Friday night first show. His wife drove him out. She's got family nearby, so they came. And he saw the shit.

He saw the shit. He saw the new stuff I'm doing about him. I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it, but I did it. And he took it like he usually does and laughed. And it's only now I think that, you know, he probably forgot by now. But I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

It was good to see him. This stuff is really tightening up and coming along. There's like four massive bits in there. I'm excited to do The Hour months from now for HBO. But I'm working on it and always new stuff. Did some, I like when I do those riff shows, like second show Saturday night where I just, I surprise myself.

And I'm'm like where did that come it's a gift man it comes from where it comes from that weird mingling of the ether and whatever's in your brain those moments where something is just revealed to me at the same time it's revealed to the audience and i'm like i never thought about that where did that come from great audiences i should mention that uh young comic jack knight who i didn't know that well but i used to see a lot at the comedy store um he's a pure in the sense that we work together he's he's passed he's he's dead at 28 and it's fucking horrendous it's just horrendous the void it leaves in the community when somebody tragically dies one way or the other he was a funny guy and uh and i don't know what happened i don't know what happened it's a tragic tragic loss so look michael man is uh one of the great directors

no one you know he's got his own style he's an auteur and uh he's he's old school in the way of being a guy that's in charge of his shit. Like I've talked to a lot of these guys. You know, Ridley Scott, William Friedkin. These, you know, big personality. A tone that they create that is uniquely theirs. Certainly Michael Mann. Definitely Friedkin too.

But he's here to talk about not only his life and his movies, but this new novel, Heat 2. A novel comes out on August 9th, but you can pre-order it right now. And this is me talking to Michael Mann about a lot of stuff. And again, this was recorded before the passing of James Caan. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer.

I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. I'll tell you what I did today.

Yeah. I watched Heat. Okay. I watched, and to be honest with you, I don't think I've seen it since it came out. I mean, what year did it come out? 95 I remember that those of us who were into films

were so excited that De Niro and Pacino were going to be together let me ask you just out of the gate because I'm curious after watching it were they together? of course I remember there was a rumor around

it's nonsense I had a third camera they were shooting a two shot but every time every time we went to it you know the you you know the air went out of the balloon you lost the intimacy so therefore it was just you just kept it going like that kept going like that and not only that but i but I shot with three cameras simultaneously. Yeah. So if the one camera shooting Al moved this much, you'd see the other camera. Oh, okay. And the reason for that was because I knew these guys were so, you know, that scene was the nexus of everything.

Yeah. And we really protected it to make sure it was going to be shot at exactly the right time and how we prepped it. And I was so attuned to it that I knew that there was all kinds, at every level, there'd be this organic performance. So that take eight would be different than take nine for both guys. Okay. Because if Al did a slighter shift of his body a little bit and his right hand moved down his thigh a little bit where his gum might be holstered. You can see De Niro spot that. And so every tiny little thing, and as brilliant animals, which we are, we perceive more than

we know we perceive. Right. And there's an organic unity. So almost the whole scene is all take 11. No kidding. It's all one take, you know. And De Niro did notice when he moved his hand? Like, in his character, he noticed that.

Totally. They're so totally in character and so of that moment. And because if you imagine how distant they are from each other as opposites. And Pacino knows that there's no point in maintaining his blown surveillance i've got nothing to lose right while i'm more about him so he does the outrageous thing and wants to meet him deniro has the same motive why does he go to have coffee with him because he's got i'm going to get something right and also he knows that pacino is not going to move on him unless he gets him big not going to move on him unless he gets him big. Not going to move on unless he gets him big, and I'm going to know something,

and he's thinking to himself, I may find myself in a jam, and I'm jackpotted, and I will have a split second to intuitively decide whether to zig or zag, and I will get something from meeting this guy who's after me. So both are thinking the same thing, so they go. Now, they start with the dialogue about, you know, where were you in prison and all those things. By the end of it, they're sharing their dreams in the most intimate moments. Yeah.

The way they see the world is the same. Yeah. Right. Both know time is short. Both know, like, good existentialists in a funny way with a very low case E that use what you build into it. That's what it is. That's what, that's what is,

that's what reality is. So they're the only two people in the universe of the film who have the same perspective on life. Yeah. Uh, obviously, obviously the Pacino character, Hannah has got a compass of sorts.

There's objective reality, sociopath and Macaulay, except for this small group, does not. If you get in his way, you know, for brains to get wet, that's his attitude about all life. I'm talking about Macaulay. Sure, sure. But I mean, what's interesting, though, in that, yeah, he's got a moral compass. Pacino does. But it seems like even like going back to Thief that this sort of bond and the loyalty in the sense of, I don't know if it's friendship, that thieves have is somewhat of a compass.

Oh, that's true. Within that nuclear family, he's bonded to his crime partners. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's why he rescues Chihuly, the Valcoma character. he rescues shahurless the velcoma the velcoma character but both of them see life as transient and and momentary and you know and they're they're solitary they're they're solitary right but they're the only characters like that in the film that's okay yeah yeah yeah yeah because uh

because uh sizemore's character is like dug in he saved his money he's got it you know he could have a life sizemore more as Mr. Family Bear. Right, right. And that cut that you made to the cops at the same, almost the same party. Right. Right? Yeah.

To show that. But what I didn't remember, which was most of the movie, and because it's right in my head today, and it's rare that I think this, and obviously he wrote an entire book to sort of do the before and after of that film Was that when he goes back because of that, you know that for that flaw of pride to go kill Wango or what what his name what we're going to bring grow

It was satisfying Like it like there's the antihero you're rooting for the bad guy a lot of times I wouldn't have minded if De Niro lived and got away. I kind of wanted it. Right. But his decision to go shoot that guy like he shot him, in a very specific way that he shot him, you know, look at me, look at me.

I felt like that character had done everything he needed to do in his life. 20 minutes earlier in the film, the guy that became the movie never, ever would have gone to Wengro. Yeah. And the reason he went for Wengro is because he's lost his navigational instrument altogether. But it's ego, right? It's not ego.

No? No, it's that he's, is that he has, he lives by a rigid code of have nothing in your life you can't walk out in 30 seconds flat, no attachments because and it's a risk versus reward equation and so he lives in a universe in which there's total causality and it's a risk versus reward equation and so he lives in a universe in which there's total causality and it's totally rigid and and the conceit of the film is

that the way you think of the world is the way your fate's going to turn out okay as opposed to like shahurless is post-modernist and he does all kinds of mistakes and he still valkyries valkyrie right valkyrie not de niro de niro's character if he deviates from this rigid almost catechism of how to be everything there has to be repercussions and he never would have when they when he and ed drive through the the tunnel where the light changes yeah you, he never would have been swayed. You know, it's almost like I bared my chest to her. I ripped my heart out of my chest and just said, you know, everything I wanted to do and everything I've been doing this for doesn't mean anything if you're not with me.

