Podcast interviews + a Warren Beatty chat from a while back
Dear Last Thing I Sawfolk,
This week I’m sharing a couple of relevant interviews from the podcast as well as an odd little gem from the vault. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is one of this year’s Academy Award nominees for Best Documentary, so it seemed a perfect time to re-share my interview with the film’s director, Laura Poitras, whose thought-provoking work I have followed with great interest for years now.
The other podcast interview I’m flagging is with Park Chan-wook, director of Decision to Leave—one of the best films of 2022 but not a nominee for the Academy Award for Best International Feature. No matter—it’s brilliant, and I’m so glad to have had a chance to speak with him.
And now for the other thing: an ol’ interview with Warren Beatty. Weird, huh? Well, an eccentric Turner Classic Movies special with Beatty is making the rounds, and that reminded me of the time I interviewed the affable star. So here you go (see below).
In conclusion, thank you to all the supporters of The Last Thing I Saw. More to come this month!
Devotedly,
Nic
THE PODCAST
Laura Poitras on All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Park Chan-wook on Decision to Leave
Episodes of The Last Thing I Saw are also available at other podcast places such as Spotify.
For more information on the podcast’s opening and closing music by The Minarets (gratefully used with permission), follow the band on Instagram:
@theminaretsmusic
FROM THE VAULT
The occasion for this interview was the film Rules Don’t Apply, which Warren Beatty directed and starred in as Howard Hughes, opposite Lily Collins and Alden Ehrenreich as Hollywood ingenues. As I recall, Beatty was a relaxed and relaxing interviewee, and, it emerged, driving around as we spoke.
Hughes has been a longstanding interest of yours as a subject for a film. Why is that?
A long time ago when I came to Hollywood, I found the subject of Howard Hughes what I have to call “amusing.” I never got the feeling that he was a bad guy. Most everyone spoke very highly of him. But I don’t know that I ever felt he was a suitable protagonist for a full movie. Ultimately, given the period—1958 was when I first came to Hollywood—I found the predicament of the young person who came to Hollywood more interesting. I guess that’s a longwinded way of saying I found myself more interesting than Howard Hughes.
Did the deal-maker in Hughes also intrigue you, as a producer?
My past was quite different from Howard Hughes. He was the recipient of enormous wealth, and I was not, and I think that enormous wealth can be a burden on a young guy. The fact is I never met him. Sometimes I felt like I met everyone [else]. I was very lucky in the movie business. I got a start with Kazan and the movie [Splendor in the Grass] was a hit, and I became what I guess would be called a movie star from my first movie. And I haven’t had to make a lot of movies in order to get along financially. I’ve never produced a movie I wasn’t seriously interested in.
There’s a view of Hughes as essentially a romantic, do you agree?
I think there’s truth in that. I don’t think making more money was the goal. He had a good sense of what was dramatic, and he was in many ways similar to a Hollywood actor in that he was rather skilled at dramatizing himself.
He makes himself the center of attention by being inscrutable.
The inscrutability is the key.
Do you think there’s nostalgia in your film’s depiction of Hollywood?
Yes, and the fictional characters played by Lily and Alden are composites of people that were involved with Hughes. To some extent, whenever anyone does a biopic or a movie involving someone who actually lived, it’s going to be fiction. When I first cut the movie, I had three quote titles: “History is a set of lies agreed upon” (that’s Napoleon), “History will be kind to me because I intend to write it” (Churchill); and “History is bunk” (Henry Ford). The only quote that I used [in the movie] was “Never check an interesting fact” (Howard Hughes). I made three [other] movies about people who actually lived—Clyde Barrow, Bugsy Siegel, and John Reid—but I took great liberties.
Sometimes your fictional characters get conjured into being. [With Trump’s presidential candidacy in the news] I happened to watch Bulworth again recently...
Yeah. I do have to say that I saw it coming. And it’s nothing to sneeze at.
THIS CRITIC’S PICKS
Delectable selections for home viewing.
Vitalina Varela (MUBI) Pedro Costa
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (Criterion) Preston Sturges
All That Breathes (HBO MAX) Oscar-nominated documentary this year
Two Shots Fired (MUBI) Martin Rejtman
Force Majeure (HBO MAX) ski romp
Tuesday (MUBI) short by Aftersun director Charlotte Wells
THE END
Here I may end with a song.
“I am a scientist.”
ABOUT ME
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw! I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold.
Besides hosting the podcast, I’m a writer and an editor. My features, interviews, festival dispatches, and reviews are published in The New York Times, Screen Slate, Sight & Sound, Artforum, Filmmaker, and W Magazine (and have appeared in dearly departed publications such as The Village Voice, Stop Smiling, The New York Sun, and The L Magazine). Why, I’ve even programmed quite a bit!
On the editorial side, I worked as editor-in-chief of Film Comment, where I was for 15 years. There I assigned and edited both web and print, hosted The Film Comment Podcast and Talks and screenings, curated Film Comment Selects, learned from brilliant writers, and wrote a lot, including interviews with Spike Lee, Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Pedro Costa, and Frederick Wiseman. Film Comment was subsequently awarded the Film Heritage Award by the National Society of Film Critics (an honor historically awarded to the Museum of Modern Art and other institutions).
Feel free to get in touch re: writing, editing, moderating, programming, podcasting, etc.
nicolas.rapold@gmail.com