You
Mr. Lester's office
I'm sorry, no
Mr. Lester is travelling
She said he's travelling
We have a conversation scheduled with him
Yeah, we're in a phone booth
We're going to go to empty land
Fiona, are you sure you called?
Absolutely, definitely
No, it's definitely today
This is our location manager
This is our production office coordinator
This is our production designer
Our visual effects supervisor
This is our crane operator
This is our director photography miniatures
This is our DGA trainee
This is our animal trainer
Richard Lester
Could you say what a Richard Lester movie is like to work on?
You know, what the set of a movie you're directing is like?
It's quick
I tried to justify it with self-delusion
By saying that there's a kind of exuberance that happens
Shooting quickly
But really the truth is it's panic
It's just masquerading as exuberance
That sense that you come in, look at the set
Walk around at once or twice and say
Right, the camera's here, let's go for it
As opposed to saying would it be better
As George Stevens used to do
Is that we'll shoot it here and there
And there, and there, and there, and there
And then I'll work out ultimately which is the best way
I never had the financial luxury to do that
And so I had a technique of just saying
This is the way it's going to be, let's do it
Some actors love working that way
There are people that like to come press
Through a piece of material
George C. Scott, Sean Connery
There are people that like to lighten that
And there are some that like to build slowly
And develop in a theatrical manner
And in that way it's very difficult for them
Because by the time they've come to feel comfortable
With the material that you're shooting that day
You're often onto another scene number
I think George Scott is probably the finest actor
In my way of thinking that I've ever worked with
I think he had an instinct that he would turn up
And his first rehearsals of a scene
Were so incisive
And he caught all the nuances of the material
Extraordinarily, he got bored very quickly
And he used to, you'd watch
Because he used to practice a golf swing
And when you start getting seriously
Practicing the golf ring you think
Well, I've got one more take with him
And then he's going to get so bored
That it'll go downhill
And in the end we used to shoot the rehearsals
Not let him know we were turning the cameras on
Just had a series of sign language
And occasionally the prop man would walk through
With a cigarette in his mouth
Right in the middle of the take
Because you wouldn't tell anybody
That we were actually shooting
I'd noticed
You said about how I won the war
At the time that it was released
If I fell under a bus tomorrow
This is the film I'd want to be judged by
Is it still true having made another 15 movies
Since then?
Well, even after I said it
I really looked left and then right
And left before across the road
I was very careful about buses
I was very proud of the film
And I was very proud of what it attempted
I know it was a failure in that it
By and large was preaching to the converted
And by experimenting with
A kind of Brechtian alienation
I managed to alienate everybody
Especially the distributor
It turned out to be really controversial
Even pulled from the theaters on Memorial Day
Did that response surprise you?
No, even during the making of it
People were trying to steal the script
And selling it to newspapers
And there was petty theft
And all sorts of things going on
Which meant that there was a lot of interest in it
Mainly I suppose because of John Lennon
More than being an anti-war film
You said it was an anti-war film
That sense of making an anti-war film
As opposed to making an anti-war film
Was very important
Some wars are necessary
They have to be fought for God's sake
Don't glorify them
Don't put nice music behind them
And have a platoon of people
That suddenly decide that they can get on with each other
And beat the crap out of the other side
Peter Sellers was the backer on the running, jumping
And getting steal film for having provided the camera
Yes, he bought himself a new 16mm camera
Because he loved toys
And he was always buying cars and cameras and houses
He came around one night
And we had a few drinks
We started writing ideas down
And we went out into a field
And we shot for a day and a half
And in the end
We had about 11 minutes of material
So we made an 11 minute film
And we only did one take of everything
And we only did it for ourselves
Just for fun
Because we had worked together
And we had done three series of the Goon Shows
We had no intention of showing it to anyone
It was not going to be a professional film at all
And we cut it
Peter was an amateur drummer
And we had a fairly comprehensive drum kit
So we laid all the film out on the kit
And cut it with a little editing machine
About this size
And Peter then showed it to one of his friends
Who was a television critic
Who said, I know somebody who chooses films
For the Edinburgh Festival
Why don't you finish it
And take it up to him
And I then wrote the music for it
And got four jazz friends to play it
And in the end it cost £70
To do the whole film from one end to the other
We got one print
Took it to Edinburgh
And somebody saw it at Edinburgh
And said, I run the San Francisco Film Festival
So it then went to the San Francisco Festival
And then it got an Academy Award nomination
Because we still had just had this one print
That was wandering around
And then it suddenly became a film
And then I said, well, in that case
I'm not a television director anymore
I'm a film director
And I showed it to people
Who said, yes, if we ever want a
90-minute version of running, jumping, standing
for cell phones, we'll let you know
So needless to say, nobody phoned for about four years
10 days later
I have a copy of the great review that Peter Bogdanovich wrote for New York Magazine when
The Three Musketeers was released in 1974. Lester conveys with admirable grace the view
that wars, conspiracies, battles have always been carried out by those unfortunate who
stand to benefit least from the outcome, yet who risk their lives nonetheless for honor,
king, or country. If I'm suggesting that Mr. Lester's delightful movie is also a political
allegory, I hope it will keep no one out of the theater because it is rare indeed to see
a slapstick comedy that's as trenching as a Domié cartoon.
