"Croupier" Director Mike Hodges.

DATE May 16, 2000 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Paul Mayersburg talks about the independent film
"Croupier"
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

The new movie "Croupier" opened in the US without much advertising or
publicity, as part of an independent film series presented by the distribution
company the Shooting Gallery. So you may not even have heard about it, but
it's gotten some great reviews. I like it so much I've seen it three times.

My guest is the screenwriter, Paul Mayersburg. "Croupier" is the story of an
unpublished writer named Jack, who, to make ends meet, takes a job as a
croupier, or dealer, in a London casino. It's the world he grew up in, but
has tried to stay away from. His father was a gambler, but Jack doesn't
gamble. Gamblers lose. Jack says you have to make a choice in life, be a
gambler or a croupier.

After Jack takes the job, he decides to write a novel about a croupier. The
film's dialogue is intercut with Jack's inner monologues about gambling and
writing. Here are excerpts from two scenes.

(Soundbite of "Croupier")

Unidentified Man #1: Jack started to dress for the casino at home, a man in
love with his uniform, like a musician in his tuxedo going to the concert hall
on public transport, eager to perform.

(Soundbite of casino sounds)

JACK (Croupier in film "Croupier"): No more bets. Thank you. Nineteen red.

(Soundbite a man coughing and gagging)

Unidentified Man #2: Oh, God.

Unidentified Woman #1: Annabelle!

Unidentified Man #1: The croupier registered disgust.

JACK: This gentleman has accidentally coughed on the chips.

Unidentified Man #1: The writer made a note.

Unidentified Woman #2: Agnes...

Unidentified Man #1: Good scene for the book.

Unidentified Woman #2: ...take these chips off the table for me?

JACK: Sixteen. Too many. Fifteen? Too many. Twelve. Too many. Eleven
double. Twenty-one, black jack.

Unidentified Man #1: A wave of elation came over him. He was hooked again...

JACK: Place your bets, please.

Unidentified Man #1: ...watching people lose.

GROSS: The film "Croupier" is about gambling and writing, chance and
coincidence, what's in your control and what's out of it. In his life as a
croupier and a writer, Jack prides himself on being the detached voyeur.

Mr. PAUL MAYERSBURG (Screenwriter, "Croupier"): The whole idea of the piece
was that there is a curious detachment which exists in a croupier, apart form
the--you know, his basic contempt in the end for gamblers. And with the
writer, in his attempt to--if you like, woo a publisher and audience--a
public. So in a way, they're both different sides of gambling. They tend to
do their work quite--in a quite lonely way. They lead very non-office hours.
And--but above all, they're detached from what they do. In other words, in
order to write, you have to pull yourself back from things. In order to be in
a casino, of course, you can't gamble. So you have to detach yourself. And
it's really the price you pay, or the--in relation to the possible success of
being that character. So you're a loner in two different ways. I think that
was really the sense of it.

GROSS: Now I'll confess there's a lot of gambling movies I don't particularly
like because it seems to me in a gambling movie, you know the gambler's going
to lose. He's going to lose all of his money and his friends and family will
be--feel betrayed and they will have lost a lot, too. Or if it's a heist
film, you know something terrible's going to happen with the heist and
everybody's going to lose there, too. And every time your film seems to be
heading into one of those conventional formula gambling directions, something
very surprising happens instead. It just takes a different kind of twist,
which I felt terrific about.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Well, I based that on nights in the casino.

GROSS: Uh-huh.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: You know, you are certain a certain number must come up.
You absolutely know it's been five black in a row. It has to be red. Of
course, it's black. You really do not know what number is coming up and you
say, `I've got a plan. I've got a scheme. I've got a system.' But, of
course, you don't know.

GROSS: Well...

Mr. MAYERSBURG: And it's just totally random. But the randomness, which
invades what people think of as a constructed narrative, gives it that energy
and the surprisingness. So in other words, what I've turned--what I've tried
to do was to turn the randomness of the numbers on the roulette wheel into
plot switches.

GROSS: What mood or what state of mind did you want the casino to embody?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Oh, I think it's like an opium den.

