Pablo (2012) - full transcript
Pablo blends documentary and animation elements to tell the saga of "famous unknown" Pablo Ferro, a man with a personal journey that spans from Havana, during the pre-Cuban revolution to his current home, in the garage behind his son's house. The animation part of the film takes us through the dream-scape of Pablo's memories, while the documentary footage chronicles a very eccentric lifestyle of a 72 year old artist, once hailed by Stanley Kubrick as the father of the sixties look and the MTV aesthetics.
♪
Coming.
Hello.
May I have your
attention please?
May I have your
attention please?
Thank you.
♪
This is Pablo Ferro.
♪
Pablo who?
Who is Pablo Ferro?
Kind of a wild eyed
romantic artist.
Very bohemian.
Gypsy, I had the feeling
he was a bit of a gypsy.
This...this is a pipe.
He's a red scarf.
He's really the 60s.
A leprechaun.
He's Yoda.
New pattern.
Just a little
askew of the center.
He's surprising.
And he's also just
your average guy.
He's ephemera man,
he's a miasmic.
He's an optical illusion man.
You ain't gonna
pin point the boy.
This is a garage.
Sort of frail, intense guy
who wanted to make art.
This is the bomb.
A very gentle, loving guy.
This is right after
Castro took over.
That's why I was surprised
when I heard about some
violence having to do
with him in New York.
This is a sauna.
The image of Pablo...
To see him, he's like a walking
work of art, you know.
This is the cloud.
Is it going to rain?
This is
the Art Director's Club,
and that comes apart.
The D and the A.
This is Stanley Kubrick.
This is Stanley Kubrick.
There's a kind of liberation.
Anything works with Pablo.
This is the video cutting
room and art department.
All the art work and research.
And here is
the Napoleon Dynamite.
The original drawing.
Did you do that of yourself?
Yes.
A portrait.
Yeah, a caricature.
He doesn't have any
opinions about people.
He likes everybody.
Everybody's got his story,
and that's fine by Pablo.
These are naked girls.
Are two better than one?
Something about
the essence of Pablo Ferro.
He has a kind of revolutionary
feel to him.
He's like certain
shamans, you know.
When you evoke his name,
there's a kind of energy
and a humor, and a good will.
He's a true artist.
This is a phone.
Is it going to ring?
They're going to try to do
a little documentary on me.
So, I hope that it will
come out interesting.
♪
Get the thing going, man.
♪
A title sequence,
which he's done so many of,
can really set
the tone for a movie.
Of course, the positioning
of the credits in a movie
is huge because it's
the first thing you see.
Just like meeting people,
it's a first impression.
He's one of the very few
who've worked in his particular
matai, which is titles
who receives credit
for their titles.
Big tribute is going on
tonight for Hollywood
movie master by the name
of Pablo Ferro.
You may not know the name,
but I bet you know the work.
Been in the movie theater
in the past 40 years,
you've seen Pablo Ferro's work.
Have you ever walked out
of a movie and wondered
why you liked the opening
title sequence better
than the film itself?
The designer of trailers
and opening credit sequences,
his work is often more memorable
than the film itself.
How can you say don't worry
about it when every single
image including the title
and the way the title
is presented begins
to have an effect.
Neutral is negative.
If it's just okay,
"Oh, it didn't hurt anything,
we're just getting it,"
then it's negative.
I'm convinced to that.
One time I was accused
of subliminate advertising.
They would say, "Pablo,
I'm sure somewhere in there,
there's a frame that says,
Hire Pablo, hire Pablo."
Pablo, thank you
so much for being here.
My pleasure.
This is Pablo Ferro
arriving on the scene.
I love your stuff, Pablo.
It's just a great look.
It's great.
It happened by accident.
A friend of mine back
in the 60s did one for me.
Oh, so you just like,
it's like your signature.
Yeah, and became, I'd be
wearing it all the time,
and all of sudden he says,
"Oh, is that your sash?"
I said, "I guess so."
Well, it's a classi--
See it never dates when
you do something like this.
You can wear it every season.
Yeah.
Every decade,
and it's a classic.
It's fine, everybody
likes it when they see it.
Yeah.
You don't bump into those
people that are distinguished
themselves from that area.
You know, he was a...
he was a star.
He was a superstar
in that area.
Pablo Ferro.
Thank you.
He's one of those
guys that has a kind
of a legendary aspect.
Give it to Pablo,
leave him alone for two weeks,
he'll come up with something.
And he does a lot of
different things as you know.
Commercials, acting, films,
trailers, graphics,
whatever you want.
Plus he's funny...
to me anyway.
I think so.
Probably his most important
contribution to any film
he works on is just
the fact that he's there.
I think that it has to do
with the God given gift
of talent combined
with the kind of hard work
that goes into making
something look easy.
This is Cuba.
♪
Okay, let's see,
what can I tell you?
I was born in a small village
in Cuba called Antilla in 1935.
Everywhere I went
I drew pictures.
Always drawing pictures.
Life was good.
But that always changes, right?
We're talking about,
it was Batista was in,
and it was just, you know,
my father being a student
and being rebellious.
He was involved in
that type of politics.
But sometimes, you know,
they don't like you
to voice opinions.
So, if he didn't leave Cuba,
I think they would have put him
in jail or done away with him.
♪
This is Pablo Ferro
leaving Cuba.
Could you think
I wanted to leave Cuba?
I had no choice.
♪
My father went first,
then we followed.
All six of us.
This is Pablo Ferro
arriving in America.
I never saw snow,
so when I saw it, I said,
"What the hell is this?"
Somebody like that
came over from Cuba
when he was 12 years old
and never wore shoes
before he came over.
That is to say we know very
few people who lived in
the country with no plumbing
until they were 12 years old
and then came to New York City
and was able to sustain himself.
My father, he'd sit down
and he'd have his daily drink
and then my poor mother would
come change into her house dress
and then she'd start dinner
because God forbid, you know,
in those days your husband
would help the wife that way.
I saw how demanding
and how unappreciative
the rest of the men
were in the family.
But Pablo was very thoughtful.
He always considered
your feelings.
After two years
of living in America
my father left us.
I said, "Pendejo,"
and that was it.
He was gone.
This is Pablo Ferro
becoming the man of the house.
My other brother
was in the service
and Pablo was the sole
provider for us.
Even though my mother
still worked, he worked.
My dad wasn't there.
♪
I'm always looking
for more work to help
support the family.
One day I run into this
cinema, this art cinema.
And they offered me
a job as an usher.
And I said sure.
It was great because I was
able to see the masters.
This is Pablo Ferro
discovering cinema.
It was a foreign
film movie theater.
They only showed foreign.
And every two weeks,
there'd be a new billing.
I would watch the same
film over and over.
I really loved it.
There's a film that
is really good.
The best Vittorio De Sica.
It was called Miracle in Milan.
Here he deals with fantasy
and reality at the same time.
The film opens with this old
lady living by herself
when she found this baby.
And then she brought
the baby up and taught him
how to be a nice person.
He's like an angel.
And he would always be saying
bongiorno, good morning.
He likes people.
People would say,
"What's so good about it?"
At the end he asks
everybody to grab a broom.
And they get on and he
starts to fly away.
And they're flying away
and they have a song
and it says, "We're going
to a land where good morning
means good morning."
And that's the way it ends.
And it's beautiful,
beautiful film.
You really could relate to it.
♪
I saved some money.
I got myself an animation book.
I taught myself how
to become an animator.
Now, the manager of the theater
figured out that
I knew how to draw.
He said, "Oh, I want some
sketches promoting the outside,
so people would come in."
Well, I did one that I like.
It was Bitter Rice,
where legs are spread
and it's wearing those
mini cut things like that.
So, I took the picture
and blew it up.
And then this part was
in the box office.
So, when you buy a ticket,
you buy it through the legs.
And they loved it.
We sold a lot of tickets.
♪
This is Pablo Ferro
getting paid money.
And this is a sauna.
Okay,
take some deep breaths.
You can relax now,
just normal breathing.
Pablo generally has
a real difficult time
during the winters.
Usually the cold weather
makes the pain a lot worse.
There tends to be
more inflammation.
He gets gets a lot of all
the muscular problems.
Muscle tension, muscle spasm.
It's just the heat
from the sauna helps
the muscles somewhat relax,
and the end result is,
well, a little less pain.
You used to get a massage
in the past, right?
Yeah.
On a regular basis?
Not now, I can't
afford it anymore.
How about the sauna?
♪
This is Pablo Ferro's
doctor suggesting a sauna.
I got to get a,
I got to get a big job
to get the sauna.
A big job for that.
They always talk.
What about talking?
Yeah.
Well, I'm looking at
a strip now called Alley Ugh.
And it's a very
distinctive style.
It's somebody who has
a good sense of humor,
and also a sense of drama.
It's laid out very well.
The story telling is good.
And it doesn't look
like the average strip.
The artist who drew this
had his own recognizable,
individualistic style.
Obviously Pablo Ferro.
That's what I brought
over the Stan Lee to see
if he'd want to publish it.
When I showed him the portfolio
and he says, "Did you ink that?"
I said, "Yeah, I inked it
and I drew it, and I wrote it"
And he said,
"Okay, you're hired."
And I got hired in
the industry that way.
It was one of the few
industries where your
age didn't matter,
your religion didn't matter,
the color of your
skin didn't matter,
your nationality,
all that we would do was
look at the artwork.
And, "Hey, that looks good,
you're hired.
Here's a strip to do"
♪
That was unusual.
Most of the artists in comics
stayed with the comics
most of their lives.
The fact that Pablo was able
to go from comic book art
to directing commercials,
that was a tribute
to Pablo's talent.
♪
Welcome to a brief lesson in
the history of TV commercials.
This is a television.
A television commercial is
an advertisement in which
goods, services, organizations,
or ideas are promoted via
the medium of television.
The first television
commercial was aired in 1941
by Bulova Watch Company.
It displayed a Bulova watch
over a map of the United States
and the narrator announcing,
"America runs on Bulova time."
This is an average 1950's
commercial.
I think we all agree
on Sugar Smacks.
Right.
It wasn't effectively
positioning its client
in the market place.
Folks, don't wait, get
Kellogg's new Sugar Smacks,
candy sweet.
♪
This is Pablo Ferro's
contribution.
♪
Tempo frozen
garden peas.
♪
Tempo.
Widely considered
the new standard
on Madison Avenue.
Beech-Nut
delightedly announces.
Good old fashion sourball
flavor is back.
He brought the comic book
sensibility to the TV screen.
The commercials that he did
were as imaginative
and as colorful
and as fun to look at
as his illustrations
in the comics.
♪
What Pablo was doing was
injecting graphic design,
graphic design techniques
or comic book techniques
onto film.
♪
Pablo is a precursor
of what's going on now
in motion graphics.
♪
He was the quintessential,
experimental and exploratory
director, you know.
His sense of humor,
or his sense of the absurd
were very special.
This is a time
consuming detail.
The kind that could
eat up hours of a state
fund agent's time.
Animation teaches you
patience when you
can work things out.
Pardon me, sir.
How are you going to send
your children to college?
It's all taken care of.
Teaches you about the flow.
What works, what doesn't work,
in that image.
Oh, where is my
County Fair bread?
Hold out for County Fair bread.
I started treating
live action and graphic
like it was animation.
And I could cut the little
pieces together to just
get the right action.
Pablo was on the leading
edge of the fast paced,
quick cut cacophony of images.
He was there
and he was on that wave.
I was able to put graphic
lettering, live action, stills
all together into one film.
But I had to cut them short.
I made all the scenes shorter,
but a longer scene
would be a frame.
When you're young it's like
everyone wants to change you.
He believed that
people could absorb
and retain information,
either visual information
or written information
told in this machine gun style.
If it's anything to do
with fabric, we do it
at Burlington Industries.
And we do more of it than
anyone in the world.
He was doing things
that I wasn't aware he
was the first one to do.
I mean, things that had
a huge effect afterwards,
things that we take
for granted now.
He began working
at a studio called Electra,
which was a very high
design studio.
And then he was in business
with Freddy and then
with Lou Schwartz.
He just had a knack for it.
I would say it was a quick rise
to stardom there for Pablo.
♪
We would go to these...
There was a couple of
belly dancer places over on
the Eighth Avenue somewhere.
And Pablo would be buying
a round, you know,
"Buy a round for the bar,
you know, for the band.
Buy a round here."
