Audio Video News

SGHT: What is the importance of a DVD release to a film director?

Ridley Scott: The director gets a second shot. If you're totally serious about the material you've done, and in this instance we were, you get a second shot at an audience that didn't venture into theaters to see the film. . . . Some people were nervous about going to see Black Hawk Down in theaters.

Secondly, from a purely artistic point of view, it's a way of maintaining the integrity of the movie as it was seen in its original print. DVD is a medium I can use to maintain all the picture and sound qualities.

Jerry Bruckheimer: It's another way to enjoy the movie. You can study parts of the film, you can rewind them, listen to the filmmakers talk about what they did. . . . It's also a great teaching tool for kids to see how the film was made. It gives you a sense of history, filling in some of the blanks that a two-hour movie doesn't cover. Because the DVD features talks with the author of the book on which the film was based, as well as interviews with some of the soldiers, it gives you a real background in the making of the movie.

SGHT: How do you feel about directors' cuts on DVDs?

Scott: I find that most of the films I put out are essentially director's cuts. Part of the process with a director's cut is leaving behind certain aspects of the movie that were not necessarily part of the dynamic of the story. Therefore, what is useful about the DVD, particularly for the real film buffs, is that they get to see why we left out what we left out, which is an educational process. But for the most part, you're seeing the director's cut theatrically with any film I make.

SGHT: Which of your older films would you like to put on DVD and what would you do with them?

Bruckheimer: I'd love to have all my movies on DVD. I'm chagrined that some of them still aren't. It'd be great to revisit some of these films that we made back in the '80s that haven't been put on DVD. First of all, we could digitally remix films, making them sound better. I would love for kids and adults to view them, and see the process at least from a historic standpoint—from the filmmakers' point of view.

SGHT: Mr. Scott, I understand you're working on Blade Runner as well. Is that correct?

Scott: Yes, it is complete, and it will come out in three parts. Part 1 is '79, part 2 '81, and then the last version will have certain additions and we will remove the voiceover. But one of the discs covers all kinds of interviews, which are really interesting. I don't know how they managed to dig these people from the woodwork. It's like a mini-library inside the disc.

SGHT: What have you contributed to the Black Hawk Down DVD?

Scott: The filmmaking process is, as you can imagine, a day-by-day, minute-by-minute, sometimes second-by-second procedure. The initial stages of pre-production and planning must be one of the most interesting areas for the DVD viewer, because they get a glimpse into the minds of the film producer–director teams that put these films together. You get in the back door and are staring over the shoulders of the people who are making this material.

SGHT: David Putnam, who produced The Duellists, said in the early '80s that, in the future, films would still be released in cinemas, but mainly as a showcase for advance publicity for the video release. Do you believe we have arrived at that point?

Bruckheimer: No, I don't. I still think that moviegoers like the experience of leaving their homes, going and having a communal experience, especially with comedies or films that interact with the audience—and that's one of the reasons Spiderman was such a huge success—people wanted to be the first to see it. So I think that'll always be around. As long as kids want to have dates and get out of their parents' home, there are going to be cinemas. Video is another way of seeing movies.

Scott: I think Putnam was saying that at a time where it certainly looked like things were going in that direction—certainly in the European territories, which were less significant than they are today in terms of cinema grosses.

SGHT: Your style is patriotic. Discuss that.

Bruckheimer: I think the patriotism comes from the director as well as the producer and the writer. So if the films are patriotic—and [if] you consider Top Gun patriotic, done by Ridley's brother [Tony Scott], who's also a foreigner—it's a combination of what the writer and everybody else saw in the movie.

Our styles didn't clash at all [on Black Hawk Down]. I think Ridley made the picture he wanted to make, and I'm enormously proud of the movie, and thrilled with his work. I think it's brilliant.

Scott: Technique, of course, comes into play—the route we took was to execute in a more uncompromising, documentary fashion, as if you're literally pulling an audience member . . . you get to put on your helmet and carry a rifle if you watch this one.

SGHT: What DVDs are in your players right now?

Bruckheimer: I'm traveling, so I haven't been watching anything. I'll leave this one to Ridley.

Scott: I was watching Billy Liar last night, a John Schlesinger DVD. I was sitting with a director the other day at the [Directors Guild of America] who's 32, and I'm talking to him about films, and he starts to look blank. And I'm not talking about Eisenstein, I'm talking about films since '59. So I said, "Get a pen out, get a piece of paper, write these 12 movies down. Use your DVD player all next weekend." That's what [DVD] does. Instead of looking at some creaky old print in some gloomy little theater stuck away somewhere, you can watch Billy Liar in its absolute glory, as it should be watched. And you'll find it as entertaining today as it was then.

SGHT: With the great access to films made possible by DVD, do you think they will lead to an advance in film techniques because people can learn so much from them? Will everyone be pinching the same techniques?

Scott: You've got to go back 30 years to use the word influence rather than pinch. For the most part, Jerry's films and my commercials, and my brother's films and commercials, have been very influenced over the years. So we aren't leading the way here.

Bruckheimer: It works both ways. The directors who want to be innovative use the DVD as a tool to see what people have done in the past and how they can improve on it. You have other people who actually take from the better directors, which makes them better directors, so I think it works both ways.

SGHT: What films made you both want to become filmmakers?

Bruckheimer: I'm a big fan of David Lean, so Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago were seminal films with me when I was growing up, films where I admired the filmmaking and storytelling ability of Lean and Robert Bolt. For me, that's what I look toward.

Scott: Because I was a kid from Northern England, the only films I had access to were alternative cinema, which in those days would be foreign cinema. But I was impressed by Westerns. I was absolutely embedded in the notion of being in that world. The ones that held their heads highest were from this guy called John Ford. I was a big fan of his.