Well, there's always something about religion in most of my films, there's always something
about the way that, as you were describing with Musketeers, that the people that end
up having to do the work are often the ones that didn't deserve that fate.
The three Musketeers and the four Musketeers were actually shot simultaneously and originally
meant to be cut as one.
We had shot the two films together. The actors had been paid to do this whole body of work.
There it was. In the end, there was nothing that I could do one way or another. I think
probably I would have liked the films to have been at one time put back together again just
to see whether they worked because in my mind that's the way they should have been because
they started out very light and went more and more into melodrama and you can see the
line quite clearly if you put the two films together.
The one person that's influenced me more than anyone else was Buster Keaton. I thought he
was an absolute master at what he did and he taught me lessons which I've never really
practiced well, which is the economy of thought in that you never in a Keaton film feel there's
any shot that isn't absolutely necessary.
How'd you go about casting him if anything happened on the way to the forum?
Well funnily enough he was offered that part on Broadway and didn't want to work in the
theatre and he turned it down and then some, whatever it was, eight, ten years later, somebody
had actually remembered that when casting came up for the film that he had been offered
it so I left in with both feet.
What was it like to work with him?
It was wonderful and terrible because you remember him from his work and his great strength
and his great physical beauty and dexterity and he was nearly 70 and although he didn't
know it he was dying and he just couldn't do the things that he thought he could do
and in the end we had to use a physical double for him quite a lot of the time and to end
up having Buster Keaton who did the spoken words and you had somebody else do the movement
was a travesty but that's the only way we actually could get through it but what he
did was marvelous and we did have one glorious Sunday where we just went out with a small
crew into a field outside of Madrid and said to Buster anything you'd like to do just do
it and I'll see if, you know, you do it in costume and I'll see if I can find a way
to shoehorn it into the picture and we just sat around and had a drink and sandwiches
and shot some material some of which is in the film and it remains one of those glorious
days that you know makes what you do all worthwhile.
What was your way of working with David Whykin?
I think he was one of the most continuously inventive film cameramen that I've ever worked
with and I've worked with some marvelous people but David had the courage or David was fool
hard enough to try anything and he knew that I would stand by it and we've had to fight
our way out of some very old circumstances where David has stopped the stop terribly
wrong and you know there are endless stories about David you know there's the opening sequence
of three musketeers with the focus puller saying what's the stop David and he said
what's either 2 or 22 you work it out and the focus puller left the film just I can't
deal with this but the odd thing is that David was right and you know it would look wonderful
wide open or closed down totally in the middle it would have been boring.
How different was it say on Petulia to work with Nicholas Rowe?
Nick had a wonderful sense of how his photography would fit into the total concept of a film
because he could see the film overall whereas David really was interested in the technique
of photography you know Nick was always interested in everything in filmmaking we always felt
very early on when Nick was a focus puller that people would say one day we're all going
to be working for him so they were different in that way but Nick had an ability if you
said to Nick light it like somebody else he could do that whereas David really had invented
a way of lighting that everyone else's since has been copying.
My first feature film was a pop musical so they knew about me and then they had seen
running jumping and standing still film and they liked it so we went to meet them and
got on well enough and the fact that I used to play a bit of piano and I could reasonably
understand a 12 bar blues figure and what to do with it it just fell together.