And he really splurged a lot.
We used to call him, Bucks.
Then the things got bad.
Then we started to call him
Pennies, ha-ha-ha!
♪
We met at a party that
Pablo had been invited to.
And Pablo asked who I was.
And Jimmy, my husband told him
that I was his sister.
That Jimmy was--I was
Jimmy's sister.
So, Pablo came into a very
different state of mind.
This is Pablo Ferro
falling in love.
♪
And I was pregnant
with Allen.
Pablo suddenly would be making
excuses for not wanting
to join us or come over.
And I was very upset about it.
You know, maybe in
the back of my mind
I wanted to have a break
with Jimmy because I was really
looking at Pablo differently.
I was beginning to realize
that he was more important
to me than just a friend.
And I left him, I left Jimmy.
♪
Pablo said,
"Why don't we get married?"
And I said, "What?"
It seemed like
a great idea to me.
We got married in Cuba,
and then when we came back,
not only was I divorced,
I was married.
And for my mother...
I can not tell you.
I just was so
thrilled and happy.
I felt like I was
breaking out of an egg
and the sun was shining.
This is the bomb.
The '60s were
filled with anxiety
and filled with seeds
of revolution, in a way.
You'll have to know
what happens when
an atomic bomb explodes.
Everybody was frightened
of a nuclear war between
Russia and America.
You duck, then you cover.
Everybody was living in
a state of paranoid fear.
There are two
kinds of attack.
With warning
and without any warning.
It was difficult times.
♪ Kennedy for me
♪ Kennedy, Kennedy
♪ Kennedy, Kennedy ♪
And this handsome man,
this beautiful woman,
this perfect family.
As charismatic as he was,
you know, on screen
and TV and all of that,
when you saw him in person
it was electrifying.
Seemed to be only
talking to you.
There was a personal connection,
yet he was making that
connection with millions
and millions of people.
You know, this is our time.
This is it.
He represents us
and all the possibilities,
all the possibilities.
President Kennedy
died at 1:00 PM
central standard time.
Two o'clock eastern
standard time.
And when that happened,
it just was a heart break.
It was a heart break.
And it hardened you
for a long time after that.
It made for those cynical times.
It made for that drug culture.
It made for all of that.
The ground shifted, it shifted.
♪
So, my agent got a call
from Stanley Kubrick,
who was working on the film
about the end of the world.
Some sort of a comedy.
He saw my reel and he wanted
me to do his trailer
even though I have never
done a trailer before.
This is Stanley Kubrick.
Yeah, he hired me
before I got there.
He says, "I want that person,
I want that person
to do this job."
Let me talk to him
and see what he wants.
He knew about me,
he knew about my work.
He did good research.
And I didn't know
anything about him.
He always took us with him.
We traveled a lot.
He was just absolutely
the best fun.
It was very exciting.
I think it was just...
He was just very, very cool.
Really, a real pro,
and yet, he has real talent.
Welcome to a brief lesson
in the history of trailers.
A trailer is an advertisement
for a film about to be released.
The first trailer was projected
in 1911 when the following
18 words flickered
on screen for 15 seconds.
♪
This is an average 1950's
trailer.
Yes, it came from outer
space to bring you
unforgettable suspense.
Aaah!
Who are the all powerful
creatures it brought
from outer space?
And what did they want on Earth?
Not effectively positioning
the film in the market place.
And this is Pablo Ferro's
contribution.
Widely considered
the first trailer
of contemporary times.
Attack.
Russia.
♪
Oh, oh.
♪
Ten females to each male.
Every now and then somebody
will come along with something
fresh and different.
Hitchcock did his own trailers.
And in this house the most
dire horrible events took place.
And they're distinctive.
And they were very much taking
advantage of his public persona.
A split second
off timing and...
Cecile B. Demille
did the same thing,
and he had a large
public persona.
No, it's not make believe.
And of course Orson Welles
made a classic and famous
trailer for his first
film, Citizen Kane.
How do you do,
ladies and gentlemen.
This is Orson Welles.
But those were
the exceptions to the rule.
When Dr. Strangelove's
trailer came along,
no one had ever seen
anything like it.
It was sending a very loud
signal to the audience.
This movie's different.
We're showing you
a commercial for it
that's utterly contemporary
and completely different.
Perfect match.
♪
We sold a lot of tickets.
And a theater in Texas made
an ad out of it saying,
"Come and see the wildest
trailer that was ever made."
♪
Perhaps if they went
to see experimental films
at the Museum of Modern Art
or an Avant-garde film festival,
maybe they would have
seen something that
approached that technique.
Where's the bathroom?
Dr. Strangelove.
But even there they might
not have seen what he
pulled off in that trailer.
Love the bomb.
A moving picture.
When I finished the trailer,
Stanley asked me to stay on
a little longer
to set up the movie
with an opening title sequence.
To be the ultimate weapon,
a doomsday device.
We were having a conversation
and then he asked what
I thought about human beings.
And I said everything the humans
invent is always very sexual.
All the machinery,
it's always like that.
We looked at each other
and said B52 refueling
in mid air, of course.
So, that's when I got the idea
to do the tall lettering.
Together it worked.
You were able to see
the lettering and the plane
at the same time.
It set the tone for the film,
so that people weren't afraid.
Is it a black comedy?
Are we allowed to laugh?
Which is a big thing
that's right in the front
of Strangelove.
Seeing those two
airplanes and saying,
"I think this is funny."
They were so crude
and so child-like,
yet so sophisticated.
♪
Dr. Strangelove
was immediately
celebrated by critics,
by a lot of members
of the audience,
by many social commentators.
As we learned years later,
even by some members
of the American government.
It was a brilliant,
and remains a brilliant
black comedy.
And Kubrick, a master
filmmaker at his very best.
At the height of his power.
To Pablo, he was
Kubrick's guy.
This creative odd fellow
that we'd never seen
anything like it.
♪
Pablo Ferro was inducted
into the Art Director's
Hall of Fame in 2000.
An art director,
first of all has taste,
an educated taste.
♪
An art director may not
take the photograph,
he may not do the drawing,
he may not write the copy,
but he knows how to put it
all together into a compelling
visual statement.
♪
The first real
superstar was Saul Bass,
and that was someone who
did brilliant opening credits
and whose name became so
identified with high quality
movies that it was considered
a plus up front, in a movie.
♪
It's a very small group
of geniuses that are known
for their brilliant
title design.
♪
You can see that the title
design is so major a part
of the creative ingredients
going into that film.
Even the choice of graphics,
the choice of type face,
the boldness
of the presentation.
♪
All of that puts you in
the right frame of mind
if it's doing its job,
for the movie to follow.
Pablo seemed to be
tremendously in touch
with the changing times
and tastes in the 1960s.
He's associated with key films
that really speak for their
time, speak for their era.
"Dr. Strangelove" would be one.
"The Russians Are Coming,
The Russians Are Coming",
which was the first time that
he worked with Norman Jewison.
I was trying to make a film
which was a political satire.
It be like making
"The Arabs Are Coming" today.
And so, we brought Pablo
out to California.
We discussed for a long time
about how we could
open the film.
We sat and talked
and I said, "What if we
use a musical opening?"
Yankee Doodle Comes to Town.
And put against that
the Red Army chorus.
And if we put that against,
Yun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun.
So, we started
to play with music.
And Pablo came up
with the idea that maybe
we could have two flags.
And all of a sudden
things started to work.
He worked for months
on his little film.
He never regarded it as titles,
it was his little film.
It's quite brilliant.
He was doing
"The Russians Are Coming,
The Russians Are Coming"
when he met
my good friend Hal,
and he became a friend for life.
They were both so passionate,
so committed to film,
they would sit for hours
and hours and hours
experimenting with film
and cutting it
and smoke a little.
And it became a very
close relationship.
They were bonded very deeply.
Hal Ashby was tremendously
artistic, creative, passionate
filmmaker who was able
to channel his work
into the mainstream.
His ongoing collaboration
with Pablo was one
of the great little
passages in American cinema.
Hal looked like a hippy.
He had long hair and a beard,
and wore hippy clothes,
and this is in the 60s,
that's when there were hippies
and there were straight people.
And Pablo and Hal,
the two of them walking down
the old Goldman lot
was quite a site because
Hal with his beads
and long hair and beard,
and Pablo who looked
like he just kinda
stepped off of a nickel.
It was an interesting sight.
They were very similar
in their ethos.
Very compassionate people.
I think it has to do with
the soul of the artist.
I think true artists are
out to help each other.
Pablo and Hal were
on the same wavelength
in so many ways.
They enjoyed life
in the same way.
They just...they got
the 60s in the same way.
They were of the same type
of personality, you know,
which is not too many people
were on that frequency.
And they probably still are
even though Hal's
no longer with us, you know.
"Russians Are Coming"
became a great success.
And it was shown the first
time in Washington.
I was really nervous
because we were showing it
for the Vice President
of the United States,
and a huge gathering
of diplomats from
all over the world.
And senators and congressmen
and Supreme Court judges,
and I thought,
"What's gonna happen when
they see what Pablo has done?
When the Communist flag
fills the screen.
And what's gonna happen?"
And you know something,
they got it.
They started to applaud
the titles.
He wasn't essentially political,
but he saw the red
in both flags.
Yeah, absolutely.
Susan and I decided
to have a child together.
We named her Joy.
She was the most
beautiful girl.
As a father, I think
that for the most part
he was just too young.
So, there really couldn't
be much, you know, of--
of--of a--of a real father
as we would perceive
real fathers to be
in a traditional sense.
"I want you to go up
and clean your room,
and then do your homework,
and then come down
and have dinner."
You know, that's...you know,
that wasn't my father.
So, it's your birthday,
you want to go to the beach?
Okay.
Get on an airplane,
go to the Bahamas.
That's my father.
Allen, come over here.
Come over here.
Come here.
When you're young
and you've got your kids,
and when you're married,
you want them to be
always there, which
really wasn't possible.
There were other people who
were vying for his attention.
And I just didn't
feel equal to that.
I didn't know how to--
Didn't know how to handle it.
His life was going in
a separate direction.
I think it was,
it was like values.
Like how do you want
to live your life everyday?
Do you want to be
on a 9-5 job
and come home and...
Or do you want to be
out with different artists
and free forming?
So, it wasn't like,
probably what Susan
had expected a marriage
to be like.
And then she pulled
against that.
She claimed that since
I was working with actresses,
I was doing things.
I said, "I don't have
the energy to begin with.
I'm very happy at home.
That's enough for me."
During that time there
were a lot of drugs and sex,
which was really
very commonplace.
And I think that
somewhere along the line,
he was enticed into that,
and I could not follow.
It was right after
we had our little Joy.
At that point he
wanted me to join in,
and there was no way.
I went to a hypnotist
to have the hypnotist
take away the aversion that
I had, you know, towards that.
And I know for a fact,
nobody can hypnotize you
into do something that you
really don't want to do.
No way.
It's got to be a seed in there,
otherwise it won't take.
That's when I...that's when
I felt I got to draw the line.
That's when I said, you know,
God if you help me,
I'll leave him.
♪
When I did, he never
ever expected that.
And it was very hurtful to him.
I think it just knocked
the real foundation off of him.
♪
It was devastating to me.
It broke my heart
and it's been a big issue
in my entire life,
if you want to really
know the truth.
He would often on come
in and out of our lives.
He inwardly really desired that
family that he could never,
he didn't understand that
the business was not
going to allow him.
As a star, he would
not be allowed.
He's expressed to me
many times how he's
cared for her.
He will never be able
to reconcile that.
And that's just the fix.
Don't deal with it
and it's gone away.
You make mistakes,
some of them you can't repair.
But time has a way of at least
healing them somewhat.
It was going great all
that time till she said, no.
And went, "Wow."
And I still don't understand.
So, I moved out.
♪
I think what happened
was the '60s opened up,
and suddenly he wanted more.
He wanted his life
to be more open.
She wanted family
and he wanted a little
whoop-dee-doo in his life.
A little more excitement.
And why not?
This...this is a pipe.
And this is Pablo Ferro
scoring pot.
The thing about drugs
is it opens you wide up.
Your perspective
changes, you know.
These guys are living proof
that it certainly worked
for the art world.
It would've been very different
if they weren't doing this.
They wouldn't have
been who they were.
You never get an obvious,
anything obvious
or anything borrowed.
It would always be fresh.
