Becoming Mike Nichols (2016) - full transcript

I have been going
with the same man

for the last 14 years.

Last week I got
the shock of my life.

There, sitting
at a sidewalk cafe,

was my intended
with another woman.

I asked him,
"What was the meaning
of this?"

In reply, they both stood up

and gave me
such a merciless beating,

even the waiters were shocked.

This is how I met Elaine.

I was eligible
for two colleges...



The University of Chicago
and Mexico City College.

I applied to both,
I never heard from Chicago

and I was packing
for Mexico City College

when I got a telegram
that said report
to Mandel Hall

Monday morning at 8:00.

They had forgotten
to tell me I was accepted.

So there you are and you
meet these phenomenal

improvisatory
turn on people
like Paul Sills, right?

Paul Sills was a busboy
in the coffee shop.

So I would come
and have my lunch

and Paul would be
cleaning dishes off
the neighboring tables

and we would bullshit
about the theater.

This went on
over quite a long
period of time

and then he said
they were starting
a theater,



would I like to join.

Yeah, sure I wanted.

Paul put together a reading
of "Miss Lonelyhearts"

and I was Shrike.

And I was extremely good.

I was a prick.

And then I started playing
snotty pricks.

- I was very good
at pricks.
- Yeah.

- I don't know why.
- I'll let that pass.

Nobody knows.

Paul directed some people and me

in that maddening play
by Strindberg.

"Miss Julie."
And we were so bad.

And Sydney J. Harris,
who was the big
critic downtown,

thought we were great.

- Oh, dear.
- First...

One night there was
a great-looking girl
in the front row

and I couldn't stop
looking at her.

And she was like...

And now the next day
I'm reading the paper

and there's this rave
about our hideous production.

I'm walking
along the street,
I run into Paul

and the beautiful girl
from the night before

and I say, "Paul, look at this!"

And she read it
over his shoulder

and there was only from her
at one point a "Ha!"

That's all she said.

So the beautiful girl
in the front row is Elaine.

Is Elaine.

Our first conversation
after the hideous play

and running into her with Paul

was downtown at the IC.

I said, "May I sit down?"
and she said, "If you wish."

And I sat down
next to her and she started
that kind of spy thing.

She said, "I had heard from..."

And it started.

The first conversation
we had was an improv.

And that's how we continued.

I was very excited
because she was both
beautiful and brilliant.

- And funny.
- And so funny.

Well, to jump way ahead,

one of our main pieces
happened as follows.

It was like
my 20-something birthday

and my wife at the time
said, "Your mother's on
the phone upstairs."

So I went up to the bedroom
and I picked up the phone

and I said, "Hello?"

She said, "Well,
26 years ago tonight,

I didn't have
such an easy time of it."

And I said, "Mom,
can I call you back?"

I called Elaine and I said,
"I have a piece for tonight."

And I told her only that line

and she said, "Oh, I can't wait.

Don't tell me any more.
We'll just do it tonight."

Hello, Arthur.
This is your mother.

Do you remember me?

Mom, I was just
going to call you.

Is that a funny thing?
Do you know that I had
my hand on the phone?

Arthur, you were supposed
to call me last Friday.

Mother, honey, I know.
I just didn't have a second
and I could cut my throat...

Arthur, I sat
by that phone
all day Friday.

Honey, I was working.

And all day Friday night.

- Darling, I was in the lab...
- And all day Saturday.

- And all day Sunday.
- Mom...

And your father
finally said to me,

"Phyllis, eat something.
You'll faint."

And I said, "No, Harry, no.

I don't want my mouth
to be full when my son
calls me."

Mom.

And you never called.

Mother, I was
sending up a rocket.

I didn't have a second.

Well, it's always
something, isn't it?

All right, honey, look, please...

You know, Arthur, I'm sure

that all the other
scientists there
have mothers.

And I'm sure that
they all find time

after their breakfast
or before their countoff...

- Down.
- ...to pick up a phone
and call their mother.

Honey, listen,
now you have me
on the phone.

- And you know how I worry.
- Well, that's the point.

I read in the paper
that you're still
losing them.

Mother.

Mother, I don't lose them.

I nearly went out of my mind.

Honey, listen, I wanted to...

I thought what if they're
taking it out of his pay?

All right.

We had the same mother.

And we did this all over
on television many times,

at the White House.

We always figured her mother
would think it was mine

and my mother would
think it was hers,
and they did.

So tell me about
the Compass Players.

- Was Elaine part of that?
- Oh, yes.

We had many, many years
as Compass and Second City.

And we were the only people

who would repeat pieces
and work on them.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Welcome to Long Dust.
Can I help you?

Yes. I read your ad.

I'm interested
in the $65 funeral.

Was that for yourself?

No.

For another?

May I ask,
where did you
catch that ad?

"TV Guide."

Just trying to find out
where our trade comes from.

I am afraid
that I'm going to have
to ask you some questions.

- Yes, that's all right.
- All right.

Can you tell me what
was the loved one's name?

Seymour Maslow-Freene.

Is that hyphenated?

It was.

And the loved one's address?

441118 Southeast
Huguenot Walloon Drive.

And may I ask what your name is?

- Charlie.
- Charlie.

Charlie, I'm Miss Loomis,
your grief lady.

Hi.

Is it Charlie Maslow-Freene?

- Yes.
- You're related?

Well, that will be $65.