Yeah. And it's spontaneous. And he wins and she's going to go with him yeah and so then it's almost like i guess i can be spontaneous right you know and so that then opens him up he becomes vulnerable to being turned by by by emotions and and feelings that it wouldn't have been before so nate says to him i know you're not good i need to tell you because i'm obligated to i know you're not going to go for it but here's where Wayne grow is he goes to that tunnel of light and something comes over him and he turns off the freeway now we shot that scene telling like three times we completed the night

shooting and I looked at Bob and he looked at me and I said we don't have it he said yeah I know went back into the second time and it's it is only the what's what was in bob's head yeah played on his face that we knew we didn't get it the first and second time we did it a third time and we knew we had it and were you telling him that oh we're both talking about you and bob yeah absolutely like i need to see it we didn't i said it's not it's okay but it's not really there he says yeah i know oh yeah oh Then we're going to do it again. I mean, he is a spectacular actor to work with, obviously. Right.

But you're saying the reason the character did that was because he had to do it. He had to do it because he lost his navigation. It's like a boat without a rudder. He lost his navigation by being vulnerable, by letting her in. And he should have let her in. I get it, yeah. What he's saying is the truth. I mean, these are the contradictions.

They're so rich to me and why I think this is kind of a universe, because this is the contradictions that are in our life. They're both true. It's not contradictory. You know, I mean, it really is. Nothing he's after means anything if she's not with him. He said, my life's you know i'm a needle starting at zero and going the other way and that's what he decided midway through the

movie i mean like you know like he was the guy that said he you can't don't stick with anything you can't leave in 30 seconds exactly and he never would have he never he would after he meets her accidentally in the belt in the broadway deli sure and And then he goes home. They have sex. They make love. He leaves a glass of water. He folds a napkin around it the way you do in prison where everything is kind of this Bonnaroo, you know,

kind of thing. And he's going to go away and he is going to just have the memory of her and that's it. And he's never going to call her again. Never going to happen. Except he's seeing everybody together in the Chinese restaurant. The empty chair moment. And so he weakens, and he calls her. Yeah.

She says, I thought it was only the one night. Not for me, it wasn't, she says. Yeah, it's a strange turn. It's a strange turn, yeah. Yeah. So now, have you been kind of ruminating about these characters for you know what 30 years to do a book well they they never they were alive before i wrote the movie and did the movie and they're alive after i did the movie because a long time after the movie well they never

stopped being alive because they um the invention is much greater than that slice of time that the movie occupies. Yeah. So the movie is a 1995 sliver. I mean, I know the character's alive. For me, I know what Neil McCauley was doing when he was 11, when he was institutionalized. You knew that when you made the movie? Oh, totally. I have to know everything about the character.

I have to know where they come from. I have to know where they come from. I have to know why he is the way he is. I have to know why he speaks the way he does, why he moves. But do you do that with all your films then? Yes. And I dive as deeply as I can into the authentic milieu, the social milieu, and get with. If I'm going to do Thief, I'm going to hang with Thiefs. Yeah, you know, it's interesting about that movie.

But yeah, I mean, but like with Ali, I mean, now in order, that guy's got a biography. But the fictional movies, like even if you didn't write them, do you build a backstory? Absolutely. Especially, it gets interesting when you try to do Mohicans in 1757, you know? Yeah. So how do you get the same it's kind of like uh what i aspire to is kind of a cultural immersion almost like uh i don't know like a british cultural anthropologist where you really want to you know i have to be able to imagine i am this current person this is my value system this is how I come out to a girl. This is what I think about life.

And that's what's operative in big time and heat. It's a different situation when you're obviously doing a period film. Sure. Because you could do the period physical world, the wardrobe, the locations, everything else. For me, I've got to have a period attitude. I've got to know what their values are. I've got to know what their values are. I've got to know what period psychology is. What's the psychology of the Iroquois in 1757?

And how did you find that out? There was this spectacular Harvard historian named Parkman who in the 1870s did a version of oral history where he talked to very old people who, when they were very young, talked to their grandparents who lived through the summer of 1757, lived through August of 1757, and related stories. That plus there's nothing, we know nothing about the Mohicans, but we know all about the neighboring tribe, the Mohawks, who spoke a different language. But the Six Nations are the Iroquois.

So most of the cultural take and the psychological take is all Iroquois. So now, I just talked to Robert Eggers, the guy who did the Northmen and Witch and the Lighthouse. He's also a very meticulous dude. the Northmen and Witch and the Lighthouse. He's also a very meticulous dude. And in The Witch, he made them construct the house of the period, which was pre-colonial America, with only tools that were available at the time.

Do you go that deep? Yeah. Cameron's cabinet in front of Mohican's, the crops are the real crops. Okay. It's crazy. Is it crazy, though? It's not crazy.

It's great. I mean, why not do it if you can? Yeah. And we needed to grow the crops about seven weeks. We found, and they were the actual crops that they would have planted. Yeah. We found some hybrid seeds that were genetically engineered for mountainous environments. We had very short growing seasons. So we grew all of our corn in like seven or eight weeks or something.

But the whole house was just a real log cabin. We built a fort for real. The fort was real. I mean, obviously it's going to look correct in the camera, but I imagine that the sort sort of uh energy it creates fantastic it's fantastic it's it's there in every gesture of all the actors the the uh you're bringing people who have not who they've read about and they've talked about their heritage their history they've never been an environment where they could stand and they could look through about 270

degrees and there's nothing that is not 18th century. I'm talking about the American Indians who are Native Americans who are on the show. And then for Daniel, same thing. I mean, he trained for eight months. And so he could do everything that Hawkeye would have been able to do. And it culminated in one week in a national forest in Georgia where if Daniel didn't trap it or shoot it, he didn't eat. And it was land navigation. I mean, all of this stuff.

Well, that's his thing, right? He'll go deep. Yeah, but the payoff of that is the authenticity. It's why sometimes if you're lucky, these things sustain in memory. They sustain in culture because there's a deep truth-telling resonance to it that I believe audiences are quite brilliant. And they know things they don't even know. There's a truth-telling resonance, I think, that stays with audience, and they stay emotionally hooked in. They like the movie.

They like the music. They like this, like that. But it's something deeper than that. It's a truth to it. Yeah. And that's what- A human truth that transcends whatever is necessary. So that's why Eggers-

You tap in. Yeah. I had my three old girls, our four daughters, three of them were with me when we were shooting the cab. And his daddy, do not burn down that cab. Sexist. Honey, that's the story. Yeah, but you're the boss, Dad. You don't have to burn it down if you don't want to.

We want to live here. Oh, they loved it. They loved it. But I mean, going back, I mean, how long does it take you to prep? Because I know you've done a lot of stuff, but you make very specific choices about the films you do, and it must take forever. Yeah, but it's a great adventure. Sure.

That's the whole thing, right? It's a fabulous adventure. I'm driven by content and creating content. That's it. So I'm not a journeyman director. Right. And, yeah, so on Mohicans, it was, you know, we were prepping for probably close to a year. For Ali, we prepped for eight, nine months.

Will prepped for 11 months. On Ali, same thing. Yeah. And it was, because the boldness of that decision for Will to try and be Muhammad Ali is awesome. Yeah. It is a, you know, and you start analyzing footage of Ali. Yeah. Particularly when he's wrapping some of his rhyming couplets and stuff.

And you see how complex the language is. Sometimes he has three different identities. Uh-huh. And he's himself, then he's Uncle Rima's voice, then he's a different kind of voice. And it's really complex stuff. So to really get that right takes quite a bit.