The good thing about the first Beatles film is that they were only being asked to do things
and represent things with which they were familiar you know they knew about press conferences
they knew about rehearsals they knew about pompous television directors.
You have to give the Beatles a great deal of credit for understanding what they were
what they could be and controlling it pretty well and they also had a great skill at hiring
and working with people all through their careers that were good for them and that would
respect what they wanted to do you know that's a great skill at their age to be able not
only to know what they are and what they want to be and how they want to be presumed to
be but to find people that can collude in that and help them achieve that.
What we had to do in an odd way is to artificially separate them and we deliberately set out
to give each of the four rather artificial personality traits that the audience could
remember to keep them more separate personalities so that you'd remember all four and because
there is always a danger with groups is that you remember one or maybe two people in the
group and in the end ten years later you say well who was the fourth person in that group
and you can't remember it.
We worked very hard at saying well George is going to be mean and he'll never you know
throughout these films he'll never put his hand in his pocket and buy a drink and Paul
will be the one that's considered cute and will be winked at and Ringo will be self delusion
and the one that's moaning because he's up the back and nobody pays attention to him
and you know we worked hard at that in the scripts and I think that paid off.
With Hard Day's Night we were in profit before the film opened because United Artists owned
a hundred percent of the rights of their album so advanced sales of the album made the film
already profitable so nobody was worried about the film and it was fun and they were great
fun to be with I mean it was hard because the minute you'd go out on the streets to
film them there'd be 2,000 people from nowhere they'd pop up out of traps and just you could
only do one take of anything and then you'd have to go and find another location to do
the same thing in some places because the police said we can't we can't deal with this
so technically it was difficult for an organizational point of view it was hell but the rest of
the time it was A it was great fun, B they were enjoying marijuana at the time and therefore
there was a lot of laughter going on I mean I remember going on the plane to start the
filming in Nassau and my son was three years old at the time and he was put up with them
all because they laughed for seven hours and he laughed for seven hours and then we landed
in New York and they said you've got to go through customs and they said what and they
said you've got to go through customs it's a rule and we were in transit we're going
down to Nassau to film and they said no no that's it go through they said we're not going
through customs and it was a terrible argument started and in the end the Beatles won and
nobody we didn't have to go through customs but all the girls had at that time it was
very popular to send Paul teddy bears so because we didn't get off the plane they all filled
up huge luggage skips at the airport with all their teddy bears and they arrived at
the plane they were all given to my son you know and he disappeared under this mound of
cuddly toys while the boys went back onto the plane and they found their stash and started
up again they laughed all the way down to Nassau so he has great memory of being one
of the great times of his life.
There was that sense that John had distanced himself from a lot of us but he was he remains
one of the three or four people that I think has had an enormous impact on me.
He had a personality that could cut through all the nonsense that we all speak this time
you know he had he suffered fools very badly and and he could be extremely cruel but at
the end there was a warmth and a great intelligence and I don't reminisce and I've a couple of
people have been kind enough to try to do some books with me on on the past and I have
no memory at all for it I can't I can't remember my own films very well these quizzes that
come on on television occasionally about movie quizzes you know and sometimes I've been the
subject of them and I've got at least 60 or 70% of the questions wrong I just I don't
I honestly don't have a good memory for it and I don't I remember seeing my secretary
say well you do you remember when you had you had that marvelous lunch with Bert and
that Bernard Highting the conductor and I said well I love Bernard Highting did I?
I like him and I like Europe I mean the minute I first left America and came to Europe I
suddenly felt that I was I felt comfortable here and I've never left.
I think one of the the great advantage I've had is that I haven't seen most people's films
and I know I really tried to be the kind of Dwanier Russo of Twickenham Film Studios it's
you know sort of savage innocent I've never been an assistant on anybody's films I never
was on a film set except my own and I never knew how people made films and it was only
when I produced the first Superman film that I came on and watched another director work
and I went into a sort of total catatonic shock because I thought what in God's name
is this man doing it was so different from the way I worked and it was I just didn't
know what was going on on the set I thought I just got to get out of here and I left
the stage.
I think Robin and Marin is a romantic subject I think it was dealt with in a much more anti-romantic
way.