GROSS: `The house of addiction' is what the croupier calls it.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Yeah, exactly. It's an opium den, house of addiction.
Exactly. You only go there--oh, not only. You mostly go there to, you
know--to enjoy or suffer. And you don't go there because it's an interesting
thing to do. You go there because--you know, because you know you're going to
lose. So you go there because you want to enjoy yourself suffering really.

1245 GROSS: Do you gamble yourself?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: No, I don't any more. I did. Years ago, here in the south
France, actually, I sort of kept myself gambling. I used to go in the
mornings because...

GROSS: Why in the mornings?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Well, because nobody there.

GROSS: Uh-huh.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: So--and the number's the same whoever's there. And if you
start gambling with people--it's 11:00 in the morning--well, they used to open
at 11. I don't--but 11:00 in the morning, they're still cleaning up, you
know, basically, so there's one or two tables open. And there's a couple of
people there, you know. So you're not gambling against any--you don't have
any relation to people at all. You're only there against the house, as it
were. And what I would do--and I--you know, I was very young. I was early
20s. Simply, I had whatever--you know, a hundred francs or something of that
kind--just--and all I wanted to do was to make 50 percent--to make 50
francs--something like that. And when I got there, I would stop. And that
would pay my rent or whatever down here for a week or so.

GROSS: Did you lose more than you made?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: No, I won in the end. But won in the end in the sense
of--yes, I used to lose, but you have to have a stake that you don't touch,
you don't spend.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: You know, whatever the--depending on how big a roller you
are, you mustn't touch the stake. In other words, you--once--you know, you
mustn't go into the stake for the--to spend money. You have to keep that as
a--as something apart.

1415 GROSS: If you're gambling at 11 in the morning, then you're not even fooling
yourself with the idea that this is glamorous, this is the night life.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: No, absolutely not. You just want the money.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: I only wanted the money.

GROSS: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: I mean, I just needed--you know, I had no job and so forth.
I'd been working in Paris with the film director Jean-Pierre Melville. It was
my first job in film.

GROSS: What did you work with him on?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: It was a film--it's called--in American title, it's the
"Finger Man."

GROSS: Oh, yeah. That was rereleased here a few years ago.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Yeah, it's called "Le Doulos" in French. And he gave me my
first job.

GROSS: Well, if--for our listeners who aren't familiar with him, he is a
French director who made a few films like the "Finger Man" and "The Samurai"
that are considered real classics of gangster noire films.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Exactly.

GROSS: And a lot of American directors have been influenced by him.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Yes, Tarantino talks about him a lot and, in fact, has
copied many shots from Melville's films.

1511 GROSS: Well, while we're on the subject, is there anything that you learned
from Melville that you feel you put to work in "Croupier"?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Oh, yes. I mean, it is deeply influenced, I would say, by
him. It was a first job. And I met him in London.

Basically, what Melville's films were about--and I don't know how many really
have been shown in America, but you certainly know "Le Doulos" and you know
"Samurai" and you may also know a film called "Second Breath." I don't know.
What he did was he made, from 1960s on, gangster movies set largely in Paris
and in--around Marseille and so forth. They were gangster movies that were
about betrayal--betrayal and fidelity. And what I got from him was that
betrayal and fidelity as, you know, honor amongst thieves and so forth--that
kind of theme--was not really a story necessarily of gangsters, but applied to
every aspect of your life, whether it's, you know, sexual betrayal with your
wife or whatever or leaving your family or, in particular, since Melville was
part of--was involved in the resistance in France, that it was really almost a
political. So the idea of being a loner, of relying on yourself totally and
of your own int--and on your own integrity set in a kind of gangster milieu.
And that stuck with me a lot and I think there's a--that sense of
independence--being a loner and so forth, but in a social situation, is very
strong in "Croupier."

1706 GROSS: I agree. I agree, yeah.

What kind of work did you do with Jean-Pierre Melville?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Oh, I was a runner--floor runner. My first job.

GROSS: So you were like a gofer for him?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Yeah, like a gofer.

GROSS: But you absorbed a lot?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Oh, yes. I was there. I had incredible jobs to do.

GROSS: Like what?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Well, I'll tell you--like, for example, he came to me and he
said--and you know, I had a very school-boy French then. And he came to me
and he said, `You've--you know what Humph--the raincoat, the mackintosh that
Humphrey Bogart wore in "The Barefoot Contessa"?'