He was great as Ali, I thought. He was terrific. I mean, he was Ali. And it wasn't until about the... By the way, he boxed every morning, five days a week for probably nine to ten months. Yeah. And I had Angelo Dundee there.

I had everybody. He's still alive, right? Yeah. Yeah. Bring in. How about Ali? Ali was there all the time. Oh, yeah.

And during the shooting. He must have loved it. He did because it was like a time trip. One of his favorite things in life was his bus you love driving around his bus over here yeah bus and then i had i had when we were location scouting in 1984 for the miami vice pilot the fifth street gym was still there and we had videotaped it and somebody reminded me you know i think in our storage we have video of the actual fifth street gym, which had subsequently been torn down.

And we did. So it's like, you know, it's like time travel for him to be able to walk in the gym. How was his brain at that point? His brain was always good. He was the muscles? The Parkinson's affected his speech. Okay. Parkinson's affected his speech.

Okay. And so people think that because you're speaking that way, perhaps you have Alzheimer's or you're slightly autistic or something. And then the normal human reaction to that is to accept that. It's kind of a bad feedback. And a lot of people with Parkinson's, because people start regarding them a certain way. Like they can't understand. But not Ali.

Ali's mind was sharp. Yeah. So a lot of the with Parkinson's. Sure. Because people start regarding them a certain way. Like they can't understand. But not Ali. Ali's mind was sharp. Yeah. So a lot of the movies go back to Chicago, and you're from Chicago. Right. Now- Inner City, Chicago. But you're not from a crime family. I'm not from a crime family.

How did you grow up? How did I grow up? Yeah, like what was the family situation? What did the old man do? Lower middle class, working class, family, inner city. Yeah. Directors from Chicago who grew up in the suburbs make comedies. Yeah.

Directors from Chicago who grew up in the city, like Billy Friedkin or myself, we do not make comedies. It's an interesting thing about you and Friedkin, because I was thinking about live and die in L.A., and I'm like, you know, it looks like he was watching some of your movies. I don't know. don't know uh so uh grew up in the near north side yeah then we moved further north went to what business was your family in my father had a small independent like supermarket thing that eventually went out of business when they opened up a big jewel tea right next to them. My grandfather had a small cab company, one cab, two cabs. I drove a cab. I pretty much half worked my way through university.

And you got brothers and sisters? I have one brother. My parents were, my dad was terrific. He died too young at 56 when I was about 23. And, you know, so it was. Jewish? Yeah. Yeah.

Conservative? No. No. My father was progressive. My grandmother was very progressive. Oh, yeah. My grandmother lived through the Russian Revolution. mother lived through the russian revolution um my uh my father volunteered to world war ii saw a lot of combat oh yeah and battle of the bulge he was 33 when he went in and at 33 he didn't have

to go in that's old to go in um but he came to this country when he was 10 and felt uh patriotic duty to to fight did you ever talk to him about that? Oh, yeah. Yeah? Yeah. He would talk about it? Yeah. When we went in the 50s, when we went to movies, we'd go to the movies at 10 in the morning on Sunday

because he couldn't be in crowds. They didn't have terms like PTSD back then. But he had it, huh? Yeah. He had a lot of issues that came from the combat that he saw. He was wounded and then went back on the front line and then became an MP. Wow, so was that your first movie experiences with your old man? Going to the movies?

Those were my first movie experiences, but I had zero interest in cinema. I had no idea at all that i wanted to be a film director right but were movies landing with you were you like you know with um a big party of life blast the mohicans landed with me when i was three or four and didn't realize it until 1991 i could not figure out what the hell to do interesting next and i said wait a minute i've had two things rattling around in my brain since I was three. One is this tragedy of this girl falling off a cliff. I don't know where it comes from. And the second thing is this notion of these spectacular looking Native Americans with British

soldiers in red coat uniforms. I don't know where they came from. Remember, you've been thinking about seeing the black and white, last of the Mohicans in 1936, and you were seeing it probably in 1946 in the basement of a church near where we lived on Humboldt Park. And you tracked it. You figured it out, though. I said, yeah. And then I went to Joe Roth and Roger Birnbaum at Fox, and I said, I got a crazy idea. There hasn't been a period movie in 10 years. Let's make Last of the Mohicans. They said, great idea. Let's do it. It was that difficult.

So when did you start taking an interest in movies? Probably I took a, I was tortured about trying to figure out what to do with my life. Who shall I be in this world? What were your options in your mind? In the late 20s. What were you considering? Everything. I was an English lit major, but I took a lot of history courses, a lot of philosophy courses. I took geology courses. I wanted to be a psychologist for about 11 minutes.

Yeah. And then, you know, and I said, okay, I'm going to write. I'm going to be a novelist, you know. And then I took a course in film history, taught by the first course in film history at the University of Wisconsin. And I remember the exact moment that I was walking down Bascom Hill. It was in January. It was freezing cold, but dry and beautiful.

You see every star in the sky. And about 10 at night, it just hit me. You're going to make movies. This is what you're going to do. Huh. And so I'd just seen maybe Pabst's Joyless Street or something. Yeah. And this is what you're going to do.

And it just hit me. It's like a bolt of lightning. And it may have been something else. I was also, you know, Captain of Dr. Caligari, you know, all of those. It's fantastic cinema. And Eisenstein, who still is relevant today as ever. What, like Potemkin? Potemkin.

Yeah. You know, and I'd read Film Form and Film Sense. Sure. Film Theory. When you say something like he's relevant today, to this day, what parts of Eisenstein? Well, we're talking about heat, dialectic. Okay, right.

Dialectic, the collision of ideas. The language of film. The language of film or the language of film narrative, the whole of the narrative and of the experience on every different level. And because that's exactly what heat is. Heat is all of these points of view crashing together into the end and when you're with any one character not only are you emotionally believe in what he wants and emotionally connected to him you also see the world the way he sees the world and on top of that, I made happen, I made fate work for him as a function of his view of the way life is. Right, yeah.

And one of the fascinating characters is Sheherlis, who doesn't have a view. Right. And is kind of a postmodernist. And he just slides by. But also a romantic. Kind of. He's romantic. He's screwed up.

He makes mistakes. And he slides. He's a romantic. He's screwed up. He makes mistakes and he slides. She does that blackjack deal to wave with her hand, which you really should let him be captured because her life and her kid's life is in jeopardy. She doesn't.

And then he smiles and she just gives him a pass. So when you decide to do that, you're an undergrad? Yeah, and that was it. I was in my junior year, and then I started looking for how to, okay, I don't know how sound gets on film. I know nothing about this. What do you do? Go to film school. What film school?

And there was no internet, of course, so you're going to the library and looking at the syllabus for ucla yeah and you didn't want to go to ucla you want to go to i didn't know i didn't know anything i probably would have been probably would have been a good place to go yeah also or usc even yeah if it when i you read the syllabus it felt very dry and technical okay now coppola also has said that who went to USC there was dry and technical yeah and so I couldn't there was there were only like three or four film schools in America back then and where'd you go London see you let in film school yeah I was also staying out of Vietnam so it wasn't that was in it you were trying to stay out of Vietnam I was saying out of Vietnam I was my brother

my dad totally supported that. He thought anybody who was a World War II veteran who wanted their kid to go to Vietnam had to be in a quartermaster corps. They had not seen combat. But he must have felt at what point, what year are we talking? He must have thought. 65. Oh, so we really didn't know politically what was happening. He just knew combat was bad.

