Robert De Niro and Barry Primus

Well, it's not really - I guess everybody perceives it differently from this side of the Atlantic or from this country or whatever. They'd say it's a harsh criticism of Hollywood, but you could say that if you want, but that's not our intention. We don't... it's not a, polemically speaking, whatever. It's not that, it's not even worth criticizing Hollywood, in a sense. I mean, it's more about people who are on the fringe, who want to make a movie, who have a dream, and what the success of making that film, the success of just getting it made means, and what it represents to themselves and to Marvin as an artist who says, you know, some things are just not for sale. And I mean that I can't say this because I haven't seen it, but I would think that maybe a movie that would be more critical of Hollywood, making fun of it, would be "The Player", which I haven't seen, but I heard. Because it's about the players. The people in "Mistress" are people who want to be players, and they'd probably be just as bad as the players once they got in that position.

Not Marvin, but, you know, the other characters, in a sense. Or, you know, not just as bad, but behave the same in terms of the nature of the machine, the nature of the beast is to be part of the status quo. Part of the club, the establishment that makes movies and decides what movies can be made and not made. And nobody, even people in movies in the establishment, know. Nobody knows what movie is going to do well or not do well, as far as that goes.

Nobody can predict. They have high-concept movies which have a certain guarantee with certain actors, certain action films. I mean, you can get a... But even then, you never... You know, they produce these big movies, and they go right down the toilet. Do you think so, too?

Well, yeah. My real desire and my feeling about making the movie was not to concern myself with Hollywood, because it's too small a subject for me to care about. What I really want to do is to make a movie about how we live in the world and what it's like to live in the world desiring things that you desperately want and that are extremely important to you as an individual, as a human being, and how other people's desires, you know, that are just as important to them, cross you, and the drama that unfolds from that. And in a way, I guess the emotion that's underneath the drive to make the movie is a kind of plea that people be treated more respectfully in their needs, even if their needs are a little off or a little bit obscure or not as commercial, that these people can make a contribution to society.

In a funny way, the whole making of the movie has this behind it, because the making of the movie is a kind of a little song. It's not a big song. It's not a symphony. Just a little melody, sort of like Marvin's melody, like he's the main character, Marvin. And we had a difficult time to make the movie also. And somehow the energy of the whole way it was created, and the way it's being distributed in an offbeat way, and the way this whole thing came together with friends, Meir and Bob and I, is symptomatic of the whole thing. I don't think I could have pulled people into this movie who were such good actors, like Danny Aiello and Christopher Walken and Martin Landau, people like that, and Bob, of course, if it was just a mean or bitter statement about a particular industry.

It's just, people wouldn't get that. But people got, when they got it - not everybody got it, some people didn't like it or didn't want to be in it, but when people got it, they got something human. And that's... they got something that was more vulnerable and more human, and that's why that they wanted to be a part of it. It's like a bigger statement that they felt that they were making about society.

In the movie "Mistress", the world of this movie, the men have the power and not the women. Is this an important question for you producing this film?

Yeah, I mean, the men do have the power.

They have it in the movie establishment, which you don't really see, and they have it in this world, too. Although the women exert a certain... Although women have the power. [laughter] In your character, they

have their own kind of power.

Kind of inverted kind of power. Behind-the-scenes power. You've got your own film production company, Tribeca. What are your intentions, your aims, your hopes when producing films? I wanted to have more control over things that I do and start projects that, instead of being just like an actor for hire or even a director for hire, try and conceive and come up with ideas that then I'd have control over how they're done from the very beginning.

And, you know, just also profit from that, because I have started it and created it and make it something that's more, how

do I say it, something more in relation to the company, into this idea of this film center and making sort of a film cultural center. And you think of New York, think of the Tribeca Film Center. And I'm not even sure how it's going to go. I mean, it's just something sort of pushing out in a certain direction and to do movies that I like, like "Mistress", and that, you know, that I like. They could be anything, any kinds of things. I have no real philosophy or credo about how or what, just things that I think are, and try and make them different than other things.

In the program of your company, there are ideals, morals to make films? Well, no, there's no written moral or ideals or ideas about... I think it's, let's put it this way: I know what I wouldn't want to do. So when the time comes to decide about doing a certain type of project, we'll do that project. If I have the opportunity to do this kind of project, I'll say, I don't want to do that, I'd rather do this.

It's that simple. I can't say, well, I'm going to do this and get on my white horse with a flag and champion the cause of one thing or another. It's just going to be things that we like, and have the opportunity to fail, make my own mistakes, and just have fun doing it.

Film and the European film, what do you think about the differences? Well, I think the European movies are more used to nuance and subtleties and diversity, so that a movie like "Mistress", we don't know how it will do in America. I think in certain audiences it will be treated the way it would be treated here, but in general we all know that a movie that might not do well in America, that might have, not necessarily more sophisticated, but more levels, will work, more personal, will work over here more easily than over there.