I said, `In the funeral in the rain?' I said, `Yes, I know that coat very
well.'

He says, `I want one for Jean-Paul Belmondo in the film.'

I said, `Well, that's costume, you know. I don't know.'

He said, `No, but you know who has one.'

And I said, `No.'

And he said, `You know, Albert Carmu(ph) had that very (French spoken)
raincoat.'

And I said, `Yes, I've seen the pictures of Carmu, you know, in the raincoat
with the epaulets and all the flaps and everything, American style.'

He said, `Well, I think--can you see if you can get it?'

I said, `But he died six months ago in a car crash.'

He said, `Yeah, but he wasn't wearing the coat,' said Melville, `so why don't
you get on to his widow and see if the coat's still there? I'd very much like
Jean-Paul to wear this coat during the film.'

1838 GROSS: Did you get it?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: I couldn't imagine.

GROSS: Did you get it?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Of course, not. I found another one. It was up in the
(French spoken) but--and he wore that and that was fine. But it wasn't--he
wanted the one--he couldn't get Bogie's coat, but he wanted the one that
Albert Carmu had.

GROSS: Did you call the widow?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Oh, yes, but I mean, there was just like a secretary.

GROSS: Oh.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: I mean, my French, can you imagine? I don't know why he
didn't do it himself. I mean, he was famous and I was absolutely nobody
but...

1904 GROSS: Did you have to do casino research in order to make "Croupier" or had
you spent enough time in casinos?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: No, I did that researching to talking to croupiers.

GROSS: You did do that?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Mmm.

GROSS: What were some of the things they told you they liked most and really
despised most about their work?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: They despised the punters--the gamblers. They despised
their jobs. They despised everything about the casino. They hate the
management. There is nothing they like at all. It is--they are people who
are basically socially and personally dysfunctional. They have no proper home
lives. They are very often products of--you know, of divorces and so forth.
It's a place--when you become a croupier--at least as far as Europe goes, and
I'm sure it's true in America, too--it's because you have nowhere else to go.
It gives you a curious sense of community whereby you're among people who
understand who you are, even though you may not be particularly close to them.
You get away from all kinds of responsibility. You drink. You're on drugs.
And after hours, you gamble. You are a completely and utterly corrupt person,
I would say. And all the time you think, `I'll just make enough money and
then I'll quit this.' And in other words, it's almost the reverse form of
gambling. You're as hooked as the punters you despise because they throw away
their money, much of it not theirs, a lot of it stolen, often other people's
money. So there's a...

GROSS: And...

Mr. MAYERSBURG: There's a sort of Dostoyevskian kind of doppelganger,
double-person effect, that the gambler and the croupier are very, very
similar.

GROSS: What is the croupier hooked on?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Watching people lose.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Because it's a mechanical job, you see. I mean, it doesn't
require--it looks very skillful and so forth, but actually it's a purely
mechanical, you know, kind of automaton type job.

GROSS: My guest is Paul Mayersburg. He wrote the screenplay for "Croupier."
More after our break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest Paul Mayersburg wrote the screenplay for the new film
"Croupier."

Without giving anything of the film away, there is a subplot in the movie that
is left kind of unresolved. You're not really sure about why something
happened, what the cause was.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Yes.

GROSS: And I will say that when I was leaving the theater, a lot of people in
the audience--I was trying to listen to what they were saying. And we were
all trapped, waiting for this terrible rainstorm to end, so I...

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Yes.

GROSS: ...had plenty of time to overhear. And a lot of people seemed really
kind of baffled and a little disturbed that something wasn't completely
resolved and there were a couple of different ways you could interpret it.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Are we talking about someone's death?

GROSS: Yes, we are.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Right, without giving anything away?

GROSS: Without giving anything away. And so--so I'm wondering...

Mr. MAYERSBURG: The someone's...