Well, I did from 63. You started to feel like this is a gigantic mistake and this is the wrong. So how'd you stay out? Just by staying in college? I stayed in college for two years and then I had a, I started writing posts. There was a draft board in Chicago. Yeah. And there was a, and I get yeah and there was a and I get these

form letters I'm a university student yeah I was very active in the anti-war movement Europe and when you're in London politically active and those years 66 67 and every three months you get something for draft board and there's a lady's name on the bottom said senator a postcard every five or six months saying you know something really profound like it rains a lot in london you know something nothing nothing nothing i did this for like two and a half years one day i got a letter back saying i read in your in your file that you have asthma if you can have a doctor say that you still have asthma you know you will you're out you're one why you know and so i did and that was it was this yeah so in london like once you decide because of a couple movies you saw that this was your calling

you know how do you set about modeling a vision for yourself you make mistakes it's what you do in film school you go to film school and you make and and you i believe that people should go to film school with a great liberal arts education which i was fortunate enough to have and then you go and you make films that are totally embarrassing and awful like short films you mean yes absolutely you know symbolic and you make all those mistakes early on yeah take all those shots when you left with a liberal arts education i mean what were the stories that that moved you the most that were kind of templates for your way of thinking in terms of story uh how to do well first of all i became very interested in national duration

front movements they were going on in angola and mozique. In film school in London, a third of the students were Americans who were not going to go to Vietnam. Then there were South Africans who, if they got sent back to South Africa, were going directly to jail. They were Portuguese because in 1965, the war in Angola was bigger than the war in Vietnam until Salazar died in 1974. bigger than the war in Vietnam until Salazar died in 74. So, you know, I did some film work during the end of the May-June 68 in Paris. So those were the, you know, that's, so we were thinking about doing that. And then short film, that kind of thing. You're thinking about change.

Well, I mean, making, you know, this inflamed everybody. I mean, part of the rapport I had with Ali is that what made him crazy on the 6 o'clock news in 19, I mean, violently crazy on the news in 67 on a Tuesday night made me crazy at the same time. He was one year older than me. And so there was another. And he had a very sophisticated understanding of global struggle because Muhammad Speaks, the Nation of Islam newspaper, the center part of that was all about third world struggles. Yeah. Back in 64, 65, 66.

So you saw your films. So were you thinking about a career in movies or were you thinking about doing political movies? I was thinking about a career in movies and the subject matter I was taken with was political given the times. Right. And the polarization, which was radical.

What were some of the movies or examples of that that you enjoyed? Wild Bunch was massively impressive. Oh my God. 67. I just watched that again. So good. It's so good. Take a look at what films were nominated in 1967.

It's like a hit list of about 10 films. It's unbelievably rich, prolific. What's amazing that always stands out with me when I watch that movie, which I've done several times, I like Peckinpah, is those kids with that scorpion and those ants at the beginning. Right. It's the whole movie.

It's the whole movie. It's the whole movie. The whole movie. It's like it just blows me away every time. So who are you working with over there in London? I've talked to some guys. You knew Ridley Scott? I knew Ridley.

Yeah. I knew Ridley briefly. Yeah. And who else is coming up with you? Anybody? Michael Lay. Yeah. A lot of guys who I went to film school with went to work in World in Action, which was

an investigative journalist on ITVv which made 60 minutes look like ding dong school i mean these guys were like you know parachuting in to interview regis de bray this kind of stuff oh no shit did you do any work with that did you do any jobs i just knew a lot of it but when i was doing um some early research on um on triads in hong. One of my closest friends, a guy named Gavin McFadgen, who set up the Frontline Club in London in later years, he and I did all that together. And we were able to really penetrate deep into triads and also some aspects of the drug trade and the Golden Triangle, No shit. Researching something in around 1980, 79 and 80. And it's because of his investigative journalism techniques that that was the real inroad into it.

Michael Apted came out of that background. He was world in action too. It's a whole bunch of people. Did some of that international crime come into this one, into the novel, the new one? Absolutely. So it's all in there, in the back of your head. It's all in there. Yeah, yeah.

And then it keeps on keeping on. Do you connect it through Vietnam, through the Hannah character? I connected to Vietnam because we tried to do Way in 1968. Yeah. The Mark Bowden, the fabulous Mark Bowden book. And we came very, very close to doing it at FX with a fantastic executive there, John Landgraf. Yeah, I know that guy.

Right. I'm working with him now. Okay. I mean, I just saw, he's a great guy. Smart guy. Really smart. Yeah. And we were coming to the point of a decision just at the time that Disney was doing the takeover, and it became impossible to go forward with it.

Oh, okay. All right. But in the book, I know Pacino's character, Hannah, is a vet, right? Yeah. And I put him right in the Battle of Way of 1968. Right there. Right there. All right. So what was put them right in the Battle of Way of 1968. Right there, right there. All right.

So what was your first job in the films? My first job that I got, I worked in London for a while, had a small, tiny production company. We made some commercials. So you started a business in London? Yeah, well, on five guineas, five pounds, five shillings. It's like the Mel Brook thing. You put your hand on a rock, look up in the sky and say, I am a production company. Right.

And that's how he started. Yeah. And then went back. You produced commercials? Yeah, we made some commercials and shorts and tried to get a screenplay written on something that happened in Sri Lanka. Were commercials helpful technique-wise? Yeah, but it was, yes. I made three, four commercials.

One of them, you know, Brands Hatch in a GT40, which was a lot of fun. And then my dad died in 69 and went back to Chicago and set up a little production company there and did the same thing and then moved out to the coast in about 70, 71. Wow, so films are really kind of happening out to the coast in about 70, 71. Wow. So film's already kind of happening then, independent film in a way,

or at least independent thinkers. I probably got her just in time for all the youth movies after Easy Rider, all the bad youth movies to flop. Right. Sure. I picked that moment in time to arrive. The Corman ripoffs? You know, the ones that-

All of them. Yeah. The ones he was churning out after Easy Rider. But then there was a couple of good movies, right? A couple of good ones. When all the bad ones came out, I showed up and tried to get started. What'd you do? And meanwhile, I'd worked for a year at 20th Century Fox in London in a production job,

physical production, which was great. And worked with some really terrific people. And so then basically nothing. I tried to write. Television or movies? Pardon? Movies or television? I was trying to write movies.

And then a guy named Bob Lewin, who was a story editor on a series that was just beginning called Starsky and Hutch. Yeah. Read some of it. Yeah. And I wound up getting a gig writing an episode, which then became the first episode. Then I wrote about three or four of the early ones. Uh-huh.

The series was created by Bill Blinn. Yeah. And then I became a kind of a sought-after television writer very quickly. Okay, okay, yeah. And the plan was to, this is what inner city Chicago, I guess, was pure extortion, like make myself valuable and I won't write it if I can't also direct it. Oh, okay. So that was the way he got in there. And that became The Jericho Mile, which was a movie of the week that did very well.