And you never knew where
he was going to take it.
...devilishly ingenious
scheme work?
Will Angel's kinky miniskirts
prove too distracting?
See "Kaleidoscope".
Sometimes he would spend
three or four days
on one little word
in a title sequence
that it just didn't flow right,
or the crawl wasn't right,
or the way the images moved,
you know.
Like insects he's studying them.
They're pulsating even though
they're credits, or a trailer,
or montage.
To him they're alive.
You know?
♪
I looked around
and ended up finding
this loft in the east village.
It was cheap with a lot
of space, and I thought,
"Yeah, I'm going to move
in here!"
That was on Second Avenue
and 12th Street
and another piece of his genius.
Well, when you walked in,
it was like a long hallway,
and you saw these posters
of JoJo The Dog Faced Boy and...
Old circus posters.
The Monkey Man.
Mona the Monkey Faced Girl.
♪
There was no time
in Pablo's apartment.
Sometimes you would just
be there for days.
♪
This was never, never land, man.
You kinda knew
an artist lived here.
It had to be an artist
or somebody very strange.
He had secret,
little stairways,
and compartments,
and it was wild.
I guess something in his mind
figured, "Wait a minute!"
He breaks through
his upstairs closet,
looks through and says,
"Oh my God,
it's another apartment!"
He put another bathroom up there
with a tub with mirrored walls
that didn't get foggy.
Very special.
♪
It was a real, east village
happening place.
Girls coming in,
girls coming out.
A lot-- lot of young girls.
God knows where they
all are now.
It was open to everybody.
His home was like a--
kind of a cultural center
in New York for me.
I could easily adapt,
coming from Africa,
coming to Pablo's house.
The spirit was the same.
Giving, loving, caring.
Probably was like Paris
in the '20s.
As near as I could figure.
But I think he had
a barber chair or something
that had hydraulic lifts
on it or something that just
sent you way up higher,
and higher, and higher
that you would imagine
that a normal barber chair
would go.
The legend, the reality
of Pablo Ferro.
Who knows.
Good champagne, good grass.
He always had the refrigerator
was stocked with great stuff.
Dom Pérignon.
He always had Dom Pérignon.
He lived well, man.
He ate well.
I just used to love
to go there.
It was my favorite place to be.
♪
There might be some stuff
in those drawers
that I might want.
So just tell me now
what you want in these guys
that aren't--
What are the first things
you want?
What should go in there?
Yeah, I just wanted
the labels.
Books for the living room.
Well, life can get tough.
Yes, there are--
years can go by
without a gig.
He certainly hasn't
had a big in vogue season.
"Oh, you gotta see
Pablo Ferro's work."
I don't know how many people
are saying that today.
You better be careful
with this award.
It comes apart very easy.
But there's a body of work
that would stun a lot of people
in this town who meet him
and don't know it.
This is Pablo Ferro
losing his home.
This is a garage.
Yeah, well, I just moved here
two months ago.
And then we're trying
to fix the garage
into a living studio.
This is Pablo Ferro
moving into his son's garage.
This is great.
I'm very happy here.
I feel more comfortable.
The other place was big
and all that stuff.
Just didn't feel right.
Pablo makes,
anywhere he lives,
he makes it his own.
He did make the best of it.
It was good for him
to be near family.
Hey, Grandpa.
Allen!
What's up, grandpa?
How you doin'?
You've been doing a lot
of credits on the computer,
Grandpa.
Mhm.
You've been controlling it
with relative ease.
They were a cohesive
family unit, and he was brought
into that.
So, it was nice.
And he made the best of living
in such a small space.
♪
Next time I worked with Hal,
we had a big hit.
Both of us.
He was editing,
and I was hired to do
the multiples.
It was not business as usual.
That's what "The Thomas
Crown Affair" signifies.
It was something bold
and different,
and it's part of what made
that film so chic,
so stylish, so arresting.
By juxtaposing these images
simultaneously, we all
were thinking, "Wow, how cool,
how brilliantly fashioned."
What we in the audience saw
was this whole new
cinematic frontier
that had suddenly
been opened up.
It was just a caper movie.
Steve McQueen was masterminding
the thing,
and they didn't know him.
So, it was kinda
the perfect set up.
By putting multiple screens
on the same screen
where you were watching
five to six films
at the same time.
And it wasn't confusing.
Pablo just went crazy.
♪
I made mattes.
Male and female mattes.
And after you're shooting
you put in the back,
and then you put your picture
behind it, and then you adjust
the picture to fit
into that mold hole.
I've talkin' through.
You shoot one panel,
and then you run back,
and then you shoot
the next panel.
Then you go,
reverse the film again,
and the third panel.
In one scene I had
about 66 panels.
Now if the guy would
have one mistake,
he has to do it all over again.
♪
They looked at it,
they go, "Wow, Pablo,
it looks terrific,
but can you make it longer?"
The imitators, they tried
to capitalize on the excitement
of switching because everybody
wanted to see more of it.
It was considered that this
is something that's now
gonna be in most films.
It's certainly something
that the hippest films
wanna have in it.
Of course it got copied,
overused.
These things happen.
Everything gets trendy,
and then, you know,
beaten to death.
But he was the one
who first did it,
and he was the one
who did it best.
You know people
had never seen stuff
like that before.
Because then it was
I became a hero.
Everybody loved me.
And Steve McQueen
wanted to hire me.
He got me a fantastic apartment
in San Francisco
overlooking the bay.
I had very little time
to come up with an idea.
So I took
a black and white photograph,
and I cut out the word "Bullitt"
so you could see through.
I took it and I brought it
right up to his face.
And once he saw it,
he says, "Love it, let's do it!"
♪
I wanted the camera
to always be moving
from right to left, always.
That was part of the design.
"Bullitt" was considered
the ultimate in cool
in the late '60s
and for many years to come.
♪
Sony came out with this
portable black and white camera.
And I looked at it
and it was great.
So I bought two of them,
and also the deck.
So I could edit.
And I used those cameras a lot.
These cameras
were like surveillance cameras.
It was ancient,
archaic equipment.
Camera the size of a brick--
the same weight.
Heavy, reel to reel.
If one cable crossed another,
you'd get static,
and you know,
it was not easy work.
♪
Well one of the great things
about half-inch video
in that whole period of time
was to be able to experiment.
Sometimes I'd have parties
and people came in
and shot at my apartment.
We did that for a lot of times.
You were shot,
or you're shooting.
It's great.
It was very spontaneous
and in the moment.
Very magical.
I felt like a part of me
was born at that time.
I met my wife
in that scene.
All those people
are still friends of ours.
♪
We all do crazy things.
Some have it on tape,
some don't have it on tape,
but we all do crazy things.
You know.
He shot that of these
two girls rolling
around on the bed.
The mirrors, you know,
and it was poetry.
We were just--
we were right on the line, man.
We were just--
we were flowing.
♪
The hair on my neck
stands up.
I'm not shitting you
when I tell you this right now.
The hair on my neck
stands up.
And it was a work of art.
♪
By having this, kind of,
orgiastic scene,
and people were downstairs
seeing what the cuts were.
They didn't want to be
in the orgy, they wanted
to play with the mixer
instead of it.
You know what I mean?
And being pretty stoned
at the time.
Now, what I wanted
to tell America is
that the time has come
to realize
that we're all aware.
Every one of us know
what's going on.
And no secrets can be kept.
Because we all understand.
We're all aware.
We all know what's going down.
We might as well have it
all out front.
These are naked girls.
Are two better than one?
♪
He didn't like it
that I wanted him
to be jealous or possessive.
He said, "You gotta be crazy.
This is as great as life gets."
You know, he truly believed
in this new dynamic
of life.
With someone like Pablo,
I don't expect anything.
You don't know, when you walk
in there, if there was three
half-naked teenyboppers
in the hot tub, you know?
Who he wouldn't talk to.
It was just like, I don't know,
part of a scene of a movie.
♪
Why do you have
good vibrations with someone?
You just can't explain it.
Why do you look at someone
and you feel an attraction?
That's your vibrations in tune,
or sympathetic
with the other person's
vibrations, you know?
And many times nothing,
no word has to be spoken.
Pablo used to say to me,
you know, back in the days
when we were dating,
you know, "I'm strictly
a two-girl guy."
♪
And I got that, I mean,
anybody that can express it
that well, it's like,
oh okay, I get that.
The music was on.
There was amyl nitrate poppers,
and I thought I was going to
die of sex.
I saw the front page
of the paper saying,
"Eighteen year old girl dies
of orgasms."
I swear to God.
I think that's pretty great.
I didn't, I lived
to tell tale.
I don't know, I gave up
trying to fix him up years ago.
Never worked out.
Seems like the next time
I'd seen him he was
with some fantastic woman.
And the next time I saw him,
she'd be gone.
I don't know.
I've been told
in all my wild,
new age metaphysical studies
that there's about a third of us
really cut out for intimate,
monogamous relationships,
and about a third of us cut out
for serial monogamy,
and another third of us
cut out to not even like
mess with it at all.
If you are who you are
and you admit who you are,
you're gonna find the people
who love you for who you are.
This is Pablo Ferro
opening the door.
♪
We would like, I don't know,
I like the sauna
to be seven feet
so that you could lie down.
Okay, let's try this then.
This is Pablo Ferro
Googling a sauna.
Let me look at that one.
Look at this?
Yeah.
I would imagine that's
going to be very expensive.
See they won't even tell you
what the price is on that.
Then forget it, that's--
They want you to call up
to give you the bad news.
Yeah.
All these saunas
that we're looking at
that are two people saunas
that they're saying are little,
you know, are too small.
Five hundred dollar,
two person sauna
is a monolith.
You know, it's a coffin.
I mean, six by eight.
The way you had it before.
Right.
You know?
♪
You don't utilize
a sauna traditionally.
You stay in there
for three hours.
Yeah.
So you gotta lie down
in this thing.
Let's see what we got here.
♪
Oh yeah, this is easy
to lie down.
Yeah this, Eucalyptus.
Ah, it's the best!
Yeah.
The saunas come
in a variety of woods.
This one, for instance
is a Alaska Yellow Cedar.
It comes with prefabricated
walls that lock together
very simply.
And it's all got the insulation,
vapor barriers.
I had one like that,
but this is better constructed.
Yeah, this is, in my opinion,
this is the best constructed
sauna in the industry.
Like this one here.
Right, $3,500...
Three-- four thousand, sorry.
Four thousand, five hundred
is for the six by six.
I'd also, I was thinking,
maybe in the future I guess,
because that sounds kinda high,
a television.
Oh a television
inside the sauna?
Yeah.
How much time do you spend
in the sauna?
Uh, it depends.
Two, three hours.
Well that's a long time
for spending in the sauna.
Yeah I need it.
Right.
Because of my injury
I have on my back.
Oh, that was--
Well, I guess Pablo
told you about being shot?
The accident?
We had the video tape
machines ready to do
a playback.
We were looking
for some investors,
people gonna come over
and see some of the stuff
we had shot.
And um, I was on my way
over there and Frank and Pablo
were already there,
and somebody rang the door bell,
and Pablo answered it,
and he got very confused
when he saw Pablo.
The guy went bang!
Bam, got shot in the neck.
The next thing I know,
there was Pablo on the floor
in the most strangest position.
He was holding his neck
like this, he had two legs
on the ground, and one hand.
And he was going around
like in a circle.
I cradled him in my arm,
I could feel the wetness
in the back of it
from the blood.
I called the police,
and they came in,
and all these cops
were around me with guns drawn.
You know what I mean?
I mean like six of seven
of them.
Sir, back away
from the victim!
Show me your hands!
♪
Get a fucking ambulance!
He's gonna die!
This is Pablo Ferro.
By the time I got there,
Pablo was in Bellevue Hospital,
under arrest.
Frank was in jail,
because they found some grass,
and things just went
in a different direction.
We thought it was somebody
was out to get us.
We didn't know why.
♪
He was really
at death's door.
And so he was administered
the last rites
late that morning by a priest.
Pablo was on life support.
He was gonna die.
Yeah, and of course,
everybody, because Pablo
was such a wild character,
just had all these theories,
and this and that.
We'd talk about the dark side
in my mind, it was like
why did this dark thing
happen to him?
Why could something
that evil just come out
of nowhere?
Why-- who was it?
You know, there were lots
of strange things happening
in the country at the time,
you know,
the Manson thing was happening,
and other bizarre things.