Thank you.
I have the check
all made out.

Oh, wonderful.

Before you go,
Mr. Maslow-Freene.

I was just wondering

would you be
interested in some extras
for the loved one?

What kind of extras?

Well, how about a casket?

But that's how
we developed the pieces.

We would improvise them
and sort of say,

"Let's keep that one."

And what we ended up with,
never planning it,

was a repertoire.

The great thing about improv

is if you do it long enough,

you can do it.
You learn how to do it.

When it was good,

it was funny
for the first time
anybody said it.

One of her best improvs
was when we used to do
a DJ...

Late-night DJ, that was me,

and she was a starlet.

It eventually became
a set piece.

We were still working on it
and one night I said...

To tell us about her new movie

and she said, well, it's...

She was just lucky enough,

along with the other
things she was doing,

to have recorded the title song

from "The Brothers Karamazov."

And I said,
"Oh, could you possibly
sing it for us?"

And she said, "Of course."

And with no malice
in her eyes or anger
at me,

she sang on the spot.

"There was dashing Dmitri,
elusive Ivan,

and Alyosha with
the laughing eyes.

Then came the dawn,
the brothers were gone,

I just can't forget
those wonderful guys."

She didn't make that up.

- She improvised it
and sang it.
- On the spot?

This is a human female

who could invent
that song in 30 seconds.

It's impossible.

It's also possible
only if you've been
improvising for years.

Yes. Yes.

And you do it every night
and your head gets weird.

And it's capable of things
you could never again do.

That's what happened
when we were at the Compass.

First we got 28 a week,
and then $35 a week.

Vacations... you get
a week's vacation
one week a year.

But when you went
for that week's vacation,

you came back and you
watched this new stuff,

you would say,
"Oh, I could never
do that.

How do they do that?"

It was terrifying
until you're back in it.

Well, tell me,
how do you put your
sketches together now?

Do you outline them
or are they fairly
well written out?

We don't ever
write anything down

and we don't ever outline them.

It's a terrifying process

because the first time
we do something,

we have to do it
in front of an audience

without exactly knowing
what we're going to do.

And Elaine usually
comes up to me and says,

- "I'm insane with fear."
- Psychotic with fear.

And I say that
I'm gibbering
with fright.

But it's really
the only way we feel
we can do it

because if we decide what words

we're going to say beforehand,

then it kind of closes us
to all the things

that kind of occur
to you when you're in
front of an audience.

We rehearsed once
and it was awful.

- Didn't work.
- Didn't work out.

I was in New York by then.

A girl in my acting class said,

"Listen, I know
a very good manager

if you and Elaine would
ever want to meet him."

Why don't you audition
for Jack Rollins,

who was Harry Belafonte's
manager?

Big deal.

We auditioned on a Monday.

Tuesday night we went
into the Village Vanguard

to open for Mort Sahl
for that week.

Often Mort Sahl would say,
"I don't want them to go on.
I'm ready."

But on the weekend,
they moved us to
the Blue Angel.

Carol Burnett opened for us.

And then we got put on "Omnibus"

which was the long
TV show that everybody
watched on Sundays.

Then we did existing pieces.
Three of them.

Big deal thing.

We then did this circle
that became the show.

That is to say,
we toured all those places

like casinos in DC and LA.

We were at the Mocambo
and there were birds
of paradise on the walls,

and every night during the show,

one or two birds would die
and fall to the floor.

And then eventually
ended up at the Golden.

What do you play
in the picture,
sweetheart?

Well, Jack,

it's really just
a real great break for me.

- Uh-huh.
- Because, I mean, I just...

- well, I don't swim
in this at all.
- Uh-huh.

Which is just...

- Terrific.
- First chance.

And I was just lucky
enough to get the part
of Gertrude Stein, so...

I'm very, very surprised
to hear that.

I had heard Gertrude Stein

was to be played
by Spencer Tracy.

Yes.

Well, only as a child.

Elaine and I were
finished with it

almost a year here at the Golden

and she didn't want to go on.

We were still selling out,
but she didn't want to go on,

'cause it was much harder
for her than for me.

- Because?
- She was a real actress.

And I was beginning
to be a real pain in
the ass to her, too.

I remember this
even when we were
at the Golden.

I was very controlling.

"You were a little
too slow tonight."

As you know, once that starts,

you're in very bad trouble.

- We could not recover.
- No.

And Elaine, who is much too...

It's not that she isn't strong,

it's that she...
She doesn't battle.

And she wanted to close.

She said we had sort of
done it long enough.

But she wrote a play for me

and we went
to Philadelphia
with a play.

It was a disaster.

Part of it was that instead
of being together up here,

she was down there
with the director
looking at me

and something died.

I mean, at least for that

because I couldn't be
up there judged by Elaine

with her as my taskmaster there.

It just didn't work.

And she knew it and I knew it.

And finally I closed it.
I had the right in our deal.

It had to be
the director
that we had.

That director had been replaced.

Whatever happened, I closed it.

The thing that changed me

was a girl I knew at the time

when I was a junior
in high school.

Her mother used to
give us theater tickets.

And this one time
she gave us tickets

for the second night
of "Streetcar Named Desire."

So there we were,
15 or 16, stunned.

We sat poleaxed.
We didn't go to the bathroom.

- We didn't move...
- Yeah, I'll bet you didn't.

...for the length of the thing.

And we sat silent
during the intermissions.