I won a DGA award and an Emmy that year, and it was released theatrically in Europe. It did well? It did really well, yeah. So that was your first feature? It was a movie of the week in the States. There was a feature in foreign. So I imagine all the TV writing must have helped you

kind of with structure. Totally. there was a feature in in form so i imagine all the tv writing must have helped you you know kind of structure totally you're that's it's a very great it's a great question it's a really valuable insight i learned structure from bob lewin and liam o'brien liam o'brien ran uh a guy named ed waters ran police story yeah what joe wong box yeah i remember that and every episode was based on this relates to heat in a big way every episode was based on a real event and you went and you spent time with the police officer who's was telling you what happened when he was trying to work the freeway sniper who shot a Chinese girl in the head, and she was brain dead. But at 3 in the morning, he was so tortured by his imminent divorce

that he'd go and he'd talk to her even though she couldn't hear him. And you got these human stories that were so deep. Did he do The Onion Field? Was that Wamba? Yeah. I just watched that recently. That's Wamba. It's got some of that Onion Field? Was that Wamba? Yeah. I just watched that recently. That's Wamba. Yeah, it's got some of that.

You can feel that in there. Yeah. But these were stories that would be related to me by the cop who went through it. Yeah, right. And you'd have to probe and get some of this out of them. But Lewin, who read some of my dialogues, said, you know, you've got a great ear for dialogue and you would not know what a story was if it ran you over. Right.

So I'm going to tell you, I'm going to teach you what a story is. Yeah. And I still use the same kind of structural understanding. What is it? How do you lay it out in a one-liner? Lay it out on one piece of paper. What was his pitch? How do you explain story to you?

How do you explain story? If you want to travel from here to Seattle, you know, you're going to Seattle, what's the most exciting way to get to you? I'd explain story. If you want to travel from here to Seattle, you know you're going to Seattle, what's the most exciting way to get to Seattle? That's called story. And what, around two-thirds of the way there, you make a strange decision?

But the whole point is to figure it out when it's not one piece of paper. I get it. Yeah, yeah. So you did that TV work and Thief was the first one that you- Well, Jericho Mile was the first dramatic thing I directed. Okay. And then by that point, I had written Thief. And so then Thief was my first feature film.

And I got to tell you, I talked to James Caan. I did an interview with him. Okay. And he's a one-of-a-kind person. Absolutely. And he's a real ball buster. But I watched all his shit because I wanted to be loaded up. And out of his whole life, that's the movie.

That's his movie. That's the one he loves. Oh, really? That's great to hear. That's the one where he's like, the best one I did is that movie. He's pretty good as Sonny. I mean, I made this film. You know what's funny?

You know what I got out of him about Sonny that I never knew? He said that when he shot the first scene that they did for The Godfather with him as Sonny was that scene in the office where he speaks out of turn with Sollozzo. Right. Remember with the meeting? Yeah. And he says something and his dad gets pissed off at him. He said, we shot that the first day. That was the first thing we did.

And I didn't know who Sonny was. And then he said, but I was hanging around with Don Rickles for some reason. He was running around with Don Rickles and he's like, the ball buster. That's who Sonny is. So the gearbox, the driveshaft of Sonny was Don Rickles. That makes total sense. It does, right? That makes complete sense.

It's crazy. So now, what was the relationship that you had in researching? Because Thief, I watched again. It was hard to find for a while, but then it showed up on Criterion for a while. There's something you have around, you made some decisions, because I watched the first episode of Tokyo Vice as well yesterday. In my recollection, there's a tone you create through light, through music, through close-ups,

but there's, and lighting, it's specifically yours. And it happens immediately. And you know that. So how do you evolve that? I mean, what decisions were you making? What were you going up against, you know, with the films you had seen

to create this thing that is your vision? I don't think of it from an external point of view okay at all i'm not i'm not you know i just focused in on what i want to do and that mission objective is different for for you know from for every film but there's certain things that are similar to my objective is to My objective is to immerse you so deeply in it that you are experiencing something I experience when I'm sitting there and I don't want the movie to end. I'm worried that I'm halfway through. It's going to end soon. Don't end, movie. You know, almost that kind of immersion.

That's my ambition regardless of what the story is. So then that means a whole number that then generates a lot of different avenues of endeavor. And one is to use all aspects of the medium and use it very aggressively. And two, the last thing I'd ever want to do would be

do film theater. There's zero interest in that. And how do I make this more experiential what do you mean film theater well where the you know where the actors are there the talking dialogue and the camera just happens to be recording it okay got it so you okay so you're going to use sight i want to be experienced i'm going to be experiential and and and and to be more as fluid as i could be and and to have all the formal elements serve that purpose as radically as possible.

And, you know, so that starts with knowing everything you can possibly know and having real people around as much as you can. So Thief is very much based on a guy named John Santucci who plays a cop in Thief. Yeah. And there's a tall blonde cop whose name is Charlie Adamson who's in there who beats up Jimmy Kahn when they interrogate him. Charlie killed the real Neil McCauley. From Heat. From Heat in 1963.

Okay. And that coffee shop scene kind of happened at the Belden Deli in Chicago on Clark Street. So these were the cops. The cops. And Santucci's a thief. The thief's based out. So we didn't have any props. We had all John's burglary gear.

Yeah. And then I did Crime Story, and I made a series regular, and he brought his whole world into a lot of the movie with cops oh yeah so there are a lot of thieves playing cops and cops playing thieves all all through all through oh yeah thief yeah yeah yeah um we had what about farina he played one of the uh bad guys dennis was charlie adamson the tall blonde guyonde Guy Dennis was Charlie's partner okay and Dennis was rough

he was and and then after Thief he said you know he really I want to take up acting so he went to

the Goodman Theater then he then he hooked up with Steppenwolf then he hooked up with Billy Peterson's main theater all that

in that great you know golden age of theater in Chicago. Sure. In the 80s. Yeah. And he became an actor. And then I popped him into Miami Vice in a couple episodes.

Sure, yeah. And then he became the lead in Crime Story. Yeah, he's great. He's great. He's great. He's one of my closest friends. He died in 2014. I'm sorry. No, it was horrible. Yeah. He's still of my closest friends. He died in 2014. We were- I'm sorry.

No, it was horrible. Yeah. He's still alive, you know. Yeah. But we were, and we did luck together, and he was a great guy. I'm sorry. Jesus. Yeah.

What happened? He had a, I think he had a blood clot in his arm. Oh. Yeah, that just ran into his heart, and he fell down, and- That was it. They called 911, and he died. He that was it called 9-1-1 and he died he was in scottsdale oh terrible and we were shooting on uh in central in hong kong on black hat and half my crew my crews most of my crews been with me for 20 years so everyone knew him

everybody no we just stopped i just right in the middle of the shoot i just just stopped, pulled a plug, you know. Oh, Jesus. So anyway. So Thief, so this was like, because in all these things you're talking about, the sensory experience, the immersive experience, you know, using Tantor and dream music. And they're like, but the lighting and, you know, I mean, the attention you paid to everything, even clothing became part of the fabric of the film. You know, there are some scenes like in Manhunter as well, similar.

Like there are certain movies I see as more, you know, signature where I can immediately identify the style. It seems like some movies when I'm thinking like Thief, Manhunter, you know, probably Miami Vice, you know, Collateral, where, you know, you immediately are in like within a frame. It's like this is a Michael Mann movie. Now, like when you're doing something like Mohicans, is there a shift you have to make or you just apply it to the story? No, I'm not self-conscious about any of it. I mean, so to me, it's like what kind of light do I want? I started looking at paintings for the period.

