Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/10459
DIRECTOR’S CHAIR POST: How many visual effects shots are in the film? IVORY: “I’m not actually sure.We had to do a certain amount, such as digitally creat- ing the stars at night for some of the scenes, and then there were a certain amount of digital clean-up shots, but not a lot. Molecule did them all and did a great job. I actually like doing visual effects.When we did Le Divorce, we used a lot to creating the flying bag over the roofs of Paris. Of course, it’s nothing like Avatar which I just saw and loved.The visual effects are just amazing.” POST: How did you create all the German archival footage? IVORY: “Some of it’s actually footage I shot for my very first film, Venice:Theme and the project, and we recorded the music in Argentina and Madrid over the course of about eight months.” POST: Did you do a DI? IVORY: “Yes, and it’s the first one we’d ever done, but I still prefer the old way. I think the results you get with color are just subtly better.” POST: Is film dead? IVORY: “It probably is. I see films that are shot digitally and I think they look great. I can’t even tell the difference now, but I still love film.” POST: Will you shoot a digital film? IVORY: “Sure, why not?” POST: What’s the current state of indie film?” IVORY: “People say it’s getting harder and harder to raise money, but it’s always been hard for us. I can’t ever remember a time when it wasn’t hard.Yes, once we’d made A Room with a View all the studios thought we had some magical for- mula that they could just tap into, but of course there’s no secret, no magical formula.” POST: What’s your take on the current state of Hollywood? IVORY: “I think it’s fairly healthy. They’re always complaining about The mix was done at New York City’s Sound One by Rob Fernandez and Bob Hein on a DFC console. Variations, back in 1957. So I recycled that and then we also used footage from all sorts of archives and cut it all together.” POST: How important are sound and music to you? IVORY: “Extremely — it’s always been a crucial part of all our films.We ran into a lit- tle problem this time as our usual composer, Dick Robbins, had started work on the film but he became ill and had to leave the pro- ject.Then I remembered Jorge Drexler, this Uruguayan composer who won the Acad- emy Award for his song from The Motorcycle Diaries. So I felt he’d have a lot of the right ideas and feeling for this film, so we ap- proached him. He lives in Madrid now, and he read the script and said he couldn’t put it down and that it was such a coincidence, as the story of the Gund family is exactly what happened to his own family. “They were German Jews, living in Berlin, who got out just in time before World War 11 and ended up in Uruguay. So he turned out to be the perfect fit for 14 Post • May 2010 the state of the business but a lot of movies are making a lot of money, and now 3D films are huge. I think it’d be nice if Hollywood deflated things a bit and went back to mak- ing films of a normal size, but that’s probably wishful thinking as people probably don’t want that.They want the huge spectacles.” POST: How’s filmmaking changed since you began directing in the ‘50s? IVORY: “There’ve been enormous tech- nical changes, especially in editing and sound thanks to the digital revolution. Our first four films were made in India, and much of what was taken for granted in terms of equip- ment and technology in the West hadn’t even really reached India back then. I began working on a Moviola with optical sound- tracks. It was a very, very different world.” POST: But you were quick to embrace all the technical innovations, such as Avid? IVORY: “Yes, of course, but Ismail wasn’t, however. He’d always say, ‘It’s the story that’s important, there’s nothing wrong with the old www.postmagazine.com way of doing things.’ But I think it was more about saving money, and when he came to direct, I noticed he was very quick to em- brace digital editing and so on (laughs).” POST: How do you look back on Ismail and your long partnership? IVORY: “I have so many fond memories, and he’s irreplaceable and it’s a great loss. He always had your back on a project, and he was so enthusiastic that he’d fire up everyone — the crew, the cast, the studio executives. His infectious optimism really carried us through a lot of terrible situations, and he was so much fun to be around.A lot of directors don’t want the producer on the set, but I really liked it. “He was a very hands-on producer. Once in Florence, when we were shooting in one of the squares, it turned out that the square we’d rented was also hosting a Communist Party rally right where we needed to shoot. It wasn’t happening for a while, but they’d al- ready set up the bleachers, and Ismail got the entire crew –— plus a few strangers — to physically move the entire bleachers. That’s exactly how he was. He’d jump right in and lead everyone and get done what- ever needed doing. I miss him a lot.” POST: You have a background in fine arts and architecture. How has that affected your style? IVORY: “I had very good history of archi- tecture courses at university, and that’s been valuable in choosing locations and sets and the right buildings.” POST: You also went to USC film school. How was that experience? IVORY: “The problem was, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do or what my part in all this would be, and how I’d approach it. I wasn’t even sure exactly what a director was, and at that time USC wasn’t set up to help you find those things out. It was very dull.At that time they had no interest in the- atrical films whatsoever. It was all about mak- ing training films or documentary films, stuff that’d be useful in a commercial way. But there were two or three faculty members who were very sharp and who were inter- ested in feature films, but it just wasn’t the focus of the school at that time.” POST: What’s next? IVORY: “I’m working on a film version of Shakespeare’s Richard 11.We’re just about to start the script, but I’ve been working on it for six years.We plan to shoot in England,and we may do some of it in France.”