We never got over it,
either one of us.

Yeah, I'll bet.

She's a shrink now, by the way.

- As a result?
- Yes.

Imagine seeing
Marlon Brando for
the first time anywhere.

I mean, some people
saw his first play,

but one girl in my class,
a real smart-ass...

...came in and said,
"I saw a fabulous actor
last night."

She said, "'Truckline Cafe.'

I mean, the play
was nothing much, but you're
going to hear about him.

He's absolutely fabulous."

She was, like, nine.

To this day,
it's the only thing
I've ever seen

that was 100% real
and 100% poetic

both at the same time.

Yeah.

And only those actors
could have done it.

Only Marlon and Jessica Tandy

and Karl Malden
and the whole bunch of them

could have done what they did.

But the things
that Kazan added...

The voices,
the scurrying
behind the set,

the seeing through
the set to a little
bit of scurrying,

the supernatural things,

the scary things...

In a weird way,
I never got over it

because it was like
written in fire
or something.

Everything that happened
was shocking.

But let me just ask
something here

because you're a junior
in high school

and you're seeing maybe one
of the seminal great moments

of American theater

and your response
to it is basically

intuitively like a director.

- Not like an actor.
- Not like an actor at all.

All I was looking at

was from the director's
point of view, but I just
never knew it.

Oh, this is the thing that
I carried into directing,

which is...

to begin to revere
the unconscious.

That not naming something,

not deciding what to do,

being brave and going out empty

is the only way.

And it's both terrifying
and thrilling.

And what I didn't know

was that it applies
to directing, too.

And the fact that
I discovered that

with my first play
that I directed, really...

- "Barefoot"?
- "Barefoot."

I had five days.

What do you mean?

Well, what I mean is that
Saint Subber, the producer,

whom I didn't know yet,

came and said,
"Would you like
to direct this play?"

And I said, "Oh, direct?

That interests me.
I hadn't thought of it."

And it was called
"Nobody Loves Me,"

which Neil Simon soon retitled
"Barefoot in the Park."

And I said, "Look,
why don't we try it out
and try me out?

Why don't we do it in stock?"

- In five days?
- In five days.

If the play is any good
and if I'm any good,

we'll find out.

So we went up to Bucks County.

I said, "I want
that blond guy I saw on
"Playhouse 90" last week.

And that was Redford.

And then Elizabeth Ashley
came with it

- because Neil Simon...
- Knew her.

Knew her,
but he and Saint

had already made
a deal with her.

And we got up there
and we're running through...

It's the first
and only run-through.

And I'm perfectly happy.

And Neil Simon says,
"This is impossible.

This isn't funny at all.
We can't open.

We can't do this.
We cannot do this play."

And I did my first
grown-up thing of my life.

I said, "Look, they're
coming tomorrow anyway.

Why don't we see
what they think?"

They went nuts.

Clearly a big hit.

And they were magnificent.

I mean, Redford and Natwick

and Ashley in her way.

I mean, she was so game.

I said, "I don't
want you being cute.

I want you to be Joan of Arc
when you're upset."

And then there was
Dick Benjamin,

who was one of the people
I met to replace Redford.

After a year and a half,
he was moving on to Hollywood.

Who wouldn't?

And he said to me
after sort of the second
or third day

with a stage manager,
"I can't learn all
the business.

There's so much business.
It never stops."

And I said, "That's right."

He said, "Why?"
I said, "So you can't act."

I had forgotten
how much business
there is in it.

Yeah.

They never stop
undressing, dressing,

putting ties into dictionaries,

pulling out the refrigerator,

getting out the chicken,
eating the chicken.

And it's all buried
so you don't notice it.

It looks like life.

And I have seen also
what happens

when you do
Neil Simon as though
there are punch lines.

- It doesn't work.
- No. They're accidental.

- The lines are accidental.
- That's right.

- You have to live in them.
- Right.

We had a crisis.
We never knew how
to end it.

And one night I had
Lillian Hellman,

who had become a friend,

at my house with my then wife,

and she said,
"I know there's a problem
in the second act.

Let me tell you
what I thought was
going to happen.

When they went out
for the big dinner

and they came back,

I thought that the mother
had gone upstairs

with the neighbor
and spent the night."

Of course she did,
'cause she was the same
age as the mother.

Yes, and that
would occur to her.

I said,
"Can you excuse me
for about an hour?"

And I left my own apartment

with my poor wife

and went to find Doc

and told him this idea.

And he was thrilled.

He wrote that the mother
slipped on the stairs
on the ice

'cause there was a storm,
twisted her ankle.

He carried her upstairs
'cause they didn't want
to upset her daughter.

Right.

She slept in his place
and in the morning

the daughter discovered her
upstairs in his bathrobe.

And she made
the wrong assumption.

And then we were left
with a scene on the couch

which was the two older people.

And what they did in the scene

was describe what they
had done last night.

And it was so boring.

And we tried this,
and we tried that.

We spent a whole day
working on it.

And Kurt Kasznar was impatient.

He said, "I'm getting
a little worried,

'cause, you know,
we open in four days."

I said, "That's what
I'm worried about."

"We're not done.
We haven't solved this."

And after the whole day, I said,

"What if
it seems funny to you
as you recollect it?

What if you start
to laugh at what
happened last night?"

And they looked at me
and they tried it.

And we had solved it.

They got hysterical.

They hadn't had sex,
but they have connected.