You know, how do I want? I started looking at paintings for the period. Yeah. You know, how do I visualize? You know, first of all, the things lit by candle. Yeah. Or if we're doing public enemies, you know, what kind of light sources? Did they have then? Did they have then? Well, they had very dim bulbs.

So if you walk down the street, there's a pool of light. Yeah. And it's dark. Yeah. You have to pull it. And so it has to be different. I'm not self-conscious about, oh, wait a minute, this isn't my signature. No, no, I get it. I get it.

It's like anybody who's dug into their, you have a, yeah, I'm not accusing you of hacking yourself, but your vision is deep enough to where it sort of manifests and no one else really does it unless they're ripping it off but in Thief when you look back at that movie what do you think were your biggest successes in putting that thing together

since it was your first film that really stuck with you where you were like holy shit this is it there's one dialogue scene between like that really stuck with you where you're like, holy shit, this is it. Then I got the – there's one dialogue scene between James Conner, Tuesday Weld, and the diner. That's great. That's 10 minutes. Yeah.

It's a whole reel, back when there were reels. Yeah. And that that could work, that there was a – I thought to myself, wow, what if I told this whole story and he told all his life – how do I get all these things about his life into this? What if he just sits down and tells her? How do I make that happen? Right.

And as a writer, I was thinking these things. And he had the little vision board too, right? The little postcard. Yeah, he's got his montage. I had spent significant time at this point in Folsom, so I knew the way these guys thought. Right. I knew the power of the human intellect in captivity with people who have relatively

strong egos, and the confinement makes them more intellectually aggressive. aggressive. So the kinds of questions I was asked shooting the Jericho Mile in Folsom were wild. I mean, I had convicts who, I had one guy who I said I wanted, you know, I was casting, and one guy had wanted to be in the film, a huge bodybuilder. I wanted to handle his part. He said, man man I can't be in your film I said why not

he said because if I was in your film I would allow I'd be allowing you to appropriate the surplus value of my bad karma and he wasn't

kidding he had read Marx and Engels and he was also Buddhist yeah so you yeah

yeah really okay it made sense, though. There's poetry to it, right? There's poetry to it. Yeah. There's a fantastic poet who's still alive. His name is Spoon Jackson, who wrote a poem that's one of my favorite poems of all time.

It says, you know, realness eats raw meat. It does not waver. Yeah. I mean, it's like this really tough..., philosophical perspective that you start to have, I think, if you're incarcerated. Why am I still here? Why don't I just end this? What is existence? What's time?

What's life? These guys ask themselves these profound questions. And you use those guys in a lot of movies i mean that you use an ex-con character the ex-con character and you know that's there at the core of that yeah yeah yeah i mean at the core of it i mean i'm sure it's probably there too and heat as the same questions i ask myself you know how do i how what i how would i to live what is you know it's the same question we're all asking ourselves. I know, I wrote on a post-it today

because of where I'm at in my life and I just talked to Tony Hawk, the skateboarder, who's still skateboarding at 53. I know, I just saw the documentary. I talked to him today and I'm talking to you and what I wrote down from Heat was Sizemore saying, for me, the action is the juice. That's it, right?

But there's got to be more than that, but it's true. from Heat was Sizemore saying, for me, the action is the juice. That's it, right? Yeah. But there's got to be more than that, but it's true. And that's the guy you've got as the family man. Mr. Family values, right? Yeah. But his family, your family, he would hold as a hostage.

Sure, sure. But the action is the juice. He's the guy that could have, but he's the one guy that took care of everything so he could leave, but he didn't get to leave. He didn't leave. But he also has pointed that he picks up his body after a little kid.

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's right. That's true. Obviously, it's quite intentional. So I'll go wherever you go to De Niro, but I'll take that kid to protect myself. That's got nothing to do with this family this thing exactly huh yeah so when you do uh like i like i said i watch manhunter too now these leading

guys these guys you seem to get right at their peak like con amazing peterson was amazing yeah an interesting interesting actor right oh yeah wow yeah was... Yeah, he's a bartender in Thief, by the way. Oh, okay. When Jimmy Conn rips Tuesday Weld out of the restaurant. Yeah. Oh, he's there, huh? He throws in a car. He's the...

Billy Peterson's the bartender that he pushes out of the way. Yeah, so these are... He's a Chicago guy, so you knew him from back... You saw him do theater, probably. Oh, no, I didn't. You never did, huh? I just cast him in Thief. Now, when you do something like The Insider, all you're thinking about is that story.

Totally. Yeah. And how lethal these forces are, truly lethal and dramatic. And how do you represent it with people talking in rooms for two hours and 45 minutes. Great movie. And, you know, and as I knew, Lowell Bergman, you know, was a friend when this was happening.

We were developing something else. We were developing something on an arms merchant named Sarkis Sarkisian. And while this was going on to Lowell, and I was one of a half dozen people he talked to, you know, I knew all about the tobacco thing. He'd say, you never guess what happened to me today. Don Hewitt walked by like I didn't exist.

When he was being ostracized? Ostracized at 60 minutes and then I saw the expurgated version of the show about Jeffrey Weigand and I called Lowell afterwards and we started talking and I said you know forget Sarkis what you're living

through defending a guy that you don't particularly like who's doing what he's doing for all the wrong reasons, which makes it a more pure act in a Kantian sense of that it's your actions that count, not your intention. Right. And so it was the purest form of the act because he's not motivated for any good reason, and he's not very pleasant.

Yeah. And you don't like him, and you're putting everything on the line to defend him. Yeah. To me, that was the- That's the story. form of the act because he's not motivated for any good reason and he's not very pleasant yeah and you don't like him and you're putting everything on the line to defend him yeah to me that was that's the story that's the story and that's it and and also revealing that that that kind of that corporate soulless corporate power right right now the explanation of of explanation of tortious interference and mike wall says, you mean the truer it is, the worse it gets. She says, absolutely. The truer it is, the worse it gets. But also

it's interesting because there is sort of a through line to where you were politically when you were younger. I mean, that's an important movie. That's an important struggle. It is with the real old Bergman too you know yeah what do you how do you choose these movies that you do like I mean like how

does like collateral what was that what would that come from collateral came from the why choose them or do they choose me this yeah okay okay collateral came from having done last of the Mohicans and Last of the Mohicans, Insider, and Ali. And they're all massive pictures physically, which I love. But in terms of huge stories with lots of moving parts, they're very symphonic and orchestral and you really have to get all right. And so the notion of doing a movie that took place

in one night that was like a gem. It's all about the refractions where you have these two characters and each is the agent of the other's realization.

Jamie Foxx's character gets liberated from his J. Alfred Prufrock stories he's telling himself by what this killer's talking about. And then towards the end of it, Jamie Foxx's character becomes the agent of actually landing something on Tom Cruise that some standard parts of human beings are missing in you. And really, you know. Yeah. And so anyway, so that kind of like a gem-like thing was very, very attractive to me.

So then I decided not to do Aviator, which was yet another big movie. Which Scorsese ended up doing. And I went to, I said, okay, if there's one of two directors will do it, you know, I'll, you know, I'll produce it and they'll do it. Otherwise I'll just hold on to it.