Who knows.
You know, I mean they shot
John Lennon, right,
for doing what he did.
They could have just decided,
you know, I don't like this guy.
Some friends took him down
to the Virgin Islands
to recover for a few weeks
or a couple of months.
I was worried, you know,
will they follow us down here?
And I said to him,
"Pablo, you know who shot you?"
He said, "No, I don't."
And I made a decision then
to never ask him about it again.
♪
But it had to happen.
Can't escape what's gonna happen
to everyone.
Destiny.
You just roll along.
Word it with your best
word you can.
This is a cloud.
Is it going to rain?
He doesn't feel well
if it's raining outside.
He feels like crap.
Because I'll say,
"Hey, how you doing, Dad?"
And he says, "Oh, I'm okay.
I'm better, I'm better today.
I wasn't feeling
too good yesterday.
I feel okay today."
And it's usually related
to how moist it is outside,
how cold it is.
In those days,
back in New York, weather
was just wreaking havoc on him.
He wouldn't have survived
another year there.
He would have not have survived.
I think it was time for him
to leave.
He was afraid,
and he didn't know
what was happening next,
and his kids were gone.
We were gone.
We didn't know
what was going on.
I could imagine him
upstairs in his room
by himself crying.
It was bad,
it was a bad time.
And of course, that didn't
help Pablo in the industry.
There was a certain fragrance
that came out of that I think
that didn't help Pablo
getting work.
And people thought,
"Well, you know, what's
this guy into?"
We may not be able
to do this.
Why not?
Because, um, we just don't
have enough, you know,
capital to do this.
We need to-- we need
to figure out a way
of getting enough money
to do this.
In this spot where you want
me to put it,
I have to put in foundation,
and plumbing, and electric.
And it's just gonna be a little
too much money at this moment.
Uh-huh.
Unless we get some
other work in, you know.
I don't see how we're gonna
be able to do that.
So, his wife is gone,
his kids are gone,
his business is gone,
and he's got the freakin'
hardly any use of his hand.
It was very shocking
to his system.
And it, you know,
just knocked him off his game
for awhile.
And he looked very different
at that time.
He had cut all of his hair off,
it was very, very short,
and he was very thin.
I knew that he was in pain,
and I knew that he had fallen
on hard times.
His reputation was not good.
And that was as simple
as it was.
You know, you adjust.
We all adjust to the reality.
You know, you operate
in whatever the reality is
at the time.
I just said to him,
"Pablo, you're too skinny.
You know what, it's okay
for you to let your hair grow.
It's okay for you
to be gorgeous.
Just because somebody came in,
hurt you once, doesn't mean
you have to be invisible."
Well, I wasn't getting work.
You know, I don't know.
Maybe because of the bullet,
who knows.
And that's where I was lucky
I got a call from Hal.
When Hal became a director,
he said, "Come out here,
and work with me."
Every film Hal made,
Pablo was the guy
to do all the campaign,
trailers, all that stuff.
No matter what.
There are very few,
great characters out there
who are loyal like Hal was
to Pablo, and Pablo to him.
This is a phone.
is it going to ring?
♪
This is Pablo Ferro
looking for a gig.
Well, somehow
it always seems like
the job you just finished
is the last job you'll ever do
'till the phone rings again,
you know.
Hi, Grandpa.
Oh hi, sweetheart.
I brought your mail.
Thanks, just put it
over there.
Take a look here.
I'm making business cards.
See, when you do
handwritten cards
people appreciate it
because all they see
are the other ones.
Nobody ever makes it easy.
Life is not easy
for anybody who wants to create
some sort of vision
of something, or tell a story.
Okay.
♪
We do everything
by eye here.
My eye.
♪
I was alone in New York,
and thinking it might be time
to pack my bags.
This is Pablo Ferro
splitting the scene.
♪
He says, "Come over!
I got this job for you."
I said, "You've got me, man.
We'll put everything
in the truck."
He's been saving my life
all his life.
♪
He's one of the very few
who've worked in his particular
metier, which is titles
who receives credit
for their titles.
Hal Ashby was one
of the great directors
of the 1970s.
He was one of the most
daring directors of that period.
He was somebody who addressed
taboo subjects in a very direct,
but humanistic
and often very funny way.
When Pablo came from New York
to L.A., he stayed at Hal's
and they spent a lot
of time together,
and were inseparable.
♪
Things weren't going
so great, so I gave him a call,
and he immediately got me
on a plane and flew me out,
and I hadn't seen him
in like five years.
It was kinda a strange
reconciliation, but it was--
it was like I never left.
You know, we were back together.
♪
We were working with Hal,
and a phone call came
into Hal's house.
It was a call for my father.
And it was Stanley,
and he was saying
he wanted him to come
and look at this film.
And my father's very honest
about what his situation is,
and he always has been.
"You know, I'm working with Hal,
and I've got this schedule
and everything."
He said, "Well, don't
worry about it, we'll just--
you could get on the Concord.
Get on the Concord!
It's a great ride!"
And I think my father
was used to being accosted
by Stanley at the time.
I mean Stanley would just
kidnap the whole family,
and utilize Pablo's--
in his work, and his ideas
until he was done,
and then say, "Now you
can go home now."
And it wasn't in
a malicious way.
I mean, he would take care
of us, I mean he flew us
all over there, put us up
in a nice place.
I went to school there.
It was all on Stanley's dime.
But I think that, maybe
my father, he may have voiced
a little resistance at the time.
Who is it?
Excuse me, can you
please help us, there's been
a terrible accident.
It's a matter of life and death!
I'm sorry, but we don't
usually let strangers in--
He showed me the picture,
and I went home,
went to the hotel,
and I locked all the doors.
Because I was very paranoiac
from the film.
And I heard
the "William Tell Overture".
I said, "Oh,
that's interesting."
♪
One frame is in,
and one frame's out.
Looks like...
So the effects look
almost three dimensional.
♪
"A Clockwork Orange"
was one of those movies
that had people talking.
It was a buzz at the moment.
And so for months you had
people saying, "Have you seen
"A Clockwork Orange"?"
I mean some people
were appalled, some people
were reviled, some people
were bowled over.
It had a whole range
of opinions but everybody
had an opinion.
It was one of those films.
♪
So, 1981, the Rolling Stones
had what was then the biggest
rock and roll tour in history.
♪
They traveled the world
playing only stadiums,
and Mick Jagger decided
that he wanted to make
a concert movie,
and chose Hal Ashby,
and Pablo Ferro to direct it.
♪
This is Pablo Ferro,
and Hal Ashby co-directing
"Let's Spend
The Night Together".
I remember,
I was 15 years old,
and my dad was working
with the Rolling Stones,
and he wouldn't let me see them.
They would come to the house,
and he wouldn't tell me
because he didn't
want me to be there.
I guess because I'm
a 15 year old girl, you know.
Young, you know, Mick Jagger
and all those guys.
One of the things
that plagued Ashby's career,
particularly in the 1980s,
was allegations of drug use,
of him being sort of completely
out of it,
and of being unhireable,
uncommunicative, and just
totally impossible to work with.
As a result of that,
his career definitely
saw a major decline.
♪
And he was diagnosed
with pancreatic cancer.
♪
When he got cancer,
we busted him out
of the hospital back east,
and brought him to Malibu.
And opened up his Rolodex,
and called all
of his closest friends
and said, "Come any time
you want to."
Well, Pablo came every day.
There was a group of us
that would take shifts,
you know and just go,
and just be with him.
The time we all spent
together with Hal,
those were really amazing days.
Paradoxical that we,
on one level, were losing him,
but on another level
we will have him with us forever
because of that time.
♪
He was so devoted to Hal,
as Hal was on his way out.
Unlike anyone else,
it was his own special way
of giving to Hal,
and Hal received it,
and he knew.
♪
This is Pablo Ferro
being there.
All our lives,
we're told by people
in positions of authority,
older folks, that if you want
to be happy in life,
if you wanna be content,
you must find security.
And how unfortunate
when there is no such thing
in life as security.
In fact, the only thing
you can really depend on
is that all things
are gonna change.
And the sooner
you throw yourself
into the sea of change,
the better off you're gonna be.
♪
Let's face it, life is
a freakin' rollercoaster, man.
When you're down, you think
it's the shits, this is the end
of the line, I can't go
any lower.
I'm miserable.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
And it always seems like
this is it!
I ain't getting any better.
And then it turns around.
What happens, I don't know.
♪
But, the rollercoaster
keeps going.
You know?
You have to weather the downs.
It sure is an interesting life,
I gotta tell ya.
One thing about this business,
is you never know.
Just as long as you keep
coming back to the tables,
you stay in play.
♪ Same as it ever was
♪ Same as it ever was
♪ Same as it ever was
♪ Same as it ever was
♪ Same as it ever was
♪ Same as it ever was
♪ Same as it ever was
♪ Same as it ever was ♪
So when it comes
to "Stop Making Sense",
we were talking about
what kind of credits
should we have,
and it just tickled me so much,
and it tickled David Byrne
so much to say,
"You know what, we've got
the guy that did the credits
for Dr. Strangelove.
The greatest credits
ever seen on any film.
I don't care what
the budget was,
what the film was,
these are the great credits.
Let's shamelessly,
not rip off, but shamelessly
make an amazing salute
to Stanley Kubrick
and to Pablo Ferro
by recycling this concept
for our movie.
It tickled him to death,
and we went forward
and did that.
♪
We've been working together
for 16 years, 16 years now.
I've been representing him
as his agent,
and we're still going.
He's a consummate
creative person,
so he's difficult
to deal with sometimes.
But um, you know,
it's come along.
It's come along.
Like in '97, we got
all four projects,
all got Oscars, that was huge.
You know, it was
really exciting.
Working with him has been good.
You know, because
it's a labor of love.
Because there's more work
than pay most of the time.
You know, I work hard
for him and with him.
And uh, it's turned out well.
Only recently have we really
seen an appreciation
of his work as art.
That is the colleges,
professors, you know,
art students.
I think that he's an incredibly
under utilized talent.
As there are probably many
out there like him.
So, with a few gigs,
and a little help
from my family,
we were able to work it out.
I'm still working
on getting a television.
This is Pablo Ferro.
♪
He sees art in everything.
Everything can be used.
He doesn't discern
high art from low art.
No, no, no.
No, no, no.
He sees meaning in everything.
He's very sophisticated
in his ideas.
I think he lives in a world
of ideas.
Who is Pablo Ferro?
He's a red scarf.
He's a warm heart.
He's a good man.
♪
When you evoke his name,
there's kind of energy,
and a humor,
and a good will.
Pablo Ferro himself
is a rather unique force
of nature.
He's like a walking work of art,
you know?
♪
The best feeling
in the world.
Sex, drugs, and money.
Better than all
of those things.
The feeling of creating
something completely different,
and you are the first one
who's looking at it.
It's better than
all of those things.
♪
Oh, what a beautiful day.
♪
Catch ya later.
♪
♪ Well if you want
to sing out, sing out ♪
♪ And if you want to be free,
be free ♪
♪ Because there's a million
things to be ♪
♪ You know that there are
♪ And if you want
to live high, live high ♪
♪ And if you want
to live low, live low ♪
♪ 'Cause there's a million
ways to go ♪
♪ You know that there are
♪ You can do what you want
♪ The opportunity's on ♪
We all end up
living in the back
of a garage somewhere.
May I have your attention,
please?
Would your life
make a good film?
Hmm, an epic?
Maybe a short film.
Would your life make
a good newspaper headline?
A medicine prescription?
A suicide note?
A lottery ticket?
A passport to far,
far away lands?
Is your life outrageous?
Contagious?
A rollercoaster?
Maybe your life
is a cautionary tale.
A what if?
Is your life a work of art?
And what happens
after the fade out?
Is there gonna be a sequel?
Change that.
You wanna say "Cooba"
or "Cuba"?
That's what I figured.
Good, I'm good.
That's what I wanted to know.
Okay.
Oh, it's animation!
Oh, oh, okay.
The whole thing is animation,
all of it!
Okay.
♪
This is kinda
a silly question, but uh...
How much is that one?
This is a sauna!
♪
These are naked girls.
Are two better than one?
He wanted a little
whoop-dee-do in his life.
A little more excitement.
And why not?
This is Pablo Ferro
falling in love.
Whoop-dee-do.
Lotta young girls.
Whoop-dee-do.
Whoop-dee-do.
