WESTERNS, 'LONE RANGER', 'THE SEARCHERS', 'DEMOLISHED MAN', 'MINORITY REPORT', ETC.
Last month, Drew Taylor posted an interview with Brian De Palma at The Playlist. Now it seems he's done another interview with De Palma, this time for moviephone. Sounds good to us-- Taylor asked De Palma some interesting questions, such as whether he has any desire to do a western. "Interesting that you say that," De Palma tells Taylor. "I think a Western is a very interesting genre. Unfortunately, I think The Lone Ranger has put it away for another couple of decades." When asked if he's seen that film, De Palma replies, "I was dying to see The Lone Ranger. I thought it looked great. And it was gone from the theaters before I had a chance."Taylor asks De Palma is he has an idea for a western that he would like to make. "I just like the terrain," De Palma tells him. "There was this terrific book called The Searchers [The Making of an American Legend]. It's fascinating. The terrain is what interests me. Of course "The Searchers" is all about Indians who kidnap white women and turn them into wives and what happens when they get re-rescued. It's a fascinating idea that John Ford did a couple of times but, yes, I think it's a great genre and has been neglected for quite a while. The problem with doing a Western now is that they don't have the stunt men and the people who ride horses like they used to. When I did The Untouchables we had the scene where everybody is on a horse; in the old days when they had one western after another, you had stunt men and actors who could ride. That's not the case anymore."
After discussing Passion, Taykor turns the discussion to Redacted. "It's of course very similar to Causalities of War," De Palma tells Taylor, "and I was well aware that the film was not going to be well-liked in America because in America you can never criticize the troops. Of course that wasn't the case in the rest of the world." Asked if he was ultimately happy with the attention that film received, De Palma replies, "Of course. That's why I made it. I felt that our involvement in Iraq was criminal and we had invaded this country and destroyed it and then left and now we wonder why it's a chaotic mess. It just reminded me of the whole Vietnam thing and I was extremely incensed and I tried to put it in a movie."
'THE DEMOLISHED MAN', 'MINORITY REPORT', 'HAPPY VALLEY', NO DESIRE TO RETIRE
Here is the final stretch of the interview (you can read the entire thing at moviephone):
I wanted to ask you about a movie you had wanted to make called The Demolished Man. It was allegedly similar to a movie your friend Steven Spielberg made, Minority Report.
I saw Minority Report and told him how good I thought it was.
Was it similar to what you were going to do with Demolished Man?
Well. Sort of. The Demolished Man is a great piece of material that's owned by Paramount, if I recall. There were many screenplays that were written that I'm sure are over there in a vault, just millions of dollars against the material. It would have been a very big movie to do and probably not going to be done by me.
How are things going with Happy Valley?
We have a very good script and we're in the process of boarding and budgeting it now.
Do you want to return to bigger studio material afterwards?
I have a couple of projects I'm working on and people send me stuff all the time, like how this project came to me. Some of them I think are good ideas and some of them I don't. At my age, I'm trying to enjoy my life. Because what we don't have is a lot of time. [Laughs]
Do you ever think about retiring?
No I have no desire to retire. I just want to enjoy my time. Every day above ground is a good day.
Updated: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 1:14 AM CDT
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