And so I went to Marty. Interesting. So you, like, what was it about Aviator? It's the same story. To me, it was the same story as Ali. It's a, it's, it's a story about a man, the same story as Ali it's a story about a man if you said what is the

central conflict in 25 words or less and you're only allowed to say one thing and Ali it's a man struggling with himself with you what John Logan who's a fantastic writer and I invented for how to tell that story,

was not some long linear biopic, but that it's Howard Hughes fighting his own mental illness. That's the villain. That's the antagonist is his mental illness. And in the end, his mental illness wins. And in Ali, it's who shall I be? Who shall I make myself into in this world? Because I represent so much to black Americans, and then he comes through and I also represent so much

to everybody rising up from below. That's why it ends with the rumble in the jungle. Right. And, you know, and so it's, you know, the function of representing something and being motivational. That's something Ali was always conscious of and wanted to design it.

And he was on a voyage to discovery. Yeah. And a brilliant, brilliant guy. So with The Aviator, you chose not to do it because you felt like you had made a similar movie? I couldn't figure out why it felt to me like it was, I'm telling the same story. How do you think Scorsese did? a similar movie? I couldn't figure out why it felt to me like it was, I'm telling the same story. Okay.

And, How do you think Scorsese did? I owned and controlled, basically, I controlled it. Yeah. I was developing it with Leo,

and I controlled it. Yeah. And I remember, we were having a Christmas Eve party at my house as, as Dr. Leonardo,

and, you know, and, and I was, you know, I should go do it now. You know, something was holding me back. And how do you feel Scorsese did with it?

He did great. Yeah. Yeah, he really did great. Is that where that relationship began with him and Leo? Or was that after Gangs of New York? I can't remember. Was it what? Is that where the relationship with him and Leonardo started?

Because I can't remember when Gangs of New York was made. I just know he's done several movies with Leonardo. No, he's done several movies with him. No, I think their relationship precedes that. Oh, it precedes it? Yeah. So, like, with Collateral, you were working with, was that the... By the way, we're shooting both movies, one and exact at the same time. Okay, okay.

And with Collateral, I thought it was interesting, like, in sense of how you captured Los Angeles in Heat, and then how you captured it in Collateral, and also how you made Chicago a character in Thief. You must think these through pretty thoroughly in terms of how you're going to represent the city. We did three months of research and development on camera systems to be able to see into the night. For Collateral?

For Collateral. So Collateral is the first photo reel shot on high def. Okay. With cameras that today are like primitive, like Stone Age cameras. Right, they're like your phone. Like the Sony F900. Yeah, yeah. And we were able to, because you know how it is in la in the uh when the marine layer comes in and the sodium vapor

lights yeah bounces off those low-hanging clouds and illuminates everything you can't see that on film motion picture from you can't see it and you can't and're not going to have any depth of field. And so the only way you could do that, I started using some high, shooting some high-def pieces in Ali. And I was stunned by one scene in particular that we shot right after Martin Luther King gets assassinated and the riots breaking out in Chicago. Yep. And it was a flat, truth-telling style that the scene had that made it kind of ultra-real, really ultra-real. So you were invited that. You liked the definition you got. I liked that, but I wanted to use that technology

to be able to see into the night. Okay. So it felt like, you know, late afternoon in Northern Europe or something where you're, but it's night, all night. So we developed a whole bunch of techniques for being able to shoot it. But then the first three weeks of shooting collateral, there was no – when we did tests and you send a scene to the lab, you get a film out, and it's all magenta.

Same piece of film the next day. It's all cyan. Huh. And so I used to have these nightmares that this is all conceptual art. It only exists in my memory. Nothing's real. I have no movie here. But you figured it out.

No, it was okay. We were able to make it work. Okay. Because it's definitely a different LA. You know, like the things that have changed in the city between heat and now, or between heat and collateral, were sort of like a lot. Because wasn't LA, like downtown, starting to turn around? Downtown was starting to turn around, but in heat and also in collateral, you know, when you, I mean, in advance of heat, I was out there usually one night on the weekend with a guy who was a commander, LAPD.

He was in plainclothes. And we would just answer radio calls until about 2, 3 in the morning for six months. And that's how I really learned the city. And so that brings you into the Caribbean section of South Central. the city. And so that brings you into the Caribbean section of South Central that brings you into, you know, Samoan areas of San Pedro, you know, into, you know, bars and discos that are, that are, everybody's from Sinaloa. I mean, it's, so you're really, you know, you're outside this self-imposed entertainment industry ghetto into the real L.A. Which is very fragmented and spread out.

It's very fragmented and spread out. Right. It's virtual. You have to travel to these places. What compels you to do Public Enemies? The world of 1930, 1933, 1934. You always just wanted to do it? Well, I knew a lot about it because

I used to live a couple blocks from the biograph where Dillinger got shot. And so much of Chicago is the same. Yeah, yeah. And what the world was, and the more I read the non-fiction book,

Public Enemies, I realized this was a, you know, Coover was an evil genius. This was such a turning point in history that it became very, very dramatic. The first interstate, true interstate, the Lincoln Highway, dates to 1926 or 1927 or 1933. The first reliable V8 engine, which means you can travel all these highways endlessly, is the Ford Flathead V8.

That's 1933, 1934. And here's this guy gets out of prison after being isolated for 11 years, and it's not like he's got TV or the Internet. I mean, he's completely isolated. Within three, four weeks, he is living in the most current neighborhood in Chicago. He knows everything about everything and there's just some and he keeps no one can lay a glove on him he's grabbing more headlines than a president of the united states nationally and there's no end game yeah right what are you

doing you know and you like that and then so much of it was tactile for us we were able to get so close to it I said a little bohemia where that big shootout happens they can't still be around just call up and sure enough it's still around well have they remodeled it no they haven't remodeled it what about his room totally unchanged and they

left the bullet holes in the wall no shit well let's go shoot there well it's going to be very expensive to rent this. How much? Oh, maybe $2,000 a week. Let me look into it. But then the price was they had his suitcase. They still had Dillinger's suitcase with his clothes in it.

Who did? The Little Bohemian Lodge. That's crazy. And we bonded it and sent it. And so Johnny was able to put on his underwear and his pants. Get the fuck, really? Really, really.

And you don't know, when you want to know something about another guy, another character, what kind of socks does he buy? Does he buy something with a little pattern, solid socks, argyles? That's what tells you about somebody. If you're a guy, you know about about somebody. You got all the answers.

If you're a guy, you know about another guy. You got all the answers. A lot of the answers about- Wow. That's crazy. And the Miami Vice movie. Now, you, like, I guess I was misinformed. Now, what, you didn't have anything to do, the TV show was, was that, it wasn't created

by you or what? No, I didn't create it. The creator is the guy who wrote it. Yeah. Tony Yerkovich created Miami Vice. It was called Gold Coast. Yeah. And I talked with Tony.

We changed the title to Miami Vice. And you were just a producer on it? I was executive producer. That's becoming kind of like the executive director. Sure. Because we did 22 hours a season. And then Tony was on it for about the first 16 episodes. Okay.

And then so I was, you know, casting it and hiring the directors and doing the music and picking locations and basically bringing my feature film crew into TV. And TV was a very moribund medium at that moment in time. It was very conventional, and it had an inferiority complex. And why should it not just be one hour of cinematic? Sure. The same way as I'd shoot a movie. So you brought the immersive element. More than that.