- Right.
- It was better than sex.

It was.

If only I had
known that in time.

The story of my life.

I then came to

appreciate

that this job that I so loved,

that I was clearly
gonna be okay at,

needed the unconscious
just as much as improv,

because what was
about to happen to me

was a number of plays
where that certainly
was the case.

Most wonderfully,
I thought, "The Odd Couple"

because I insisted

that we do only what you do
around a poker table.

- No cheating.
- Right.

Everybody sits around
the poker table.

- When I see half
a poker table, I sit.
- Oh, me, too.

But that's when
the good ideas come out.

- Who do you see win and why?
And how do you
solve it?

- Yes, exactly.
- It's fun.

Staging the first act

was one of the great
thrills of my life.

Had to be.
And they knew it,
too, right?

They knew it, I knew it,
we all knew it.

We knew we were on
to something incredible.

- A lot of people feel
- "The Odd Couple"

is Neil's greatest play.

I think it's his greatest play.

I think
it's the best thing
I did on Broadway

either ever
or for a very long time.

Who would dream that it could be

at the very heart of something?

Two guys who are separated
from their wife?

Who gives a shit?
What is that like?

Nothing.

Why was it like everything?

Because it was the perfect way
to be funny about marriage.

It was a pseudo marriage

without any
of the advantages
of a marriage,

but some serious disadvantages

in it being these two guys.

And that turned out
to be a great metaphor.

There are only
three kinds of scenes...

Negotiations,
seductions, and fights.

I'm finished. That's all.

All scenes come
into one of those
three categories.

And as I said to Jack
on the way over,

how often have you
rehearsed a scene
for two weeks

and then said,
"Oh, my God,
it's a fight"?

And you can do the same
with seductions

and most of all
with negotiations

because that's mostly
what we do in life,

especially at home.

Art Carney and,
for the first part
of the run,

Walter Matthau were great.

Walter Matthau
was a confusing person

because he wasn't...
He was not easy.

- Not happy, either.
- He wasn't happy.

He made Art Carney,
who was a saint, not happy.

- Destroyed
our opening night.
- Really?

Yeah, I was restaging
something opening night.

Just a little something,
took for a minute.

And I said, "Artie,
I like when you come
down and you do this."

Matthau said,
"Mike, don't you think

Artie is a little faggy
when he does that?"

And I thought,
"Thank you very much.
That's our opening night."

And you were off and running

as a major, major director.

And yet somewhere between

when you did "The Little Foxes"

and "The Apple Tree,"

something happened.

You directed your first film,

which was "Who's Afraid
of Virginia Woolf?"
with the Burtons.

Did you know
you could do a film?

There were problems
in my family.

My mother was very sick.
We were refugees.

- Things were tough.
- Okay.

- Okay.
- Now we're going back.

- All right.
- Quite a ways back, okay?

So, in 1939,
your father was a doctor

in Germany and he comes first.

He comes to New York
a year before.

One... because they're
taking Jewish doctors,
obviously,

by their initial,
and his initial P
was coming up.

- A patient warned him.
- Warned him of what
was happening?

- That the Nazis
would take him?
- Yes.

German Jews could not travel,
could not leave the country.

They had to wait to be
picked up for the camps.

Russian Jews,
which is what we were...

Our papers were Russian
along with my father...

Could travel.

So your father was smart enough
to say, "I've got to get out.

And if I get out,
I can get you out."

Right. And a year later,
my brother and I,

we were seven and four
and we came alone
on the Bremen.

First of all, we're stopped
on the gangplank

'cause Hitler
was making a speech.

Each lamppost had a speaker.

And traffic stopped
when Hitler spoke.

And that meant that we
couldn't get on the boat
till the speech was finished.

I remember getting
at the end of the gangplank.

I jumped as hard as I could

'cause I wanted to see
the boat go up and down.

I hadn't quite
figured out volume and...

And I had a fairly
good time on the boat.

I spoke one sentence
of English, which was

"I don't speak English,
please don't kiss me."

My mother was in the hospital,

which is why she didn't
come at that time.

She was ill.
She had been ill then

and for much
of the rest of her life.

- She came over a year
after we came over.
I see.

And then my father made it
fun when we got here

'cause he was a very funny guy.

I remember him dancing
in his underwear.

- That's my happiest memory.
- How wonderful.

He also was something
of a ladies' man,
was he not?

Oh, yes.
He was fine with anyone
except his wife.

- Did she know this?
- She had boyfriends.

She stayed with my father,

but they were about to separate.

When did he die?

He died in '44 when he was 44.

Because he had to get
a job when we got here

and he hadn't yet
passed his one medical
exam that he took,

so he got a job
running an X-ray
machine for a union.

- Oh, no.
- And he died of leukemia.

I wish I had known him longer.

We missed each other.

We were just getting
to the point

where we might
have found each other
when he died.

That was tough, but...

But anyway,
I didn't speak
a word of English.

I only knew
"I don't speak English,
please don't kiss me."

I remember sitting
on the school bus saying,

"What means 'emerghency'?"

So what I would do
after school every day

is go to the Beacon or the RKO.

Whatever movie was there,
I would see it.

And it was sort of
my playground.

That became part of me.

And then later
I went to see "Virginia
Woolf" on the stage.

And, again,
like with "Streetcar,"
I was stunned.

I was paralyzed.
I had never seen
such a play.