What I'm not is sentimental I don't I don't have any sentiment about my own life at all
or my you know you can ask my wife well I know that I never I never did what I said
I would do I mean I remember saying in an interview that the one thing I would never
do is make a sequel because I thought that was the worst way of making films and I've
made seven of them so you know I'd I still think the principle's right but you know
you grow up of course and things change not not so much that culture changes but the sense
of optimism changes you know you one has to one has to look at films made in the early
sixties with the eye of someone from the sixties because we were in a very exuberant time things
were good things were being tried we all felt that there was a fresh wind blowing I hate
to keep using those metaphors but they spring to mind that one looked forward to the future
and then when at the end of the sixties with the in the time of Petulia in bed-sitting
room the sense of despair the sense of disappointment that that that things you know that all these
movements that were coming up and that sense of that that the Beatles embodied of that
if you want to do something just go ahead and do it and put your energy into it and
go for it that to see the other side the dark side of that appearing and the the exploitation
of people and the drug culture starting to take over and the vietnam war and Nixon becoming
president and all these things you then have to look at the films made in the in the late
sixties not only mine but everybody else's with that sense of disappointment I do find
insufferable the the the the arrogance as assumed arrogance that happens with people
who who know the answers it's important that there is that the purpose of those of us who
are given the rights and the privilege to entertain use that to say to people no wait
a minute don't accept this as face value look at it and say am I being conned you know
is this person what he seems to be is this hero really a hero what it what does he stand
for and is it really is it really heroic mr. Lester is there a film that you wish you had
made that you didn't get the chance to make and worked with Harold Pinter and we did a
screenplay of Joseph Conrad's victory which I think is just an absolutely stunning piece
of cinema it could could be is there a film that you made that you wish you hadn't probably
I've always distrusted people saying well I'll make this one for them and then they'll
give me the money and then I can do what I really want to do because you you never do
you just end up doing many many films for them have you ever in recent years looked back
at any of your films and been able to watch them as an audience and just kind of sat there
and watched one of your movies I thought it was a good idea not to to to look at the films
again every once in a while they did that you find yourself in the room or some or its
on television and you start to watch and then I get I get interested but I find myself getting
so nervous because I think I what you remember is all the things that were going wrong and
where you didn't get it right and the things that you thought well I can cut my way out
of trouble there because I know I didn't really get the right performance or the weather was
lousy or whatever it was and you suddenly sit there thinking my palms are sweating and
it's 25 years later why am I why am I doing this you turn it off just give up so I don't
really know what my films are like and I don't know whether they hold up well or badly or
not and I at least spare myself the embarrassment of looking at a film and thinking my god look
at all these people that you know behaving in this way and the other thing that's sad
is that that three quarters of the time if you if you look at the film most of the people
that that were there and your mates and you suffered with they're all dead and you think
Christ this is awful you know they're you know they it's it's very depressing.
What does it feel like to live the life of a successful film director a life which is
very bizarre and so far removed from the experiences of most people and I want to know if you're
aware that it is bizarre or whether after a while it becomes normal to you.
I don't think of myself in in any way as not not being ordinary I I certainly was aware
of the bizarre life especially during the the the key years with the Beatles where you
know you had to want to go to the cinema you had to put a paper bag over your head that
that's that's all I understand that but that was a couple of years and for the rest of
my life nobody knows who I am.
But what I mean is no one would ever for example film a teacher in the middle of a field with
people asking them what the best class they ever taught was that's what I mean.
No but there's no difference between this and there's there's time that the teacher
gets asked the same kind of questions and you deal with them in the same way is you
know in yourself you're just you know you are what you're you know you get up you go
to the loo you have breakfast and you know you are normal.
Mr Leicester is there a movie that you'd like to make now?
No I I really I I do honestly think it's a young man's game and I I've lost confidence
in A that the my ability I always tried to know technically what was going on I always
tried to learn what were the new lenses what were the new film stocks how one could use
the equipment if there is a thread that runs through things and if there is a thread that
runs through my life and embodies what I think is important for people to do it is it is
to question.
Excuse me the YWCA please.
First right second left straight across can't miss it.
Looks awfully.
That's not the YWCA.
We are here today.
It's up.
Is it announced.
Here at the great heartbeat of a great nation here today great well served by the finest
we walk 30 miles with gun and camera great great they trained for it heritage emotion
God bless her sale and all who bought it and I'm in labor.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