Lotta young girls.
Whoop-dee-do.
Whoop-dee-do.
Lotta young girls.
♪
God knows where
they all are now.
♪
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
Is your life...
...a work of art?
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
♪
Pablo who?
♪
Coming.
Hello.
May I have your
attention please?
May I have your
attention please?
Thank you.
♪
This is Pablo Ferro.
♪
Pablo who?
Who is Pablo Ferro?
Kind of a wild eyed
romantic artist.
Very bohemian.
Gypsy, I had the feeling
he was a bit of a gypsy.
This...this is a pipe.
He's a red scarf.
He's really the 60s.
A leprechaun.
He's Yoda.
New pattern.
Just a little
askew of the center.
He's surprising.
And he's also just
your average guy.
He's ephemera man,
he's a miasmic.
He's an optical illusion man.
You ain't gonna
pin point the boy.
This is a garage.
Sort of frail, intense guy
who wanted to make art.
This is the bomb.
A very gentle, loving guy.
This is right after
Castro took over.
That's why I was surprised
when I heard about some
violence having to do
with him in New York.
This is a sauna.
The image of Pablo...
To see him, he's like a walking
work of art, you know.
This is the cloud.
Is it going to rain?
This is
the Art Director's Club,
and that comes apart.
The D and the A.
This is Stanley Kubrick.
This is Stanley Kubrick.
There's a kind of liberation.
Anything works with Pablo.
This is the video cutting
room and art department.
All the art work and research.
And here is
the Napoleon Dynamite.
The original drawing.
Did you do that of yourself?
Yes.
A portrait.
Yeah, a caricature.
He doesn't have any
opinions about people.
He likes everybody.
Everybody's got his story,
and that's fine by Pablo.
These are naked girls.
Are two better than one?
Something about
the essence of Pablo Ferro.
He has a kind of revolutionary
feel to him.
He's like certain
shamans, you know.
When you evoke his name,
there's a kind of energy
and a humor, and a good will.
He's a true artist.
This is a phone.
Is it going to ring?
They're going to try to do
a little documentary on me.
So, I hope that it will
come out interesting.
♪
Get the thing going, man.
♪
A title sequence,
which he's done so many of,
can really set
the tone for a movie.
Of course, the positioning
of the credits in a movie
is huge because it's
the first thing you see.
Just like meeting people,
it's a first impression.
He's one of the very few
who've worked in his particular
matai, which is titles
who receives credit
for their titles.
Big tribute is going on
tonight for Hollywood
movie master by the name
of Pablo Ferro.
You may not know the name,
but I bet you know the work.
Been in the movie theater
in the past 40 years,
you've seen Pablo Ferro's work.
Have you ever walked out
of a movie and wondered
why you liked the opening
title sequence better
than the film itself?
The designer of trailers
and opening credit sequences,
his work is often more memorable
than the film itself.
How can you say don't worry
about it when every single
image including the title
and the way the title
is presented begins
to have an effect.
Neutral is negative.
If it's just okay,
"Oh, it didn't hurt anything,
we're just getting it,"
then it's negative.
I'm convinced to that.
One time I was accused
of subliminate advertising.
They would say, "Pablo,
I'm sure somewhere in there,
there's a frame that says,
Hire Pablo, hire Pablo."
Pablo, thank you
so much for being here.
My pleasure.
This is Pablo Ferro
arriving on the scene.
I love your stuff, Pablo.
It's just a great look.
It's great.
It happened by accident.
A friend of mine back
in the 60s did one for me.
Oh, so you just like,
it's like your signature.
Yeah, and became, I'd be
wearing it all the time,
and all of sudden he says,
"Oh, is that your sash?"
I said, "I guess so."
Well, it's a classi--
See it never dates when
you do something like this.
You can wear it every season.
Yeah.
Every decade,
and it's a classic.
It's fine, everybody
likes it when they see it.
Yeah.
You don't bump into those
people that are distinguished
themselves from that area.
You know, he was a...
he was a star.
He was a superstar
in that area.
Pablo Ferro.
Thank you.
He's one of those
guys that has a kind
of a legendary aspect.
Give it to Pablo,
leave him alone for two weeks,
he'll come up with something.
And he does a lot of
different things as you know.
Commercials, acting, films,
trailers, graphics,
whatever you want.
Plus he's funny...
to me anyway.
I think so.
Probably his most important
contribution to any film
he works on is just
the fact that he's there.
I think that it has to do
with the God given gift
of talent combined
with the kind of hard work
that goes into making
something look easy.
This is Cuba.
♪
Okay, let's see,
what can I tell you?
I was born in a small village
in Cuba called Antilla in 1935.
Everywhere I went
I drew pictures.
Always drawing pictures.
Life was good.
But that always changes, right?
We're talking about,
it was Batista was in,
and it was just, you know,
my father being a student
and being rebellious.
He was involved in
that type of politics.
But sometimes, you know,
they don't like you
to voice opinions.
So, if he didn't leave Cuba,
I think they would have put him
in jail or done away with him.
♪
This is Pablo Ferro
leaving Cuba.
Could you think
I wanted to leave Cuba?
I had no choice.
♪
My father went first,
then we followed.
All six of us.
This is Pablo Ferro
arriving in America.
I never saw snow,
so when I saw it, I said,
"What the hell is this?"
Somebody like that
came over from Cuba
when he was 12 years old
and never wore shoes
before he came over.
That is to say we know very
few people who lived in
the country with no plumbing
until they were 12 years old
and then came to New York City
and was able to sustain himself.
My father, he'd sit down
and he'd have his daily drink
and then my poor mother would
come change into her house dress
and then she'd start dinner
because God forbid, you know,
in those days your husband
would help the wife that way.
I saw how demanding
and how unappreciative
the rest of the men
were in the family.
But Pablo was very thoughtful.
He always considered
your feelings.
After two years
of living in America
my father left us.
I said, "Pendejo,"
and that was it.
He was gone.
This is Pablo Ferro
becoming the man of the house.
My other brother
was in the service
and Pablo was the sole
provider for us.
Even though my mother
still worked, he worked.
My dad wasn't there.
♪
I'm always looking
for more work to help
support the family.
One day I run into this
cinema, this art cinema.
And they offered me
a job as an usher.
And I said sure.
It was great because I was
able to see the masters.
This is Pablo Ferro
discovering cinema.
It was a foreign
film movie theater.
They only showed foreign.
And every two weeks,
there'd be a new billing.
I would watch the same
film over and over.
I really loved it.
There's a film that
is really good.
The best Vittorio De Sica.
It was called Miracle in Milan.
Here he deals with fantasy
and reality at the same time.
The film opens with this old
lady living by herself
when she found this baby.
And then she brought
the baby up and taught him
how to be a nice person.
He's like an angel.
And he would always be saying
bongiorno, good morning.
He likes people.
People would say,
"What's so good about it?"
At the end he asks
everybody to grab a broom.
And they get on and he
starts to fly away.
And they're flying away
and they have a song
and it says, "We're going
to a land where good morning
means good morning."
And that's the way it ends.
And it's beautiful,
beautiful film.
You really could relate to it.
♪
I saved some money.
I got myself an animation book.
I taught myself how
to become an animator.
Now, the manager of the theater
figured out that
I knew how to draw.
He said, "Oh, I want some
sketches promoting the outside,
so people would come in."
Well, I did one that I like.
It was Bitter Rice,
where legs are spread
and it's wearing those
mini cut things like that.
So, I took the picture
and blew it up.
And then this part was
in the box office.
So, when you buy a ticket,
you buy it through the legs.
And they loved it.
We sold a lot of tickets.
♪
This is Pablo Ferro
getting paid money.
And this is a sauna.
Okay,
take some deep breaths.
You can relax now,
just normal breathing.
Pablo generally has
a real difficult time
during the winters.
Usually the cold weather
makes the pain a lot worse.
There tends to be
more inflammation.
He gets gets a lot of all
the muscular problems.
Muscle tension, muscle spasm.
It's just the heat
from the sauna helps
the muscles somewhat relax,
and the end result is,
well, a little less pain.
You used to get a massage
in the past, right?
Yeah.
On a regular basis?
Not now, I can't
afford it anymore.
How about the sauna?
♪
This is Pablo Ferro's
doctor suggesting a sauna.
I got to get a,
I got to get a big job
to get the sauna.
A big job for that.
They always talk.
What about talking?
Yeah.
Well, I'm looking at
a strip now called Alley Ugh.
And it's a very
distinctive style.
It's somebody who has
a good sense of humor,
and also a sense of drama.
It's laid out very well.
The story telling is good.
And it doesn't look
like the average strip.
The artist who drew this
had his own recognizable,
individualistic style.
Obviously Pablo Ferro.
That's what I brought
over the Stan Lee to see
if he'd want to publish it.
When I showed him the portfolio
and he says, "Did you ink that?"
I said, "Yeah, I inked it
and I drew it, and I wrote it"
And he said,
"Okay, you're hired."
And I got hired in
the industry that way.
It was one of the few
industries where your
age didn't matter,
your religion didn't matter,
the color of your
skin didn't matter,
your nationality,
all that we would do was
look at the artwork.
And, "Hey, that looks good,
you're hired.
Here's a strip to do"
♪
That was unusual.
Most of the artists in comics
stayed with the comics
most of their lives.
The fact that Pablo was able
to go from comic book art
to directing commercials,
that was a tribute
to Pablo's talent.
♪
Welcome to a brief lesson in
the history of TV commercials.
This is a television.
A television commercial is
an advertisement in which
goods, services, organizations,
or ideas are promoted via
the medium of television.
The first television
commercial was aired in 1941
by Bulova Watch Company.
It displayed a Bulova watch
over a map of the United States
and the narrator announcing,
"America runs on Bulova time."
This is an average 1950's
commercial.
I think we all agree
on Sugar Smacks.
Right.
It wasn't effectively
positioning its client
in the market place.
Folks, don't wait, get
Kellogg's new Sugar Smacks,
candy sweet.
♪
This is Pablo Ferro's
contribution.
♪
Tempo frozen
garden peas.
♪
Tempo.
Widely considered
the new standard
on Madison Avenue.
Beech-Nut
delightedly announces.
Good old fashion sourball
flavor is back.
He brought the comic book
sensibility to the TV screen.
The commercials that he did
were as imaginative
and as colorful
and as fun to look at
as his illustrations
in the comics.
♪
What Pablo was doing was
injecting graphic design,
graphic design techniques
or comic book techniques
onto film.
♪
Pablo is a precursor
of what's going on now
in motion graphics.
♪
He was the quintessential,
experimental and exploratory
director, you know.
His sense of humor,
or his sense of the absurd
were very special.
This is a time
consuming detail.
The kind that could
eat up hours of a state
fund agent's time.
Animation teaches you
patience when you
can work things out.
Pardon me, sir.
How are you going to send
your children to college?
It's all taken care of.
Teaches you about the flow.
What works, what doesn't work,
in that image.
Oh, where is my
County Fair bread?
Hold out for County Fair bread.
I started treating
live action and graphic
like it was animation.
And I could cut the little
pieces together to just
get the right action.
Pablo was on the leading
edge of the fast paced,
quick cut cacophony of images.
He was there
and he was on that wave.
I was able to put graphic
lettering, live action, stills
all together into one film.
But I had to cut them short.
I made all the scenes shorter,
but a longer scene
would be a frame.
When you're young it's like
everyone wants to change you.
He believed that
people could absorb
and retain information,
either visual information
or written information
told in this machine gun style.
If it's anything to do
with fabric, we do it
at Burlington Industries.
And we do more of it than
anyone in the world.
He was doing things
that I wasn't aware he
was the first one to do.
I mean, things that had
a huge effect afterwards,
things that we take
for granted now.
He began working
at a studio called Electra,
which was a very high
design studio.
And then he was in business
with Freddy and then
with Lou Schwartz.
He just had a knack for it.
I would say it was a quick rise
to stardom there for Pablo.
♪
We would go to these...
There was a couple of
belly dancer places over on
the Eighth Avenue somewhere.
And Pablo would be buying
a round, you know,
"Buy a round for the bar,
you know, for the band.
Buy a round here."
And he really splurged a lot.
We used to call him, Bucks.
Then the things got bad.
Then we started to call him
Pennies, ha-ha-ha!
♪
We met at a party that
Pablo had been invited to.
And Pablo asked who I was.
