Altman Page #6

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What?

And I thought, sh*t, I gotta burn a book.

And I really had a dilemma.

I could of torn out that page,

which ultimately I did

because I didn't want it

to be found in my archives

by one of my great

grandchildren and they say oh,

grand daddy was a big Nixon supporter.

After "Secret Honour" we sold the house

and moved to Paris.

He felt appreciated there, as

so many American Artists do.

Bob, remember that shower scene in MASH

where you made me get naked?

You get naked.

For a while now, dad had been hiring me

and my brother, Bobby, to work with him.

I started out in props

and eventually became his

production designer.

This is our ace prop man, Steve Altman.

Steve, do you have anything

to say about the production?

Hi mom.

And Bobby became his camera operator.

Working with him, it was good, I

got to see him and I got paid.

Working out of Paris he shot anywhere

he could get a deal.

Mostly small films, financed

with European money

or by the new U.S. cable channels

who gave him total freedom.

Come on right around here

and just fill in here,

make this pretty.

Give me as many people

on this side as I can.

Michael, Cynthia.

Tighten on in, everybody.

You got enough oor ground;

We will need some people now over here.

Kathy, come on up in here everybody.

We need people in here, around this area.

Okay stand by please.

Okay, action Michael.

Let there be no mistake about it,

as the people of conscience, we cannot,

we must not settle for anything

less than a comprehensive,

global boycott of South Africa.

Yes.

Ya!

Michael, that was terrific, I

just want to do one more please.

HBO wanted to do something

about the election.

So Garry Trudeau and I said

let's just run a guy for

President, so we did.

We took Michael Murphy,

who played Jack Tanner,

and we created a staff

and we infiltrated them

in to actual situations.

Pat, how are ya?

HEY-

Nice to see you.

This is my daughter, Alex.

Hi.

How are you?

Good, how are you?

Sure stirring them up in my home state.

Well Michigan is a strong one for me,

you know that Jack.

I'll say it made me glad to be a democrat;

I wouldn't want to be up against you.

Well the Republicans are

going to be tough this year

but we wish you the best.

Looking tougher all the time.

Let's go over the ground rules now.

The panel will give direct questions

to specific candidates.

What we're doing is, we

don't know what to call it

because it's not a documentary,

it's not fictional,

um, I call it experimental television.

We must stop the flow of

drugs in this country.

The number one threat on the

streets of our nation today.

Our borders are militarily inferior

in terms of being protected

from drugs trafficking...

Jesse... Jesse... As you may recall,

it was former President Nixon

who started the war on drugs,

the same former President Nixon

who couldn't seal off South

Vietnam from North Vietnam

with 500,000 troops.

America's tired of being

dragged into wars it can't win

and a war on drugs is a loser.

And any law that makes 25

million Americans criminals

is a loser.

It's time to get real.

The only way to get drugs off our streets

is through legalization.

Ho-ho!

What?

He said it, he said it.

Did he say legalization?

There goes the street value of my stash.

I think the people, with all do respect,

are more than ready to

elect a black President,

I just don't think they're ready for you.

Whoa!

What did they put in his

oatmeal this morning?

This is going ballistic.

Okay, what kind of spin do we put on that?

"Tanner '88" I think is probably

the best work that I've done,

I think it's the most inventive.

Because we really did change television.

This is WNBC New York, I'm Larry Stack

and here's what's happening at 2 o'clock.

President Bush proposed to add

an additional 1.2 billion

dollars to the budget

for the war on drugs

including a 50% increase

in military spending.

You've moved back to America

after being based in Paris.

Do you think you've changed?

I don't think I've changed.

I think I just keep doing the same thing

and occasionally what I do

crosses with the general

attitude of the public

and it becomes very successful

and then I'm a failure,

and a has been, and then

I cross back again.

But I'm going straight... to me

I'm going in a straight line.

Everybody else is just going like this.

Altmanesque.

Kicking Hollywood's ass.

Most of the scripts that they

send me are studio scripts.

I mean, I'd be embarrassed

to be associated with them.

I don't think there's anything I could do

other than radically change them,

which these people don't want.

I make gloves and they sell shoes.

David Brown, the producer, told Bob

that he had a project that

Bob was born to direct

because it struck at everything

that was wrong with Hollywood.

And it was true, nobody but Bob

could of pulled off "The Player"

the way he did.

It gave him the chance to

crucify forever Hollywood's

entire way of making movies.

Griffin, Griffin hi.

Griffin hi.

A-A-Adam Simon.

I know we're not supposed to

meet until next week but...

I didn't realize we were meeting next week.

Well, yeah, I just wanted to

plant a seed in your head...

Sorry, I'm booked up,

Okay, but just picture this.

Okay, it's a planet in the

far future with two suns.

Who plays the sons?

No-no-no, suns, large solar disks.

Listen, you gotta run this

idea by Bonnie Sherow.

The pictures they make these

days are all MTV, cut cut cut.

The opening shot of Welles' "Touch of Evil"

was six and a half minutes long.

Six and a half minutes, Walter?

Well three or four anyways,

he set up that whole picture

with one tracking shot.

"The Graduate" Part ll.

Oh good, good.

Now listen, the three

principles are still with us...

Dustin Hoffman, Anne

Bancroft, Katharine Ross.

Mmhmm.

Twenty-five years later and

so are the characters.

Ben, Elaine and Mrs. Robinson.

Ben and Elaine are married, still.

They live in a big, old, spooky house

up in northern California somewhere.

And Mrs. Robinson lives with them.

Her aging mother, who's had a stroke...

Mrs. Robinson had a stroke?

Mrs. Robinson had a stroke,

so she can't talk.

Is this going to be funny?

Yeah, it'll be funny.

With a stroke?

Dark, and weird, and

funny, and with a stroke.

It's a T.V. star and she goes

to the safari, to Africa.

Are you talking about a T.V.

star in a motion picture?

No, not a real T.V. star.

It would be played by a movie star.

A movie star playing a television star.

Julia Roberts would be good.

Dolly Parton would be good.

Dolly, Dolly, yeah.

I like Goldie.

Goldie, great, because

we have a relationship.

Goldie goes to Africa.

Goldie goes to Africa.

And she becomes worshipped.

Political doesn't scare me.

Radical political scares me.

Political political scares me.

This is politely politically radical.

Is it funny?

It's funny.

It's a funny political thing.

It's a funny, and it's a thriller too.

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