Jack Nicholson Interview - Part 11

by Peter Bogdanovich

from Suddeutsche Zeitung Magazin

That performance seemed very relaxed.  
They were relaxed. They were living a life that nobody else did, understand. They loved the shine and the stardom of it and were funny outside that. They were realists. If you’re a test pilot, you gotta be a realist you already know you’re genuinely risking your life, so you don’t want to risk it because you don’t understand this bolt is out of place. It’s a double kind of mentality.  
 
What was John Huston like?  
For a certain period of my life, I knew the greatest guy alive - is what he was like. Certain guys like John, they’re father figures to me. I was mad for John Huston.  
 
He was very funny.  
And down to earth solid. This guy was really solid. The way he was was just incredible. It wasn’t like he was so down to earth he wasn’t flamboyant. I knew John before I knew Anjelica [Huston]. We had talked about a couple of things. And I knew we had hit it off. At a distance, everybody loved John. The first I worked with him was acting in Chinatown.. If John thought the air was getting a bit heavy with [Roman Polanski accent]: “Oh, c’mon guys, waddya think, I just do this for a living? When I tell you something, why can’t we just shoot it the way I want it?” You know Roman. Well, John would say, “Ah, Romahn - let’s just do another one.” Sometimes when you see two friends having a contretemps, you don’t mean to be amused and enjoy it but...  
 
Did you break up?  
I didn’t break up, but I certainly silently chortled. This is like when you talk about mastery of a task in any form. John is the final evolution of the studio system. He’s the last guy who was trained in and practiced that form - coming from outside even though he was a local guy. He’s like the end of that: “Actor, story - that’s all we want to see on the screen. This is the studio system. We want to see that actor, we want to see him good, we want him to be a star, and we want the story.” That’s the classic restriction of the studio system.  
 
Richard Brooks told me that when John brought him on the set for Key Largo. that no writer had ever been permitted on the set before. He was a maverick. His combination was unselfconscious of what his art is. I’ll tell you what I mean by that. The scene where I’m sitting side-by-side with Kathleen Turner in Prizzi’s Honor. [1985] - when the audience is watching this, their impression is they’re seeing a single two-faces forward two-shot. There are 13 camera moves you don’t see in the shot because he didn’t want the audience aware of any pyrotechnical element of camera movement. When it moved there was always something to hide the move. Some of them were only a little bit. But he was moving so he could see the actors of the story, not to see the camera moves. I saw an interview he did once, they asked him, “What do you think of your style?” He said, “Well, frankly, I’d be too self-conscious to think of myself as having a style. It would make me self-conscious.” “What do you mean?” He said, “Well, I could say one thing. One of the things that I am proud of and they don’t discuss much, is my camera work.” Because he felt he wanted it to be invisible. Yet he double-printed Moby Dick. [1956] - he was pressing the technical edges but he did not bring the rest of the movie-making process nakedly onto the screen.  
 
He was trained in the studio system where you hid that sort of thing.  
The final evolution. You practically had to get a decree from Congress to shoot a cocked angle. They never did it unless it was supposed to be saying he’s drunk or out of it. “I want to come into this scene through the robin’s ass.” Wasn’t being done. Not that it was good, bad, better. After him, the whole independent movement, and Orson came on. John and Orson were dear friends. Orson brought the director on the screen. It’s like anything - the audience learns. You know, they vomited when they saw first dolly shot. When Allan Dwan did the first dolly shot the audience started feeling bilious.  
 
You were with Anjelica for many years - did John come on as a father-in-law?  
Oh, yeah. That’s what I loved about him. He was kind of like Shorty and a bunch of other men that I liked. There wasn’t an ounce of condescension in our relationship. He really wanted to know what I thought. Very interested.  
 
Well, he had great respect for you.  
Hopefully, that’s true. You don’t want to make no mistakes on a John Huston picture. The thing about the respect John had throughout the industry - when John walked by them, the grips stood up. You’re a movie guy, you know what that means.  
 
That doesn’t happen.  
Not even close. It thrills me to say it, actually. And he’s sort of unaware of it. He’s just going along, and by then he had the oxygen and all this.  
 
Jack, looking back on your career, what is the most gratifying aspect of it?  
Well, I got to collaborate and be involved in what it’s all about. Another thing John said, “After all the rest of it, all that’s left is the films - the rest, none of that matters. All that’s going to be left is the film, so if you don’t think that’s the most important thing, you’re out of step.” I’ve had the good fortune - because I’m a bit volatile and maybe a bit of an idealist - but I’ve been able to work without ever feeling in violation of my own integrity and not have my integrity cripple me and make me not function. Involved with a lot of good movies as I look back on them. As I said earlier on, the only movie I flat-out did for money was the picture I did for Vincente Minnelli. But you can say anything you want to me. I tell everybody, “Tell me I’m shit, tell me - I want you to say whatever you want to say, don’t hold back.”  
 
I feel a little self-conscious about it, but really, when I’m in action, if anybody cares about anything but making the best picture possible, I’ll find a way to integrate it if I see it and try to make it work, but I don’t buy that at all. I want the best possible picture. A lot of people say, “Oh, this picture would have been wonderful if Burt Lancaster did the picture.” But, if Burt Lancaster was working doing The Leopard. [1963] or something, it was impossible. It’s the art form of the possible. It’s not a very central part of how movies are critiqued. Like if somebody asks me about their picture, I do just like I did in class. I ask them, “What was it you were trying to do? What were you working for here?” Obviously, in that situation, there’s some reason they want some additional counsel, or something they’re uncertain about, or whatever the reason is. “What were you attempting?” The first thing I do is try to see where they might not, a way to move something toward that goal.  
 
You mentioned Allan Dwan. I once said to him, “How does that feel, Allan, to be 93?” He says, “Oh, it doesn’t feel any different.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Well, I still feel the way I did when I was a kid. But I catch myself in the mirror and I say, ‘Who’s that old man?’”  
There’s not a single person I’ve ever talked to about this that has not experienced that. Everybody does that. I’m always shocked by that stranger in the mirror. I’m glad I don’t see as well as I used to for that very reason.