It really got to me
in some deep way.

When Elaine and I
were here at the Golden,

at the Majestic was "Camelot"

with Julie Andrews
and Richard Burton
and Roddy McDowall.

A lot of pals, actually.

And we all became
very good friends

'cause for that year
we were all in the alley

and we all would go out
for drinks afterwards

and I became good friends
with Burton.

And then later
when we were no longer
in those two shows,

he said, "Come to Rome.
Come and visit"

while they were shooting
"Cleopatra" and I did.

And by the time I got there,
he was with Elizabeth

and he said, "Listen,
I'm shooting all weekend.

She isn't.
Would you mind taking
Elizabeth out somewhere?

The press is driving her crazy."

I said, "I guess so.
That's all right."

For you, Richard, anything.

And I got my little VW

and went and picked her up.

Just said,
"Put a babushka
over your head."

We walked around all day.
Nobody ever bothered her.

Once somebody said,
"There's Mike Nichols."

So then we got to be friends.

Years passed. I think two.

And I read that
they had hired her
to do "Virginia Woolf"

and I said to a press guy
who worked for both of us,

I said, "Tell Elizabeth"...

And I'm amazed that I had
the balls to do this...

"that I should direct it."

And he called
me back and said,
"She agrees with you."

So that's how I got
my first movie.

He was part of the deal as well?

Richard? No, I cast him.

I looked at it
and looked at it
and thought,

"Well, there's one obvious
actor that should play it.
It's Richard."

Because they're there already.

And indeed, they were,

because the people
in the play loved each
other as they did

and had some complications

as they did.

Am I wrong about this?

He was more or less
sort of the right age,
but she wasn't.

She wasn't nearly the right age,

which led to a fight
with Jack Warner which
I won't bore you with.

You might bore us
with a little of it.

All right.

I'll bore you
with a little of it.

We were preparing

and I had the problem
of the producer,

who was a writer/producer,

and what he had written.

And I had to throw out
everything he had written.

Although I will tell you
one thing he had written

just to put you on my side.

The titles of the movie
were George taking
a walk at night

and he describes
the things he sees
at night during the titles.

And one of them is
what was described
as "two dogs fucking."

But it said in parentheses,

"This must be beautifully shot."

I showed this
to a designer
friend I had

and she said,
"I can do it.
I can do it."

She said,
"I need Afghans
and lots of fans."

But because I was in
this sort of battle

with this producer/writer,

I had to restore
the script to Albee.

That was easy.

Was Edward around at this point?

No, Edward was not
hired for the movie.

He was not consulted
by anybody but me.

- Really?
- That's Hollywood.

He only wrote it.

What good is he to them?

At this point, Jack Warner,

who actually was
sort of a person,

called us into
his office and said,

"Boys, you can't
do the picture in
black and white.

New York says
it's got to be color."

Now, there is no New York
at Warner Brothers.

That's Warners. It's Warners.

It's called Warners
and Warners owns it.

New York is only a city.

It doesn't care
whether movies
are made in...

He was pretending
he had a sort of

release organization
in New York.

He said, "Well, I'm sorry,
but Elizabeth is 32.

The character is 56.

Her makeup is going
to look like shit.

You can't do that to someone."

And she had lost weight.
And I said, "No, no.

You're supposed
to gain weight now."

And she said...
Oh, she was thrilled.

She said,
"You want me
to gain weight?"

I said, "I certainly do."

And I explained to Warner
that you couldn't do it.

And the sets
we're building
can't be done.

He said, "Well, I'm sorry,
but you have to do it."

And I said...
discovering that
I had that ability...

I said, "Well, then,
you make it.

I'll go home.
I like it at home."

To my surprise, he said,

"All right, all right.
Damn it. Black and white."

And then I had gotten it.

I understood what
you did with the old
guard in Hollywood.

You went ahead anyway.

Oh, I had a famous cameraman

that I had wanted.

One day I ran into this guy.

He said, "Mike, Mike,
I've got to tell
you something.

I thought
of how you're gonna get
that look like Fellini.

The secret would be

to shoot it in color,

but print it
in black and white."

I said, "Oh, Harry.
You're fired."

I said, "I'm so sorry.

'Cause I know
you're working
for the boss,

but I've got to really
shoot it and print it
in black and white.

That's all we're gonna do."

But here's the thing also
about black and white.

It's why it was so sad
to say good-bye to it.

It's not literal.

It is a metaphor automatically.

And my orientation
is that that's the point.

A movie is a metaphor.

What is the metaphor, you ask,

when you're trying
to solve the problem.

If you're in black and white,
it's partly solved.

It is already saying,
"No, this is not life.

This is something about life."

It's like an oil painting.
It doesn't move.

It does something else.

A version of life.

A version of life.

Mike, what about
the length of the script?

It's a long play.

We cut it.

Did you shoot
in sequence the way
the play is written?

As much as we could, yes.

'Cause that would be
important or probably
helpful to you

at the beginning
of your film career
to think that way.

Or didn't it matter?

It did matter to me,
for the actors especially.

- For them, yes,
- I would think so.

Now, we rehearsed
the hell out of it.

And also the fact
that it had been a play

gave me something
I could not have had
otherwise...

A very good map of the events

and how long each arc takes.

That is to say,
I could say to Elizabeth,

"No, keep going. Keep crying.

This feeling,

this explosion of emotion
isn't over yet.