But that's also because the studio machine in that sense, they want to throw out these big movies and millions of dollars' worth of advertising, and so a movie that comes along... There are smaller distribution companies, which is one that we're going to have "Mistress" go through, that understand these kind of movies and should be handling these kind of movies. "Mistress" is not... They don't know where to put it in this whole big, this big sort of grandeur, big hype machine that the whole industry... with a certain voice advertising the film of so-and-so, see him, blah blah blah. You know, it's not that kind of movie, it can't... It's a small movie, it's about a more personal movie about a person's struggle to get a film done. So if it was done by a big company, that, you know, it would kind of... it would have another meaning. It's probably better that it's done in the way it is and presented in the way that it's been presented. It's kind of in keeping with the style of... with the film and the style and everything, yeah.

I wonder if it may be something of the fact that if in America, you know, we keep presenting movies, as Bob is saying, with these big, big concepts, when you go to the theater, there's an expectation. You keep giving somebody the same thing, and it's a certain kind of thing, then when people go, they're unconsciously either confused or disappointed that this thing that they're seeing is not part of their educational, cultural background. Whereas in Europe, there seems to be a tradition of minority filmmaking, that there is, you know, this kind of a movie and that's a family movie or an adventure movie, and then there is other kinds of movies that maybe cost less, and I believe they should be charged... that people should have admissions less also, that I always have a whole thing about... I feel that certain movies that cost us less, they should charge less for in the theater. But that in America, that would help things. But I feel here that minority filmmaking is tolerated, and so here it won't be so unexpected to see this kind of a thing, you know. And I'm very, you know, we haven't released this movie anywhere in the world, except it's about to open in France and Italy, and then it'll be here. I feel very excited and grateful, in a way, for the German distributors who took this film. And I had dinner with them last night. They were... Willy, the distributors are Connection, yeah. And they were saying that they didn't know how well the film would do, but they had a strong feeling about it, and they liked the film, and they were going to do it here. And the critics liked it, and they were going to do it here.

God bless them, you know. It's terrific for me as an American to come here and be able to show my film here, you know. It's great.

Returning to Hollywood, what do you think, would a script like "The Darkness and the Light" be more successful in Europe?

Definitely, yeah. [laughs] Right, that one, yes.

And that's a... Well, that's kind of a... Well, that's obvious. I mean, that's the joke, in a way. Even the title is too somber and ambiguous for an American audience or a movie company to even want to understand.

I think the character knows that, too, because when they ask him the questions and he says, 'Didn't you read the script?', and he has to describe to them what it's about, he feels completely at a loss to do it, because he knows that they're not going to get it.

What's the real reason that Hollywood, the normal film production, don't make films like "The Darkness and the Light"? The real, the deep reason. I just think they're just too esoteric, too arty for them. There's not a big upside on them. It's just another... you know, it's that simple.

Nothing personal, they're just not interested.

There's also something a little bit that American films and films... maybe they had a choice at one time, or maybe it just happened because movies are what they are visually, but they vied for glamour and entertainment very heavily, and they're very much into that. Whereas, there's room for film to also be, of course, for lack of a better word, uplifting, poetical, educational.

And there's this heavy prejudice in that direction. And the audience then has been led to eat that kind of food. It's very curious to me, because the films that influenced me the most in my life were totally minority films. There were films that came from Italy when I was a child, used to play in an art theater called the Irving Place Theatre on 14th Street. I went to see "Shoeshine", "Bicycle Thief", "Paisan". And those films, which only a handful of people saw in New York, were actually the films that stirred me the most, you know. So it's a question of what you're led, you know, to look at. Somebody has to set up an example and give people... It's like a child: if you don't take a child to a museum or a library, you can't expect when they're gonna grow up, they're gonna go to a museum or library. There's no responsibility from the people that have the money to make these things, and it's hard for people to have an appetite for them. It's like, which comes first, the chicken or the egg, you know?

Last question: the foundation of your company, did it mean you were not satisfied as an actor, as a movie star? Well, I wanted to create something else, create a company that could in some ways even keep me supported so that I can do what I want. I'd like to direct, write and direct my own things through my company, and I thought it would just be something that I've always sort of toyed with the idea of doing, and creating like a place. Because there's no, like I say, no real film...

you think of a film center or a place. The closest thing to it are the studios, but they're not the same. They're just not the same. I think Francis Coppola was trying to do it when he bought the old Goldwyn studio. But it just didn't work. I want to have a few theaters. Say, there's a lot next door that I would like to put, say, four theaters in and have continuous movies: art films, classics, obscure films that can't get distributed or just obscure films that you can only see, say, there, and movies that will be programmed at, say, 2:00, 3:00 in the morning, that certain people like to see movies at 3:00 in the morning and say, 'Let's go down to the film center and see that movie that you can't see anywhere else.' And at least you have the chance to see it.

I mean, to me that's interesting. And then have a place, a funnel for young people to come and actually practically get something done if they have an idea for a script, that if it's good enough, they can get paid to write it or write at least a treatment. And it's this kind of feeling and things that I don't even know at this point. I don't know how it will wind up, whatever, with all the changes and technology and so on. It could be other things that I'll know then.