And Jimmy, my husband told him
that I was his sister.
That Jimmy was--I was
Jimmy's sister.
So, Pablo came into a very
different state of mind.
This is Pablo Ferro
falling in love.
♪
And I was pregnant
with Allen.
Pablo suddenly would be making
excuses for not wanting
to join us or come over.
And I was very upset about it.
You know, maybe in
the back of my mind
I wanted to have a break
with Jimmy because I was really
looking at Pablo differently.
I was beginning to realize
that he was more important
to me than just a friend.
And I left him, I left Jimmy.
♪
Pablo said,
"Why don't we get married?"
And I said, "What?"
It seemed like
a great idea to me.
We got married in Cuba,
and then when we came back,
not only was I divorced,
I was married.
And for my mother...
I can not tell you.
I just was so
thrilled and happy.
I felt like I was
breaking out of an egg
and the sun was shining.
This is the bomb.
The '60s were
filled with anxiety
and filled with seeds
of revolution, in a way.
You'll have to know
what happens when
an atomic bomb explodes.
Everybody was frightened
of a nuclear war between
Russia and America.
You duck, then you cover.
Everybody was living in
a state of paranoid fear.
There are two
kinds of attack.
With warning
and without any warning.
It was difficult times.
♪ Kennedy for me
♪ Kennedy, Kennedy
♪ Kennedy, Kennedy ♪
And this handsome man,
this beautiful woman,
this perfect family.
As charismatic as he was,
you know, on screen
and TV and all of that,
when you saw him in person
it was electrifying.
Seemed to be only
talking to you.
There was a personal connection,
yet he was making that
connection with millions
and millions of people.
You know, this is our time.
This is it.
He represents us
and all the possibilities,
all the possibilities.
President Kennedy
died at 1:00 PM
central standard time.
Two o'clock eastern
standard time.
And when that happened,
it just was a heart break.
It was a heart break.
And it hardened you
for a long time after that.
It made for those cynical times.
It made for that drug culture.
It made for all of that.
The ground shifted, it shifted.
♪
So, my agent got a call
from Stanley Kubrick,
who was working on the film
about the end of the world.
Some sort of a comedy.
He saw my reel and he wanted
me to do his trailer
even though I have never
done a trailer before.
This is Stanley Kubrick.
Yeah, he hired me
before I got there.
He says, "I want that person,
I want that person
to do this job."
Let me talk to him
and see what he wants.
He knew about me,
he knew about my work.
He did good research.
And I didn't know
anything about him.
He always took us with him.
We traveled a lot.
He was just absolutely
the best fun.
It was very exciting.
I think it was just...
He was just very, very cool.
Really, a real pro,
and yet, he has real talent.
Welcome to a brief lesson
in the history of trailers.
A trailer is an advertisement
for a film about to be released.
The first trailer was projected
in 1911 when the following
18 words flickered
on screen for 15 seconds.
♪
This is an average 1950's
trailer.
Yes, it came from outer
space to bring you
unforgettable suspense.
Aaah!
Who are the all powerful
creatures it brought
from outer space?
And what did they want on Earth?
Not effectively positioning
the film in the market place.
And this is Pablo Ferro's
contribution.
Widely considered
the first trailer
of contemporary times.
Attack.
Russia.
♪
Oh, oh.
♪
Ten females to each male.
Every now and then somebody
will come along with something
fresh and different.
Hitchcock did his own trailers.
And in this house the most
dire horrible events took place.
And they're distinctive.
And they were very much taking
advantage of his public persona.
A split second
off timing and...
Cecile B. Demille
did the same thing,
and he had a large
public persona.
No, it's not make believe.
And of course Orson Welles
made a classic and famous
trailer for his first
film, Citizen Kane.
How do you do,
ladies and gentlemen.
This is Orson Welles.
But those were
the exceptions to the rule.
When Dr. Strangelove's
trailer came along,
no one had ever seen
anything like it.
It was sending a very loud
signal to the audience.
This movie's different.
We're showing you
a commercial for it
that's utterly contemporary
and completely different.
Perfect match.
♪
We sold a lot of tickets.
And a theater in Texas made
an ad out of it saying,
"Come and see the wildest
trailer that was ever made."
♪
Perhaps if they went
to see experimental films
at the Museum of Modern Art
or an Avant-garde film festival,
maybe they would have
seen something that
approached that technique.
Where's the bathroom?
Dr. Strangelove.
But even there they might
not have seen what he
pulled off in that trailer.
Love the bomb.
A moving picture.
When I finished the trailer,
Stanley asked me to stay on
a little longer
to set up the movie
with an opening title sequence.
To be the ultimate weapon,
a doomsday device.
We were having a conversation
and then he asked what
I thought about human beings.
And I said everything the humans
invent is always very sexual.
All the machinery,
it's always like that.
We looked at each other
and said B52 refueling
in mid air, of course.
So, that's when I got the idea
to do the tall lettering.
Together it worked.
You were able to see
the lettering and the plane
at the same time.
It set the tone for the film,
so that people weren't afraid.
Is it a black comedy?
Are we allowed to laugh?
Which is a big thing
that's right in the front
of Strangelove.
Seeing those two
airplanes and saying,
"I think this is funny."
They were so crude
and so child-like,
yet so sophisticated.
♪
Dr. Strangelove
was immediately
celebrated by critics,
by a lot of members
of the audience,
by many social commentators.
As we learned years later,
even by some members
of the American government.
It was a brilliant,
and remains a brilliant
black comedy.
And Kubrick, a master
filmmaker at his very best.
At the height of his power.
To Pablo, he was
Kubrick's guy.
This creative odd fellow
that we'd never seen
anything like it.
♪
Pablo Ferro was inducted
into the Art Director's
Hall of Fame in 2000.
An art director,
first of all has taste,
an educated taste.
♪
An art director may not
take the photograph,
he may not do the drawing,
he may not write the copy,
but he knows how to put it
all together into a compelling
visual statement.
♪
The first real
superstar was Saul Bass,
and that was someone who
did brilliant opening credits
and whose name became so
identified with high quality
movies that it was considered
a plus up front, in a movie.
♪
It's a very small group
of geniuses that are known
for their brilliant
title design.
♪
You can see that the title
design is so major a part
of the creative ingredients
going into that film.
Even the choice of graphics,
the choice of type face,
the boldness
of the presentation.
♪
All of that puts you in
the right frame of mind
if it's doing its job,
for the movie to follow.
Pablo seemed to be
tremendously in touch
with the changing times
and tastes in the 1960s.
He's associated with key films
that really speak for their
time, speak for their era.
"Dr. Strangelove" would be one.
"The Russians Are Coming,
The Russians Are Coming",
which was the first time that
he worked with Norman Jewison.
I was trying to make a film
which was a political satire.
It be like making
"The Arabs Are Coming" today.
And so, we brought Pablo
out to California.
We discussed for a long time
about how we could
open the film.
We sat and talked
and I said, "What if we
use a musical opening?"
Yankee Doodle Comes to Town.
And put against that
the Red Army chorus.
And if we put that against,
Yun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun.
So, we started
to play with music.
And Pablo came up
with the idea that maybe
we could have two flags.
And all of a sudden
things started to work.
He worked for months
on his little film.
He never regarded it as titles,
it was his little film.
It's quite brilliant.
He was doing
"The Russians Are Coming,
The Russians Are Coming"
when he met
my good friend Hal,
and he became a friend for life.
They were both so passionate,
so committed to film,
they would sit for hours
and hours and hours
experimenting with film
and cutting it
and smoke a little.
And it became a very
close relationship.
They were bonded very deeply.
Hal Ashby was tremendously
artistic, creative, passionate
filmmaker who was able
to channel his work
into the mainstream.
His ongoing collaboration
with Pablo was one
of the great little
passages in American cinema.
Hal looked like a hippy.
He had long hair and a beard,
and wore hippy clothes,
and this is in the 60s,
that's when there were hippies
and there were straight people.
And Pablo and Hal,
the two of them walking down
the old Goldman lot
was quite a site because
Hal with his beads
and long hair and beard,
and Pablo who looked
like he just kinda
stepped off of a nickel.
It was an interesting sight.
They were very similar
in their ethos.
Very compassionate people.
I think it has to do with
the soul of the artist.
I think true artists are
out to help each other.
Pablo and Hal were
on the same wavelength
in so many ways.
They enjoyed life
in the same way.
They just...they got
the 60s in the same way.
They were of the same type
of personality, you know,
which is not too many people
were on that frequency.
And they probably still are
even though Hal's
no longer with us, you know.
"Russians Are Coming"
became a great success.
And it was shown the first
time in Washington.
I was really nervous
because we were showing it
for the Vice President
of the United States,
and a huge gathering
of diplomats from
all over the world.
And senators and congressmen
and Supreme Court judges,
and I thought,
"What's gonna happen when
they see what Pablo has done?
When the Communist flag
fills the screen.
And what's gonna happen?"
And you know something,
they got it.
They started to applaud
the titles.
He wasn't essentially political,
but he saw the red
in both flags.
Yeah, absolutely.
Susan and I decided
to have a child together.
We named her Joy.
She was the most
beautiful girl.
As a father, I think
that for the most part
he was just too young.
So, there really couldn't
be much, you know, of--
of--of a--of a real father
as we would perceive
real fathers to be
in a traditional sense.
"I want you to go up
and clean your room,
and then do your homework,
and then come down
and have dinner."
You know, that's...you know,
that wasn't my father.
So, it's your birthday,
you want to go to the beach?
Okay.
Get on an airplane,
go to the Bahamas.
That's my father.
Allen, come over here.
Come over here.
Come here.
When you're young
and you've got your kids,
and when you're married,
you want them to be
always there, which
really wasn't possible.
There were other people who
were vying for his attention.
And I just didn't
feel equal to that.
I didn't know how to--
Didn't know how to handle it.
His life was going in
a separate direction.
I think it was,
it was like values.
Like how do you want
to live your life everyday?
Do you want to be
on a 9-5 job
and come home and...
Or do you want to be
out with different artists
and free forming?
So, it wasn't like,
probably what Susan
had expected a marriage
to be like.
And then she pulled
against that.
She claimed that since
I was working with actresses,
I was doing things.
I said, "I don't have
the energy to begin with.
I'm very happy at home.
That's enough for me."
During that time there
were a lot of drugs and sex,
which was really
very commonplace.
And I think that
somewhere along the line,
he was enticed into that,
and I could not follow.
It was right after
we had our little Joy.
At that point he
wanted me to join in,
and there was no way.
I went to a hypnotist
to have the hypnotist
take away the aversion that
I had, you know, towards that.
And I know for a fact,
nobody can hypnotize you
into do something that you
really don't want to do.
No way.
It's got to be a seed in there,
otherwise it won't take.
That's when I...that's when
I felt I got to draw the line.
That's when I said, you know,
God if you help me,
I'll leave him.
♪
When I did, he never
ever expected that.
And it was very hurtful to him.
I think it just knocked
the real foundation off of him.
♪
It was devastating to me.
It broke my heart
and it's been a big issue
in my entire life,
if you want to really
know the truth.
He would often on come
in and out of our lives.
He inwardly really desired that
family that he could never,
he didn't understand that
the business was not
going to allow him.
As a star, he would
not be allowed.
He's expressed to me
many times how he's
cared for her.
He will never be able
to reconcile that.
And that's just the fix.
Don't deal with it
and it's gone away.
You make mistakes,
some of them you can't repair.
But time has a way of at least
healing them somewhat.
It was going great all
that time till she said, no.
And went, "Wow."
And I still don't understand.
So, I moved out.
♪
I think what happened
was the '60s opened up,
and suddenly he wanted more.
He wanted his life
to be more open.
She wanted family
and he wanted a little
whoop-dee-doo in his life.
A little more excitement.
And why not?
This...this is a pipe.
And this is Pablo Ferro
scoring pot.
The thing about drugs
is it opens you wide up.
Your perspective
changes, you know.
These guys are living proof
that it certainly worked
for the art world.
It would've been very different
if they weren't doing this.
They wouldn't have
been who they were.
You never get an obvious,
anything obvious
or anything borrowed.
It would always be fresh.
And you never knew where
he was going to take it.
...devilishly ingenious
scheme work?
Will Angel's kinky miniskirts
prove too distracting?
See "Kaleidoscope".
Sometimes he would spend
three or four days
on one little word
in a title sequence
that it just didn't flow right,
or the crawl wasn't right,
or the way the images moved,
you know.