'No!' is when it's over."

And then she breaks down crying.

That was incredibly useful to me

because I had seen
the events brilliantly
dramatized on the stage.

It was a big crutch for me.

I also realized
that I had better really
buckle down to the camera.

I had about two weeks
till we started shooting.

So I had one friend,
Tony Perkins,

who had made a lot of movies.

And I said, "You've got
to tell me some things
about the camera quickly."

For instance,
let me give you
an example.

They're coming in the door.

I want to shoot
Elizabeth comes
through the door,

Richard comes through the door.

But when the door opens,
won't they hit the camera?

And so he had
to explain lenses to me.

He said, "See, if you're
in a wide lens..."

I said, "Wide lens?"

He said, "Yes,
if it's a wide lens,

then they can come
right towards you,
but not hit the camera.

Not neither with the door
or themselves."

And so stage by stage
he explained

the principles
of movie photography.

In how much time?

Three days.

Now, I had looked
at all these movies.

I had seen "A Place in the Sun"

maybe 150 times.

'Cause it was not only
my favorite movie,

it was my bible.

There's nothing
that you can't learn

from George Stevens,
the way he shot

"A Place in the Sun"
and what it is.

So you are armed with
three days of lessons

when you go to do
your first day of shoot,
is that correct?

That's right.

Did Burton
or Elizabeth or anybody

have an idea
different from yours?

Once Richard...

Being a big deal British actor,

they're all very
in a friendly competition
with each other

and they're all very aware

of this one is better
than him at this,

and Larry is this
and this one is that.

And he confessed to me

that he was trying
to figure out how to cry

that none of them had done.

And I respected that
and left him alone.

He's found something of hers

that tells him
that they had sex.

And what he did was

he laughed.

Did you just get it once?

No, no, no.

He had found
that he could do it
as often as I wanted.

Now and then,

he had had a couple of drinks.

I mean, that wasn't
only a joke, because he...

We were shooting
and he was religious
about that.

He did not drink when shooting

except a couple of times.

And when he came in pissed off,

I knew.

And this one time
I thought, "Oh, man.

This is gonna be really tough."

'Cause it was the bergin speech,

which is a long damn speech.

We did it
and he couldn't
get through it.

And then that magic
thing that happens
on movies happened

and he did it
and it was incredible.

It just took off.

And it was perfect
all the way through

and I said, "Cut. That's it.

Oh, Richard, that was the best."

And when the dailies came back,

the scene had
been overexposed
by, like, 10 points.

That's what I did.

And I said to the DP,

I said, "Start working on it,

because he's never
gonna do it again."

And one time in the bunch of us

there was this boy

who was 15

and he had killed
his mother with a shotgun

some years before.

Accidently,
completely accidently

without even
an unconscious motivation,
I have no doubt.

No doubt at all.

And this one time
this boy went with us

and we order our drinks.

When it came his turn he said,

"I'll have bergin.

Give me some bergin, please.

Bergin and water."

Well, we all laughed.

He was blond and he had
the face of a cherub

and we all laughed.

And his cheeks went red
and the color rose in his neck.

And the waiter
who had taken our order
told people at the next table

what the boy had said
and then they laughed.

And then more people were told
and the laughter grew

and more people
and more laughter.

And...

no one was laughing more than us

and none of us
more than the boy
who had shot his mother.

Soon everyone
in the gin mill knew
what the laughter was about

and everyone started
ordering bergin

and laughing
when they ordered it.

Soon, of course, the laughter
became less general,

but did not subside entirely

for a very long time.

For always
at this table or that,

someone would order bergin

and a whole new area
of laughter would rise.

We drank free that night.

And we were bought champagne
by the management,

by the gangster father
of one of us.

And, of course,
we suffered the next day,

each of us alone

on his train away from the city

and each of us with
a grown-up's hangover.

But it was the grandest day

of my youth.

The Burtons, who loved
each other very much
at that point

and didn't exactly fight often,

there were days.

And those days between them
fed into the movie.

And what starts to happen
on a good movie

is that you allow all the things

that are useful
to feed into the movie.

And it's like one more gift.

If I just said to you,
the screen door,

was that you?

Yeah, but it was us

in that Elizabeth
was unbelievable.

George, who is out
somewhere there
in the dark.

Who is good to me.

Whom I revile.

Who can keep learning
the games we play

as quickly as I can change them.

Who can make me happy
and I do not wish
to be happy.

Yes, I do wish to be happy.

George and Martha.

Sad, sad, sad.

Whom I will not forgive
for having come to rest.

For having seen me
and having said,

"Yes, this will do."

Who has made the hideous,

the hurting,
the insulting mistake

of loving me

and must be punished for it.

George and Martha.

Sad, sad, sad.

And we didn't do a lot of takes.

I knew this was gold.

And that's why
you can't stop it.

It's one of the great
things on earth to do

because there are these gifts

that come from
the inside of the artists

who are playing the parts.

And even the DP,
who was my nemesis,

did a beautiful job.

And what begins to happen

is that you don't dare say it,

but you think
this thing is alive,
I think.

The winner is...

Irene Sharaff for "Who's Afraid
of Virginia Woolf?"

The winner is Haskell
Wexler for "Who's Afraid
of Virginia Woolf?"

Sandy Dennis in "Who's Afraid
of Virginia Woolf?"

Richard Sylbert
for "Who's Afraid
of Virginia Woolf?"