We're going to make a one-hour movie the gonna make we're gonna make a one hour movie the same way we'd make a two hour movie and keep doing it that way until somebody makes a stop and no one did no one did and uh so you know we're the first stereo show and yeah breaking new music and um before fm in some case sure and uh and the and so the movie was sort of an homage to a reminder? The movie was, you know, extend, project what Miami Vice would be now if you're doing it in 2004, 2006. And not an homage. 2004, 2006.

Right, right. And not an homage. Other people may have been more satisfied with it being an homage. I wouldn't have been interested in doing it. Sure. I was taken with, by then I knew much more about the pathology of deep undercover, serious. I know a lot of guys who do unbelievable stuff in DEA, and particularly the DEA Special Operations Division, which does narco-andre El-Kassar or Victor Boot that they really are buying, that they really are the FARC and they really want to buy arms. And Victor Boot has access to the whole FSB database when he wants to run.

You want to buy something from me, I'll investigate you. And they pull off these unbelievable operations. And, but what, there's a pathology to some of these guys where they go so deep undercover, the fabricated identity becomes the more vivid than their own identity. That's scary, yeah.

They have romances that they shouldn't be having. Sure. They start, you know, it starts to become, who said, which way is up? Donnie Br brasco was good kind of donnie brass that's pretty good with that but i've talked to a lot of guys who who've lived through that for real i knew one guy in particular who did not end well for him uh so

so that was where that's that's what's happening to crockett you know right and then it was supposed to it's supposed to end, the whole ending was a bit different. It was supposed to happen in Ciudad del Este, in the triple frontier, where Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina meet. It's a free trade zone. Yeah. With Syrian and Taiwanese and South American, very, very sophisticated, transnational organized criminal operations operate basically free.

Right. And that's where you wanted to end it? That's where I wanted to end it. We wanted to be shooting there for about three days. But that place plays a major role in the book. Oh, yeah? Yeah. You're fascinated with that place.

I was fascinated with it. Yeah, because it's crazy. I mean, I had an assistant who was Taiwanese. She was getting her master's, business master's at London School of Economics, spoke like five languages. It was coming back to go join the family business, which was counterfeiting software. And that's what they did. Yeah. And a huge operation.

Wow. And. So that's a big part of the new novel. That's one big part of it. Yeah. It also moves into Southeast Asia. So Chris Scherlis evolves. The novel begins one day after the end of the movie.

Okay. And Chris Scherlis is wounded. He's the last survivor. He's half delir of the movie. Okay. And Christian Hurlis is wounded. He's the last survivor. He's half delirious on drugs. Nate, John Voight's trying to get him out. And he becomes aware that Charlene betrayed him and that Neil's dead. Yeah. And he's got to get out of L.A.

And he's got to get out of L.A. And then it jumps back to 1988 when Neil's alive, obviously, and the Val Kilmer character and that whole crew are going to burglarize a bank vault at night. Hannah happens to be a cop in a quasi-corrupt Chicago police department chasing a home invader. And so all these stories begin in 88. And then it moves back. It moves from there. It takes some things that happen in Mexicali. So it sounds almost like that this was,

you couldn't do it the same way in a movie. This is a book, but it's also going to be a very large movie. It's going to be a large movie. Oh, yeah. Okay. Is that 30 underway? Yes.

That's exciting. I can't talk about it but yes okay because i was wondering if it was it was in in place of uh no it's it's i always want i always wanted to do this book yeah i always wanted to to uh explore the early life of these guys yeah and and then also where and to project to find a way to bring the past into the, into the present and the present being about 2002, seven years after the events of, of, of the, of Heat the movie.

So how do you, like, are you, how do you cast that if you're going to do a film? Very, very large ways. Yeah. Yeah.

Cause you're very, the casting, like how did you get Tom Cruise to play against type like that? He just to work oh he loved the idea he loved it he loved the idea and he was he's fantastic great his dialogue in the back of that cab it's great is just still cracks me up yeah and also like you got russell crowe right at the peak of russell cronus yeah yeah i think russell's work on in insiders really amazing all Alright, man. So the book is exciting. Everything, and you're busy mostly the book tour now, or are you already just

doing pre-production? No, I'm off on That's right, you're going to do the Ferrari movie. Ferrari, yeah. So I'm leaving either tomorrow night or Tuesday night. And you just produced Ford and Ferrari, too. Didn't you do that one? Yeah, but I didn't really work. I developed a script back when. You got fascination with cars? I do, but that doesn't mean you make I developed a script back when. You got fascination with cars?

With jazz. I do, but that doesn't mean you make a movie about it. Yeah. What's driving this one? The whole movie is three months of the summer of 1957, and that's O'Ferrari's life. And it's an opera. It's melodramatic. Oh, okay.

Everything he's been collides with what he might become. And the company's going bust. And his wife finds out about the other woman. And, I mean, it's a spectacularly operatic melodrama in real life. All right. Well, have fun. Great. I plan to. Thanks a lot, man.

Yeah, thank you. That guy's a guy, man. That guy is a director guy. Heat 2, a novel, comes out August 9th. What an amazing talk with Michael Mann. You can preorder it now wherever you get your books so you're one of the first ones to have it. And just hang out a minute.

Can you hang out? Hang out a minute. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goal tenders, no.

But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talked to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence

with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. So, Nikki Glaser is back on the show on Thursday. Why? Well, we're starting to do that a little more, especially with people I know, especially with people who it's been a long time since I talked to, especially with people I want to talk to about other things, maybe. And Nikki, you know, has got some things going on. She's got a special out there now. She's got a show, a funny fucking, it's some sort of, you know, fuckboy show. I don't know. But Nikki Glaser, Nikki Glaser. And it got filthy very quickly, and it got pretty raw and pretty real pretty quickly. And I like her.

So we hung out. I'll be at Just for Laughs in Montreal for my gala on Saturday, July 30th. I'll also be doing solo shows up there on July 28th and 29th. In August, I'll be in Columbus, Ohio at the Southern Theater on August 4th. Indianapolis, Indiana, I'm at the Old National Center on August 5th. Louisville, Kentucky at the Baumhard Theater, August 6th. Then I'm back at Dynasty Typewriter in LA on August 14th. Lincoln, Nebraska at the Rococo Theater on August 6th. Then I'm back at Dynasty Typewriter in LA on August 14th. Lincoln, Nebraska at the Rococo Theater on August 18th. Des Moines, Iowa at the Hoyt Sherman Place on August 19th.

And Iowa City, Iowa at the Englert Theater on August 20th. Then in September, I'm in Tucson, Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona, Boulder, Colorado, and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In October, I'm in London, England, and Dublin, Ireland. Go to WTFpod.com slash tour for all dates and ticket info. Man, four club shows in Vegas. Brain benders. The real work. Exhausted after that sweaty 116 degrees out there. Definitely you weather who's saying the fuck you i don't know pick your god let's get out there on this let's get out there on this desert guitar let's

get out there a little bit let's find it find it with a little bounce, a little echo. guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo Thank you. Boomer lives Monkey and La Fonda Cat Angel is everywhere Cat Angel is everywhere