Like insects he's studying them.
They're pulsating even though
they're credits, or a trailer,
or montage.
To him they're alive.
You know?
♪
I looked around
and ended up finding
this loft in the east village.
It was cheap with a lot
of space, and I thought,
"Yeah, I'm going to move
in here!"
That was on Second Avenue
and 12th Street
and another piece of his genius.
Well, when you walked in,
it was like a long hallway,
and you saw these posters
of JoJo The Dog Faced Boy and...
Old circus posters.
The Monkey Man.
Mona the Monkey Faced Girl.
♪
There was no time
in Pablo's apartment.
Sometimes you would just
be there for days.
♪
This was never, never land, man.
You kinda knew
an artist lived here.
It had to be an artist
or somebody very strange.
He had secret,
little stairways,
and compartments,
and it was wild.
I guess something in his mind
figured, "Wait a minute!"
He breaks through
his upstairs closet,
looks through and says,
"Oh my God,
it's another apartment!"
He put another bathroom up there
with a tub with mirrored walls
that didn't get foggy.
Very special.
♪
It was a real, east village
happening place.
Girls coming in,
girls coming out.
A lot-- lot of young girls.
God knows where they
all are now.
It was open to everybody.
His home was like a--
kind of a cultural center
in New York for me.
I could easily adapt,
coming from Africa,
coming to Pablo's house.
The spirit was the same.
Giving, loving, caring.
Probably was like Paris
in the '20s.
As near as I could figure.
But I think he had
a barber chair or something
that had hydraulic lifts
on it or something that just
sent you way up higher,
and higher, and higher
that you would imagine
that a normal barber chair
would go.
The legend, the reality
of Pablo Ferro.
Who knows.
Good champagne, good grass.
He always had the refrigerator
was stocked with great stuff.
Dom Pérignon.
He always had Dom Pérignon.
He lived well, man.
He ate well.
I just used to love
to go there.
It was my favorite place to be.
♪
There might be some stuff
in those drawers
that I might want.
So just tell me now
what you want in these guys
that aren't--
What are the first things
you want?
What should go in there?
Yeah, I just wanted
the labels.
Books for the living room.
Well, life can get tough.
Yes, there are--
years can go by
without a gig.
He certainly hasn't
had a big in vogue season.
"Oh, you gotta see
Pablo Ferro's work."
I don't know how many people
are saying that today.
You better be careful
with this award.
It comes apart very easy.
But there's a body of work
that would stun a lot of people
in this town who meet him
and don't know it.
This is Pablo Ferro
losing his home.
This is a garage.
Yeah, well, I just moved here
two months ago.
And then we're trying
to fix the garage
into a living studio.
This is Pablo Ferro
moving into his son's garage.
This is great.
I'm very happy here.
I feel more comfortable.
The other place was big
and all that stuff.
Just didn't feel right.
Pablo makes,
anywhere he lives,
he makes it his own.
He did make the best of it.
It was good for him
to be near family.
Hey, Grandpa.
Allen!
What's up, grandpa?
How you doin'?
You've been doing a lot
of credits on the computer,
Grandpa.
Mhm.
You've been controlling it
with relative ease.
They were a cohesive
family unit, and he was brought
into that.
So, it was nice.
And he made the best of living
in such a small space.
♪
Next time I worked with Hal,
we had a big hit.
Both of us.
He was editing,
and I was hired to do
the multiples.
It was not business as usual.
That's what "The Thomas
Crown Affair" signifies.
It was something bold
and different,
and it's part of what made
that film so chic,
so stylish, so arresting.
By juxtaposing these images
simultaneously, we all
were thinking, "Wow, how cool,
how brilliantly fashioned."
What we in the audience saw
was this whole new
cinematic frontier
that had suddenly
been opened up.
It was just a caper movie.
Steve McQueen was masterminding
the thing,
and they didn't know him.
So, it was kinda
the perfect set up.
By putting multiple screens
on the same screen
where you were watching
five to six films
at the same time.
And it wasn't confusing.
Pablo just went crazy.
♪
I made mattes.
Male and female mattes.
And after you're shooting
you put in the back,
and then you put your picture
behind it, and then you adjust
the picture to fit
into that mold hole.
I've talkin' through.
You shoot one panel,
and then you run back,
and then you shoot
the next panel.
Then you go,
reverse the film again,
and the third panel.
In one scene I had
about 66 panels.
Now if the guy would
have one mistake,
he has to do it all over again.
♪
They looked at it,
they go, "Wow, Pablo,
it looks terrific,
but can you make it longer?"
The imitators, they tried
to capitalize on the excitement
of switching because everybody
wanted to see more of it.
It was considered that this
is something that's now
gonna be in most films.
It's certainly something
that the hippest films
wanna have in it.
Of course it got copied,
overused.
These things happen.
Everything gets trendy,
and then, you know,
beaten to death.
But he was the one
who first did it,
and he was the one
who did it best.
You know people
had never seen stuff
like that before.
Because then it was
I became a hero.
Everybody loved me.
And Steve McQueen
wanted to hire me.
He got me a fantastic apartment
in San Francisco
overlooking the bay.
I had very little time
to come up with an idea.
So I took
a black and white photograph,
and I cut out the word "Bullitt"
so you could see through.
I took it and I brought it
right up to his face.
And once he saw it,
he says, "Love it, let's do it!"
♪
I wanted the camera
to always be moving
from right to left, always.
That was part of the design.
"Bullitt" was considered
the ultimate in cool
in the late '60s
and for many years to come.
♪
Sony came out with this
portable black and white camera.
And I looked at it
and it was great.
So I bought two of them,
and also the deck.
So I could edit.
And I used those cameras a lot.
These cameras
were like surveillance cameras.
It was ancient,
archaic equipment.
Camera the size of a brick--
the same weight.
Heavy, reel to reel.
If one cable crossed another,
you'd get static,
and you know,
it was not easy work.
♪
Well one of the great things
about half-inch video
in that whole period of time
was to be able to experiment.
Sometimes I'd have parties
and people came in
and shot at my apartment.
We did that for a lot of times.
You were shot,
or you're shooting.
It's great.
It was very spontaneous
and in the moment.
Very magical.
I felt like a part of me
was born at that time.
I met my wife
in that scene.
All those people
are still friends of ours.
♪
We all do crazy things.
Some have it on tape,
some don't have it on tape,
but we all do crazy things.
You know.
He shot that of these
two girls rolling
around on the bed.
The mirrors, you know,
and it was poetry.
We were just--
we were right on the line, man.
We were just--
we were flowing.
♪
The hair on my neck
stands up.
I'm not shitting you
when I tell you this right now.
The hair on my neck
stands up.
And it was a work of art.
♪
By having this, kind of,
orgiastic scene,
and people were downstairs
seeing what the cuts were.
They didn't want to be
in the orgy, they wanted
to play with the mixer
instead of it.
You know what I mean?
And being pretty stoned
at the time.
Now, what I wanted
to tell America is
that the time has come
to realize
that we're all aware.
Every one of us know
what's going on.
And no secrets can be kept.
Because we all understand.
We're all aware.
We all know what's going down.
We might as well have it
all out front.
These are naked girls.
Are two better than one?
♪
He didn't like it
that I wanted him
to be jealous or possessive.
He said, "You gotta be crazy.
This is as great as life gets."
You know, he truly believed
in this new dynamic
of life.
With someone like Pablo,
I don't expect anything.
You don't know, when you walk
in there, if there was three
half-naked teenyboppers
in the hot tub, you know?
Who he wouldn't talk to.
It was just like, I don't know,
part of a scene of a movie.
♪
Why do you have
good vibrations with someone?
You just can't explain it.
Why do you look at someone
and you feel an attraction?
That's your vibrations in tune,
or sympathetic
with the other person's
vibrations, you know?
And many times nothing,
no word has to be spoken.
Pablo used to say to me,
you know, back in the days
when we were dating,
you know, "I'm strictly
a two-girl guy."
♪
And I got that, I mean,
anybody that can express it
that well, it's like,
oh okay, I get that.
The music was on.
There was amyl nitrate poppers,
and I thought I was going to
die of sex.
I saw the front page
of the paper saying,
"Eighteen year old girl dies
of orgasms."
I swear to God.
I think that's pretty great.
I didn't, I lived
to tell tale.
I don't know, I gave up
trying to fix him up years ago.
Never worked out.
Seems like the next time
I'd seen him he was
with some fantastic woman.
And the next time I saw him,
she'd be gone.
I don't know.
I've been told
in all my wild,
new age metaphysical studies
that there's about a third of us
really cut out for intimate,
monogamous relationships,
and about a third of us cut out
for serial monogamy,
and another third of us
cut out to not even like
mess with it at all.
If you are who you are
and you admit who you are,
you're gonna find the people
who love you for who you are.
This is Pablo Ferro
opening the door.
♪
We would like, I don't know,
I like the sauna
to be seven feet
so that you could lie down.
Okay, let's try this then.
This is Pablo Ferro
Googling a sauna.
Let me look at that one.
Look at this?
Yeah.
I would imagine that's
going to be very expensive.
See they won't even tell you
what the price is on that.
Then forget it, that's--
They want you to call up
to give you the bad news.
Yeah.
All these saunas
that we're looking at
that are two people saunas
that they're saying are little,
you know, are too small.
Five hundred dollar,
two person sauna
is a monolith.
You know, it's a coffin.
I mean, six by eight.
The way you had it before.
Right.
You know?
♪
You don't utilize
a sauna traditionally.
You stay in there
for three hours.
Yeah.
So you gotta lie down
in this thing.
Let's see what we got here.
♪
Oh yeah, this is easy
to lie down.
Yeah this, Eucalyptus.
Ah, it's the best!
Yeah.
The saunas come
in a variety of woods.
This one, for instance
is a Alaska Yellow Cedar.
It comes with prefabricated
walls that lock together
very simply.
And it's all got the insulation,
vapor barriers.
I had one like that,
but this is better constructed.
Yeah, this is, in my opinion,
this is the best constructed
sauna in the industry.
Like this one here.
Right, $3,500...
Three-- four thousand, sorry.
Four thousand, five hundred
is for the six by six.
I'd also, I was thinking,
maybe in the future I guess,
because that sounds kinda high,
a television.
Oh a television
inside the sauna?
Yeah.
How much time do you spend
in the sauna?
Uh, it depends.
Two, three hours.
Well that's a long time
for spending in the sauna.
Yeah I need it.
Right.
Because of my injury
I have on my back.
Oh, that was--
Well, I guess Pablo
told you about being shot?
The accident?
We had the video tape
machines ready to do
a playback.
We were looking
for some investors,
people gonna come over
and see some of the stuff
we had shot.
And um, I was on my way
over there and Frank and Pablo
were already there,
and somebody rang the door bell,
and Pablo answered it,
and he got very confused
when he saw Pablo.
The guy went bang!
Bam, got shot in the neck.
The next thing I know,
there was Pablo on the floor
in the most strangest position.
He was holding his neck
like this, he had two legs
on the ground, and one hand.
And he was going around
like in a circle.
I cradled him in my arm,
I could feel the wetness
in the back of it
from the blood.
I called the police,
and they came in,
and all these cops
were around me with guns drawn.
You know what I mean?
I mean like six of seven
of them.
Sir, back away
from the victim!
Show me your hands!
♪
Get a fucking ambulance!
He's gonna die!
This is Pablo Ferro.
By the time I got there,
Pablo was in Bellevue Hospital,
under arrest.
Frank was in jail,
because they found some grass,
and things just went
in a different direction.
We thought it was somebody
was out to get us.
We didn't know why.
♪
He was really
at death's door.
And so he was administered
the last rites
late that morning by a priest.
Pablo was on life support.
He was gonna die.
Yeah, and of course,
everybody, because Pablo
was such a wild character,
just had all these theories,
and this and that.
We'd talk about the dark side
in my mind, it was like
why did this dark thing
happen to him?
Why could something
that evil just come out
of nowhere?
Why-- who was it?
You know, there were lots
of strange things happening
in the country at the time,
you know,
the Manson thing was happening,
and other bizarre things.
Who knows.
You know, I mean they shot
John Lennon, right,
for doing what he did.
They could have just decided,
you know, I don't like this guy.
Some friends took him down
to the Virgin Islands
to recover for a few weeks
or a couple of months.