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: The someone's death is--you can look at it in many ways.
It's a coincidence, an unpleasant and unhappy circumstance. Or it was
designed and deliberate for plot reasons. There is no possible way
anyone--well, not anyone--the character in our story--our croupier Jack can
determine what that it. And in a sense after someone's dead, in a way, it
doesn't matter. My point was or was intended to be, when you become involved
in a world where you get superstitious, where you become--you have a feeling
that this number must come up, that this--that there's a plan and a plot and
so forth, you also come across the problem of coincidence. You don't know
whether a coincidence is part of a design--the origin of which you don't
know--or whether it's just a random event. And it seemed to me that what I
was--what I wanted to do was to show that all events, really, are random.

This is not a narrative film, in a sense. It has no flashbacks. And there's
only one intercut scene in the whole movie. Every scene goes from the one to
the next to the next to the next. There's only one intercut moment. And what
I wanted to do was to say when you get superstitious, when you get frightened,
when you get worried, when you owe money, when you've won money, you
become--your mind begins to think that there's a meaning to this, something
happened, somebody caused this, I'm responsible, whatever. And so what I was
really playing with was the--or tickling, I suppose you'd say--was the idea
that you can't let anything go once you've become hooked on gambling because
it's so close to superstition and to witchcraft.

GROSS: Now what about you as the writer? Do you know the reasons behind this
death or do you not know either?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Oh, I know.

GROSS: You know.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Oh, yes, I know.

GROSS: When the interview's over, you can tell me.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: OK.

GROSS: So I won't be betraying the scene.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: But it was the thing, again, of Hemingway's--you know, the
famous remark--you can leave everything out provided you know what it is.

GROSS: Right, but you think that the writer needs to know, even if the
character doesn't?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Oh, yes, absolutely.

GROSS: The croupier is also a writer and during most of the movie he really
hasn't written much at all, but he finally does start to write. He gives a
draft of his book to his girlfriend and she doesn't like it.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Yes.

GROSS: She describes the main character in his book as a miserable zombie and
she says there's no hope in it.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Yes.

GROSS: Did you worry at all that people might say that about your movie?

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Oh, yes, absolutely. And in a way, there is no hope in it,
because it's a very unreliable guide, hope. You know, that--the hope that I
meant or was referring to, in a way, is the fact that hope is not really the
answer to a miserable existence, you know. And the lottery and the addiction
to gambling and so forth--any way out of misery, failure, depravation and so
forth--hope is not the way out. The way out is a much more constructive sense
of who you are, where you belong. And so to rely on hope with a capital `H'
in the sort of, you know, the Hollywood way or, indeed, any way, in almost a
rather childish way, is very dangerous because nothing may happen.

GROSS: That's a really interesting way to look at it, because hope is really
sold or oversold in the United States, you know. Hope is...

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Well, I think that--yes, I--it is oversold everywhere, by
the way. You know, I mean, what would happen to Erin Brockovich if she didn't
get in--you know, it's too horrible to think about, isn't it? What would
happen if it all failed? Or I was watching on television the other night,
"The Verdict." Supposing Paul Newman didn't sober up in time? What then?

But you see, there are stories like that which don't have hope in them and are
brilliant and very successful. For example, I was thinking in watching "The
Verdict"--and it relates a little bit to this--in a film of Otto Preminger's
of about 1959, called "Anatomy of a Murder"--you know, and there--I don't know
whether you've seen the film, but in it a person who is probably guilty gets
off by virtue of the law--probably guilty. This is Ben Gazzara in the story
who murdered a man who apparently raped his wife, Lee Remick. And that stuck
with me--that stick with the rules and you'll be fine, even if they are all
wrong, if they let people off who are guilty and even frame people who are
innocent. If you haven't got the law, you haven't go anything. And that's
got nothing to do with hope.

And in the casino, there are iron rules in a sense. It's corrupt, but there
are iron rules. And the only rule is losing. And if you are a winner, you
are not allowed back. And it's as simple as that. You can't go back if you
win. They bar you, you know, if you constantly win from casinos
everywhere--Vegas, everywhere.

GROSS: What...

Mr. MAYERSBURG: And I was very intrigued by the idea do we want the law or
do we want hope and belief in truth and justice and so forth? And I finally
decided that actually for all its horrors, the law is better because it works
both ways. Hope works no way. It's just, you know, something to do when
you're going nowhere, something to feel and so forth. So this was really a
hopeless story with a happy ending in my view.

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. MAYERSBURG: Oh, thank you.

