Classic Jack
Jack Nicholson chats about the highs and lows of
cinema -- The legendary actor gives us his opinion of modern moviemaking by
Gregory Kirschling
Nowadays, lots of smart
actors toggle between big studio movies and smaller ''art'' films, but, as in
all things, nobody's done it like Jack Nicholson. Back during his golden run of
1970s classics, between
Long unavailable, The
Passenger is being rereleased in select theaters
starting this week (a DVD will follow next year), and Nicholson, 68, clearly
holds the movie dear: When the 20 minutes the publicist allotted for this interview
were up, Jack signed off and then, out of the blue, called right back to keep
talking in his singular lion's purr — and for another 40 minutes — about
Antonioni, blockbusters, the ''cinema,'' his new Martin Scorsese movie, and
retirement.
Why rerelease The Passenger
now?
This movie is the exact
antidote to the movies of the moment, in the sense that we've been involved in
melodrama since — well, whatever you want to call the E.T. or Exorcist period
of time.
By melodrama, are you referring to the era of
blockbusters?
Yes, it's pyrotechnics.
Pyrotechnics are part of melodrama. I thought this fashion would move on by
now, as movie fashions do. But it hasn't. I was way off on this. And Antonioni
is the absolute opposite of melodrama. A chase scene in his movies might be a
camel walking for a very long time. To see something like this is to see a lot
of ways and places that movies can and have gone. But the audience has always
liked melodrama better. And there's no point in ruing it. The audience of the time
is the audience of the time.
Who knew you were such a serious art-film fan?
Well, cinema's what it's
about for me. There are certain movies — like [Satyajit
Ray's] The Music Room or Il Posto by [Ermanno] Olmi — if you haven't
seen them, you haven't seen movies, the best of them. You know, I was gonna be a director. I became a movie star by circumstance,
and then de-emphasized my own directing career. I actually thought I'd make one
movie as a director for every three I made as an actor. And [laughs]I've done three [Drive, He Said (1971); Goin'
South (1978); and The Two Jakes (1990)].
Are you worried there are no Antonionis
working today?
It's always a mistake to
think that. You know, the Spike Jonze of it all! I
talked to him and his partner once about a different kind of Batman movie. I
hear a lot of very exciting ideas. And there are always interesting directors.
They come in all forms. I'm gonna talk next week to
Mr. [Paul] Haggis [writer-director of Crash].
And you recently finished work with Leonardo DiCaprio on Martin Scorsese's The
Departed. Did you take the part to finally work with Scorsese?
More or
less. And Leonardo was
instrumental in that. I had turned the picture down, as there wasn't a part
there. Obviously I'd like to work with Martin and Leo, but [laughs] as I said
to them, I'd love to do it, but there's no part here! And that evolved from
discussion into [collaboration]. And then there was a part there. I play the
incarnate of evil. I had done a few comedies in a row, and I just wanted to do
a bad guy.
What are you up to since The Departed wrapped?
Watching a
lot of baseball. I've probably
read two or three scripts. I play golf. I got kids. [His youngest are
Literally?
Yeah. I picked [the
backpack] up, and I thought, For the love of God, this
will destroy their posture, their structure, or something. It's just too many
books.
Speaking of, are you still a big reader?
One of the reasons I used to
take time off is that there was no way to read nonprofessionally. So I had to
say, ''I'm off, I'm not in the movie business for the next year.'' I like
[Andrew] Vachss' thrillers, and I just ordered [Salman] Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown and [E.L.] Doctorow's
The March. Doctorow chews it up pretty good.
Should we be worried about your retirement?
Do I think I'll make more
films? Yeah! I mean, sure. I don't know, of course. I was delighted, the last
time I took a year or so off, to find that no, I still like being involved in
making beautiful things.