I was worried, you know,
will they follow us down here?
And I said to him,
"Pablo, you know who shot you?"
He said, "No, I don't."
And I made a decision then
to never ask him about it again.
♪
But it had to happen.
Can't escape what's gonna happen
to everyone.
Destiny.
You just roll along.
Word it with your best
word you can.
This is a cloud.
Is it going to rain?
He doesn't feel well
if it's raining outside.
He feels like crap.
Because I'll say,
"Hey, how you doing, Dad?"
And he says, "Oh, I'm okay.
I'm better, I'm better today.
I wasn't feeling
too good yesterday.
I feel okay today."
And it's usually related
to how moist it is outside,
how cold it is.
In those days,
back in New York, weather
was just wreaking havoc on him.
He wouldn't have survived
another year there.
He would have not have survived.
I think it was time for him
to leave.
He was afraid,
and he didn't know
what was happening next,
and his kids were gone.
We were gone.
We didn't know
what was going on.
I could imagine him
upstairs in his room
by himself crying.
It was bad,
it was a bad time.
And of course, that didn't
help Pablo in the industry.
There was a certain fragrance
that came out of that I think
that didn't help Pablo
getting work.
And people thought,
"Well, you know, what's
this guy into?"
We may not be able
to do this.
Why not?
Because, um, we just don't
have enough, you know,
capital to do this.
We need to-- we need
to figure out a way
of getting enough money
to do this.
In this spot where you want
me to put it,
I have to put in foundation,
and plumbing, and electric.
And it's just gonna be a little
too much money at this moment.
Uh-huh.
Unless we get some
other work in, you know.
I don't see how we're gonna
be able to do that.
So, his wife is gone,
his kids are gone,
his business is gone,
and he's got the freakin'
hardly any use of his hand.
It was very shocking
to his system.
And it, you know,
just knocked him off his game
for awhile.
And he looked very different
at that time.
He had cut all of his hair off,
it was very, very short,
and he was very thin.
I knew that he was in pain,
and I knew that he had fallen
on hard times.
His reputation was not good.
And that was as simple
as it was.
You know, you adjust.
We all adjust to the reality.
You know, you operate
in whatever the reality is
at the time.
I just said to him,
"Pablo, you're too skinny.
You know what, it's okay
for you to let your hair grow.
It's okay for you
to be gorgeous.
Just because somebody came in,
hurt you once, doesn't mean
you have to be invisible."
Well, I wasn't getting work.
You know, I don't know.
Maybe because of the bullet,
who knows.
And that's where I was lucky
I got a call from Hal.
When Hal became a director,
he said, "Come out here,
and work with me."
Every film Hal made,
Pablo was the guy
to do all the campaign,
trailers, all that stuff.
No matter what.
There are very few,
great characters out there
who are loyal like Hal was
to Pablo, and Pablo to him.
This is a phone.
is it going to ring?
♪
This is Pablo Ferro
looking for a gig.
Well, somehow
it always seems like
the job you just finished
is the last job you'll ever do
'till the phone rings again,
you know.
Hi, Grandpa.
Oh hi, sweetheart.
I brought your mail.
Thanks, just put it
over there.
Take a look here.
I'm making business cards.
See, when you do
handwritten cards
people appreciate it
because all they see
are the other ones.
Nobody ever makes it easy.
Life is not easy
for anybody who wants to create
some sort of vision
of something, or tell a story.
Okay.
♪
We do everything
by eye here.
My eye.
♪
I was alone in New York,
and thinking it might be time
to pack my bags.
This is Pablo Ferro
splitting the scene.
♪
He says, "Come over!
I got this job for you."
I said, "You've got me, man.
We'll put everything
in the truck."
He's been saving my life
all his life.
♪
He's one of the very few
who've worked in his particular
metier, which is titles
who receives credit
for their titles.
Hal Ashby was one
of the great directors
of the 1970s.
He was one of the most
daring directors of that period.
He was somebody who addressed
taboo subjects in a very direct,
but humanistic
and often very funny way.
When Pablo came from New York
to L.A., he stayed at Hal's
and they spent a lot
of time together,
and were inseparable.
♪
Things weren't going
so great, so I gave him a call,
and he immediately got me
on a plane and flew me out,
and I hadn't seen him
in like five years.
It was kinda a strange
reconciliation, but it was--
it was like I never left.
You know, we were back together.
♪
We were working with Hal,
and a phone call came
into Hal's house.
It was a call for my father.
And it was Stanley,
and he was saying
he wanted him to come
and look at this film.
And my father's very honest
about what his situation is,
and he always has been.
"You know, I'm working with Hal,
and I've got this schedule
and everything."
He said, "Well, don't
worry about it, we'll just--
you could get on the Concord.
Get on the Concord!
It's a great ride!"
And I think my father
was used to being accosted
by Stanley at the time.
I mean Stanley would just
kidnap the whole family,
and utilize Pablo's--
in his work, and his ideas
until he was done,
and then say, "Now you
can go home now."
And it wasn't in
a malicious way.
I mean, he would take care
of us, I mean he flew us
all over there, put us up
in a nice place.
I went to school there.
It was all on Stanley's dime.
But I think that, maybe
my father, he may have voiced
a little resistance at the time.
Who is it?
Excuse me, can you
please help us, there's been
a terrible accident.
It's a matter of life and death!
I'm sorry, but we don't
usually let strangers in--
He showed me the picture,
and I went home,
went to the hotel,
and I locked all the doors.
Because I was very paranoiac
from the film.
And I heard
the "William Tell Overture".
I said, "Oh,
that's interesting."
♪
One frame is in,
and one frame's out.
Looks like...
So the effects look
almost three dimensional.
♪
"A Clockwork Orange"
was one of those movies
that had people talking.
It was a buzz at the moment.
And so for months you had
people saying, "Have you seen
"A Clockwork Orange"?"
I mean some people
were appalled, some people
were reviled, some people
were bowled over.
It had a whole range
of opinions but everybody
had an opinion.
It was one of those films.
♪
So, 1981, the Rolling Stones
had what was then the biggest
rock and roll tour in history.
♪
They traveled the world
playing only stadiums,
and Mick Jagger decided
that he wanted to make
a concert movie,
and chose Hal Ashby,
and Pablo Ferro to direct it.
♪
This is Pablo Ferro,
and Hal Ashby co-directing
"Let's Spend
The Night Together".
I remember,
I was 15 years old,
and my dad was working
with the Rolling Stones,
and he wouldn't let me see them.
They would come to the house,
and he wouldn't tell me
because he didn't
want me to be there.
I guess because I'm
a 15 year old girl, you know.
Young, you know, Mick Jagger
and all those guys.
One of the things
that plagued Ashby's career,
particularly in the 1980s,
was allegations of drug use,
of him being sort of completely
out of it,
and of being unhireable,
uncommunicative, and just
totally impossible to work with.
As a result of that,
his career definitely
saw a major decline.
♪
And he was diagnosed
with pancreatic cancer.
♪
When he got cancer,
we busted him out
of the hospital back east,
and brought him to Malibu.
And opened up his Rolodex,
and called all
of his closest friends
and said, "Come any time
you want to."
Well, Pablo came every day.
There was a group of us
that would take shifts,
you know and just go,
and just be with him.
The time we all spent
together with Hal,
those were really amazing days.
Paradoxical that we,
on one level, were losing him,
but on another level
we will have him with us forever
because of that time.
♪
He was so devoted to Hal,
as Hal was on his way out.
Unlike anyone else,
it was his own special way
of giving to Hal,
and Hal received it,
and he knew.
♪
This is Pablo Ferro
being there.
All our lives,
we're told by people
in positions of authority,
older folks, that if you want
to be happy in life,
if you wanna be content,
you must find security.
And how unfortunate
when there is no such thing
in life as security.
In fact, the only thing
you can really depend on
is that all things
are gonna change.
And the sooner
you throw yourself
into the sea of change,
the better off you're gonna be.
♪
Let's face it, life is
a freakin' rollercoaster, man.
When you're down, you think
it's the shits, this is the end
of the line, I can't go
any lower.
I'm miserable.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
And it always seems like
this is it!
I ain't getting any better.
And then it turns around.
What happens, I don't know.
♪
But, the rollercoaster
keeps going.
You know?
You have to weather the downs.
It sure is an interesting life,
I gotta tell ya.
One thing about this business,
is you never know.
Just as long as you keep
coming back to the tables,
you stay in play.
♪ Same as it ever was
♪ Same as it ever was
♪ Same as it ever was
♪ Same as it ever was
♪ Same as it ever was
♪ Same as it ever was
♪ Same as it ever was
♪ Same as it ever was ♪
So when it comes
to "Stop Making Sense",
we were talking about
what kind of credits
should we have,
and it just tickled me so much,
and it tickled David Byrne
so much to say,
"You know what, we've got
the guy that did the credits
for Dr. Strangelove.
The greatest credits
ever seen on any film.
I don't care what
the budget was,
what the film was,
these are the great credits.
Let's shamelessly,
not rip off, but shamelessly
make an amazing salute
to Stanley Kubrick
and to Pablo Ferro
by recycling this concept
for our movie.
It tickled him to death,
and we went forward
and did that.
♪
We've been working together
for 16 years, 16 years now.
I've been representing him
as his agent,
and we're still going.
He's a consummate
creative person,
so he's difficult
to deal with sometimes.
But um, you know,
it's come along.
It's come along.
Like in '97, we got
all four projects,
all got Oscars, that was huge.
You know, it was
really exciting.
Working with him has been good.
You know, because
it's a labor of love.
Because there's more work
than pay most of the time.
You know, I work hard
for him and with him.
And uh, it's turned out well.
Only recently have we really
seen an appreciation
of his work as art.
That is the colleges,
professors, you know,
art students.
I think that he's an incredibly
under utilized talent.
As there are probably many
out there like him.
So, with a few gigs,
and a little help
from my family,
we were able to work it out.
I'm still working
on getting a television.
This is Pablo Ferro.
♪
He sees art in everything.
Everything can be used.
He doesn't discern
high art from low art.
No, no, no.
No, no, no.
He sees meaning in everything.
He's very sophisticated
in his ideas.
I think he lives in a world
of ideas.
Who is Pablo Ferro?
He's a red scarf.
He's a warm heart.
He's a good man.
♪
When you evoke his name,
there's kind of energy,
and a humor,
and a good will.
Pablo Ferro himself
is a rather unique force
of nature.
He's like a walking work of art,
you know?
♪
The best feeling
in the world.
Sex, drugs, and money.
Better than all
of those things.
The feeling of creating
something completely different,
and you are the first one
who's looking at it.
It's better than
all of those things.
♪
Oh, what a beautiful day.
♪
Catch ya later.
♪
♪ Well if you want
to sing out, sing out ♪
♪ And if you want to be free,
be free ♪
♪ Because there's a million
things to be ♪
♪ You know that there are
♪ And if you want
to live high, live high ♪
♪ And if you want
to live low, live low ♪
♪ 'Cause there's a million
ways to go ♪
♪ You know that there are
♪ You can do what you want
♪ The opportunity's on ♪
We all end up
living in the back
of a garage somewhere.
May I have your attention,
please?
Would your life
make a good film?
Hmm, an epic?
Maybe a short film.
Would your life make
a good newspaper headline?
A medicine prescription?
A suicide note?
A lottery ticket?
A passport to far,
far away lands?
Is your life outrageous?
Contagious?
A rollercoaster?
Maybe your life
is a cautionary tale.
A what if?
Is your life a work of art?
And what happens
after the fade out?
Is there gonna be a sequel?
Change that.
You wanna say "Cooba"
or "Cuba"?
That's what I figured.
Good, I'm good.
That's what I wanted to know.
Okay.
Oh, it's animation!
Oh, oh, okay.
The whole thing is animation,
all of it!
Okay.
♪
This is kinda
a silly question, but uh...
How much is that one?
This is a sauna!
♪
These are naked girls.
Are two better than one?
He wanted a little
whoop-dee-do in his life.
A little more excitement.
And why not?
This is Pablo Ferro
falling in love.
Whoop-dee-do.
Lotta young girls.
Whoop-dee-do.
Whoop-dee-do.
Lotta young girls.
Whoop-dee-do.
Whoop-dee-do.
Lotta young girls.
♪
God knows where
they all are now.
♪
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
Is your life...
...a work of art?
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
This is Pablo Ferro.
♪
Pablo who?
♪