GROSS: Paul Mayersburg wrote the screenplay for the film "Croupier." We'll
hear from the director in the second half of the show. I'm Terry Gross and
this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Mike Hodges talks about his writing and directing of
the British film "Croupier"
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

We just heard from the screenwriter of the new film "Croupier," about a writer
who takes a job as a croupier returning to the world of casino gambling, the
world he was born into but tried to stay away from. Joining us from London is
the director of the film, Mike Hodges. He made his film debut in 1971 with
"Get Carter," a crime film starring Michael Caine. In a British Film
Institute survey of film professionals ranking the top 100 British films, "Get
Carter" was number 16. When director Terence Malick saw Carter's film, "The
Terminal Man," he wrote Hodges a letter saying, `I want you to know what a
magnificent overwhelming picture it is.' Before we hear from Hodges, let's
listen to the opening scene of "Croupier."

(Soundbite of "Croupier")

Unidentified Man: Now he had become the still center of that spinning wheel
of misfortune. The world turned round him leaving him miraculously untouched.
The croupier had reached his goal. He no longer heard the sound of the poor.

GROSS: What were some of the things that you thought about or tried to do
when you were shooting the gambling tables? I think you really captured a
sense of the almost hypnotic rhythm of it and of the theater, the sense of
theater that some croupiers bring to the table or at least they bring it to
the table in the movie.

Mr. MIKE HODGES (Filmmaker): It's curious, actually, because my experience
of casinos, which is pretty limited, but they are completely different in
every country. But a large part of the presenter, the atmosphere of this--of
my casino were--and, indeed, any casino, is actually the use of sound to a
large degree. And each casino sounds very different. The American casinos
tend to be raucous. The French casinos seem to be like cathedrals. The
British casinos are kind of odd, joyless places, actually, as far as I could
see. I went and looked at them and I had to--you know, they were not very
interesting places to look at visually.

And I was on a bask in London, and I suddenly remembered there was a record
store on Oxford Street and I remembered the staircase going down which was all
mirrors. And I decided that that's--that would enhance the kind of the
ki--deception of the place actually. And, of course, the narcissism of the
film by actually putting mirrors in the casino. And then I thought, `Well,
this is the terrible cheat because people would be able to see the cards or
whatever.' But then I went back to various other casinos and did notice that
they actually had mirrors.

Atmosphere's always important to me in films, and I think part of the secret,
actually, of making a film is actually allowing the film to breath. In other
words, allowing the casino to breath. And I think that a lot of directors
rush things too much. You know, to provide that kind of atmosphere and that
kind of rhythm you do need time. But I think you can slow things down almost
hypnotically for audiences anyway. I think, you know, you can reduce the
speed of a film quite dramatically and still hold attention.

I mean, it isn't very voguish these days because everything is for--you know,
there's so much insecurity shown in filmmaking that I think that one had to
hold one's nerve with this film and not be scared of that, actually. And then
hope that the--allowing the atmosphere to seep into the picture itself would
pay off.

GROSS: You know, you're talking about how in English casinos they're much
quieter. They're not raucous like American ones. And the sound motif of the
movie, it's the first sound that you hear. And, in fact, you hear it before
you even see anything, is the sound of the ball going around the roulette
wheel. And before you know what it is it almost sounds like a lot of insects
for some reason. Was that your idea, to use that sound as a dominant sound?

Mr. HODGES: Oh, absolutely. I mean--and I heard Paul talking earlier, but
that set was one of the contributions that I made, was that if the film was
just about a casino and about gambling, it really wouldn't have any resonance
at all. So I wanted the film to--the casino, in a sense, to resonate
throughout his personal life and into the world outside the casino. And to do
that, I wanted to take the sound, particularly of the ball rolling around and
eventually landing in the number, to take the whole element of chance that is
represented in the casino and show that it actually applies to just about
every part of our lives. So the sound was, indeed, very important and the
sound of that ball going round and landing is the first sound in the picture.
Because in a way, that is the picture.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. HODGES: That is the story we're trying to tell. Does that make sense to
you, Terry?

GROSS: Absolutely. Absolutely. Do you gamble?