And George James Hopkins.

And the winner is...

Miss Elizabeth Taylor.

It seems that almost
hard upon the heels

of this phenomenal
first experience,

there's a property
called "The Graduate."

I actually got it
before "Virginia Woolf."

A guy I didn't know,
a producer, Larry Tuerman,

sent me a book.

He said, "I think
this would make a good movie.
What do you think?"

And I read it and I said,
"Yes, this is a movie."

It was a great story.

But I was already signed
to do "Virginia Woolf."

I knew that the guy
who was gonna adapt this
was very important.

And I struck out
with two writers
in a row.

I gave, they wrote, we talked.

They wrote, I read, no.

'Cause I knew
exactly what I wanted

to be the spine of the movie.

A boy who was drowning
in things and objects,

in affluence.

Finding there's
no way he could fight
his way out of it

except madness.

And madness
was what he found
to save him.

I was at a party in LA

and one of the guys
I was talking to

was Buck Henry,
whom I had weirdly known

when we were both seven.

We were at Dalton together
when we were seven and eight.

- Were you friends?
- No. I don't know.

- I don't remember,
but he remembered.
- Yes.

'Cause here
was this little kid
who spoke only German.

And what he said to me about it

was that I was an outsider
in every possible way.

So I'm talking to him
at this party

and I say,

"Would you be interested
in writing a script?"

And he said, yes,
he's thought about it.

He would be interested,
'cause while I had been
in the Second City,

he had been in the Premise,
another improv group.

And I very soon knew
he was the guy.

I had rented a house
and we went into

what Buck called the Stone Room

and we wrote the screenplay.

I mean, he wrote the screenplay.

And there wasn't
a lot of money for it.

Nobody had any
great hopes for it.

And I wasn't gonna
use big stars.

- Well, you didn't.
- I didn't.

Because this was
Dustin Hoffman's
first film?

Did you know
Dustin Hoffman
at that point?

No, no. I had seen him playing

a transvestite Russian fishwife.

In an off-Broadway play,
I need hardly add.

And after we had tested
a lot of people

and seen hundreds of people,

I said, "I did see
a very talented guy.

I have no idea
if he's right for this.

Let's get him out here
and let us test him."

And he came out
and he was Dustin

and he had the thing
that Elizabeth had.

And it's very, very rare,
people who have it,

which is what seems
to be a deal with a lab

that they get better
in the bath overnight.

That what you see
on the floor when
you're shooting

is good, but what you see
on the screen next day

is quite a lot better.

Dustin had
an astonishing amount
of life behind nothing.

I mean, he's not
moving anything,

he's not doing anything,
but he's panicked.

I don't know how we know,
but we know.

- Uh...
- Excuse me.

Yes, sir?

A room. I'd like a room, please.

A single room or a double room?

Single just for myself, please.

Just sign the register, please.

- Anything wrong, sir?
- What? No, nothing.

Do you have any luggage,
Mr. Gladstone?

Luggage?

Yes. Yes, I do.

- Where is it?
- What?

Where is your luggage?

Well, it's in the car.
It's out there in the car.

Very good, sir.
I'll have a porter
bring it in.

Oh, no.

- Hello?
- Mrs. Robinson?

- Yes.
- It's Benjamin.

- Yes?
- Benjamin Braddock.

Benjamin, where are you?

Can you look through the glass?

- Can you see me now?
- Yes, I can.

- I got a single room.
- That's fine.

But there's one thing.

The desk clerk seemed to be
a little bit suspicious.

Now, I don't know
what the policy is...

Well, do you want
to go up first?

Yes, I think that would be good.

I'll be up in five minutes.

Good-bye, then.

- Benjamin.
- Yes?

Isn't there something
you want to tell me?

- Tell you?
- Yes.

Well, I want you to know

how much
I appreciate this,
really.

- The number.
- What?

The room number, Benjamin.

I think you ought
to tell me that.

Somebody told me
when Jack Warner
at lunch

did nothing but tell jokes,

somebody said, "You know
that you whimper when
he's telling jokes?"

And I said, "I do?"

He said, "Yes, you sit
there and you go..."

And I told that to Dustin.

- And he did it.
- And he did it.

What of "Virginia Woolf"

informed "The Graduate"?

Did you bring anybody with you?

My editor.
Sam and I were
very good friends

and he had been
an assistant editor,

which was required
by the union,
for eight years.

His first movie
was my first movie.

And Billy Wilder,
who had been very helpful
to me in every way,

a great pal
when I was getting ready
for "Virginia Woolf,"

lent me his supervising editor.

Who left in three days.

And what he does is
he devises a cutting scheme

and tells you what it is.

And he left because
I didn't follow his scheme.

Now, what he didn't know
is I didn't understand
his scheme.

And the reason
I didn't understand it

was I could only shoot

what I knew was happening.

And there was only
one place for the camera

to show what was happening,
it seemed to me.

And that's, I think,
how you find out

how you want to shoot
something by asking
that question

and then deciding
how you could best see

the thing that is
specifically happening

in this moment...
these moments that
you're shooting now.

That shot where Dustin
is bringing Katharine home
the first time

and you see her and him
and then not,

and then you see them
again in the next window
and so on,

the editor, who had
wonderful instincts,

he went and found it
and suggested it

because it was about
they were beginning
to connect.

Good night.

Are we getting married tomorrow?

No.

Day after tomorrow?

I don't know.

Maybe we are,
and maybe we're not.

I had said to Buck

that I wanted to find a way

to do a montage

when he's getting laid
every night

and he's getting
anesthetized every night.

And he's trying
to move out of his life

- into some...
- Other.

- ...other place...
- That's right.

...by humping
and it wasn't
going to work.

And I wanted
to express that zombie

going through
his regular life at home

with his parents and everything

in a new way.

And then we would move
into the Stone Room

and write those montages
shot by shot.

Now, okay,
and when we look
at them,

how do we separate this
from Simon and Garfunkel?

"Hello, darkness,
my old friend."
Which came first?

Well, this is the thing
that you have to know
about movies.

You get lucky
in various strange ways.

My brother sent me that first LP

of Simon and Garfunkel

and I would play it
in the morning

when I was getting up
and going to the studio.

About the third week
of playing it,

I thought,
"Holy Christ, this is...

This is our score.
What am I doing?"

So I took the record
into the cutting room

'cause I spent Saturdays
with the editor, my editor,

and we had that thing happen

that has happened
to me before and since

that you say,
"Let's try this song

over this section."

And it fits to the frame

and it transforms the section.

And then there was
the weirdest thing of all

which is I wanted them
to write a new song

about Mrs. Robinson.

And when
we were recording,
Paul said,

"You want to hear the song
about Mrs. Robinson?"

I said, "Please. Of course."

And he sang it
and I said, "I hate it."

"That's not the song.
I can't use that.

What else have you got?"
He said, "Nothing.

That's what I wrote."

I said, "Don't you have
anything you could try?"

He said, "Artie."

And they went in the corner
and they talked a little whil.

And then they came back
and they stood in front
of the mic

and they sang
"And here's to you,
Mrs. Robinson."

And I said, "What the hell?"

"How did you do that?"

"Well," he said,
"I'll tell you the truth.

I've been working on a song

called 'Here's to You,
Mrs. Roosevelt.'"

And they just changed it
to Mrs. Robinson.

When you look at the movie,
there's no verse.

They go, "Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee"

because that's instead
of a verse.

They just have...
They just have the chorus

which is all they had
when we were recording.

I watched the film
a couple nights ago

and I didn't really
fully either remember

or appreciate the very ending.

There they were,
him pounding on the pane,

"Elaine, Elaine."

And she turns
and she screams,
"Benjamin."

And they run out
and he uses the cross

and locks
the Presbyterian church.

- Who hasn't?
- Yeah.

And they run to the bus
and they get on the bus

and you think, "Wow!"

And they go
to the back of the bus
and they sit down

and then the film doesn't end.

No.

Will you tell me
about that ending

and what happened
and how that happened?

Yeah, that was... that ending

was what taught me

what movies really are.

And it's hard to talk about,

but it's very important to me

because it's where
I really did get it.

It's that I've been
a prick on set

and I've been okay
and I've been nice,

but on that movie,
we had a very special
feeling about it

and I was just darling
to everybody.

The crew
didn't think so,
but I did.

And I...

suddenly when we were
shooting that running
from the church

and getting on the bus,

I said to Dustin and Katharine,

I said, "Now, listen, guys,

we've stopped traffic
for 20 blocks

and we have police cars
and everything.

They're not gonna stay
with us very long.

Please, just get
on the damn bus,

turn around, see everybody
staring at you, and laugh.

Please. You've got to do it.

I can't do this over and over."

And I looked at them
and they both had tears
in their eyes.

They hadn't seen me
like this... impatient.

I said, "I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, but...

Let's just try to do it."

And the next day
I was showing the dailies

and I said, "Holy shit.

They're terrified."

Who knew? Not me.

And that's when I understood

that whatever
is happening to you,

if you're...
if you've been
concentrated,

if you've all been together,

and if you found this place
that all of you meet...

Which is what you have
to do to make a movie...

Then they're...

Your own unconscious
is a very important
part of it.

And you... especially
if you're the director

or the writer or the lead actor.

There's something
about a band of people
making a movie

when it's not with
the giant machines
and the cranes.

You have to do it sometimes,

but you have to work
out your stuff

in a room without the cranes,

with the people.

And it's that.

It's finding what's happening.

What is A doing to B

and what happens next

that I still get
terribly excited about

because there's...
One minute you don't know,

the next minute
you suddenly get it.

And that, as we all know,

is that's the great thrill.

Whether it happens in your life,

in your work, in your study,

in watching something,

when you get it

and everything shifts
and everything changes

and says some simple...

At least clear
if not simple thing,
that's a thrill.

That's exciting.
That's why we're here.

Because there's
nothing else like it.

There's nothing like getting it.

That part of us

that comes out
of the unconscious

when we're hot.

When the thing is happening

is what we have to nourish.

The winner is Mike Nichols.

Until this moment,

my greatest pleasure
in "The Graduate"
was making it

because it's a picture
made by a group

and we cared for each other

and we cared for what
we were doing.

So this award quite literally

belongs to them
at least as much
as it does to me.

I'm grateful to them
and to the academy

and to the movies themselves.

I know.

Well, here's the deal.

I've never had
a worse afternoon.

No, it's a nightmare.

- You're no fucking fun.
- I know.

Must be a grotesque
embarrassment to both of us.

Yes. Well, maybe we can
get them to destroy it.

Okay, then.
This is it, we're done.