Mr. HODGES: Filmmaking's enough for me, as you know. Although I won on the
Grand National this year. I back that once a year, but, no, I'm not a
gambler.

GROSS: Other things you had to learn about gambling and casinos before making
the movie.

Mr. HODGES: I went and looked--it seem to me that you could actually quite
rapidly pick up the general gist of what's going on. Again it's watching the
faces and the kind of people that go to casinos. Clive and those actors who
were actually playing croupiers all went to a croupier school and became quite
proficient. They couldn't, you know, do various highly technical things like
stacking the chips and things like that. So they brought a lot with them for
me to observe. And in addition, of course, to using other real women
croupiers, for example. So I could--you know, in the casino that I built I
could really create my own world and my own casino, and I didn't really, in
all honesty, need to know much more than that.

GROSS: Now you mentioned the mirrors that you wanted in the casino. What
else did you do in the design of the casino to make it easy to shoot the film
you wanted to shoot in it?

Mr. HODGES: Well, there's one great big--which was never in the original
script, actually, which I couldn't believe it when I went to an actual casino.
And I realized that they had these machines which was a hole in the table
where they swept all the chips into this black hole which then drops down and
they're all sorted by a machine underneath. I mean, the sight of this in the
first casino I went to I just absolutely insisted that all the tables were
fitted with this machine, which was a bit of a bore. But, in fact, for the
whole m--I just couldn't believe that people would sit down at a table and
watch the money literally be pushed down a black hole. It seems to me that's
the greatest symbol and metaphor of the film, was this awful sort of
bottomless pit where the chips went down.

The other thing that occurred to me was that when I went to watch the
activities in the casino was that the chip came to represent, for me,
just--not just a chip but it be--came to represent money, which, of course,
is--you have to have to pay for it. And then I kept thinking, `What have
people done to earn the money to buy the chip which then disappears down this
plug hole?' I mean, it was--you know, a daunting sort of moment for me when I
realized. I mean, you know, had people been into prostitution? Had they been
into--you know, is it dirty money? Had they worked for 100 hours a week to
get the money to throw it away? What have they done to earn the money which
they then throw away? It seemed to me an enormously serious moment when I saw
this. And I couldn't believe that the casinos had incorporated into their
activities, in a sense, this black hole. Of course, I used it unmercilessly,
I must be honest.

GROSS: The film "Croupier" is a Mike Hodges/Paul Mayersburg film and I've
heard that you asked for Mayersburg's name to be with you in that heading. A
lot of directors just get the top billing, you know, themselves. Your
thoughts on that.

Mr. HODGES: Well, I have to be honest, you've got a term for it over there
where this new credit--well, it's not a new one. It's been going on for, you
know, 30 years where, I mean, people who are not even known to anybody get a
credit right at the top of the picture. I don't really like that. I think
filmmaking is such a collaborative business. If I'd written the script
myself, fine. It'd be a Mike Hodges film.

But I couldn't possibly have taken that and called it the Mike Hodges film
when Paul's involvement and the script is so good that I couldn't possibly
take that as a credit. I have to say I did it once before with the Tom
Stoppard thing, a television piece that I did called "Squaring the Circle," in
the '80s. And it was a Mike Hodges film, you know--my contract. But again, I
insisted that it was called a Mike Hodges and Tom Stoppard film. But I'm not
sure these credits--I don't know, I wish we'd get rid of it, to be honest with
you.

GROSS: Why?

Mr. HODGES: Well, I think it's only certain directors--I mean, from a box
office point of view, I think there are only certain directors that really
count very much from, you know--Hitchcock, obviously. I just think that is a
collaborative venture. You get the credit you deserve at the end, it seems to
me, as the director.

GROSS: My guest is Mike Hodges, director of the film, "Croupier." More after
a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guess is Mike Hodges and he directed the
new film "Croupier." Your first movie, "Get Carter," which came out in 1971,
is about to come out on DVD. It stars Michael Caine as a professional killer
who sets out to avenge the murder of his brother in Newscastle. Pauline
Kale(ph) said, in praise, I think, `There's nobody to root for but the smartly
dressed, sexual athlete and professional killer in this gangland picture,
which is so calculatedly cool and soulless and nastily erotic that it seems to
belong to a new genre of virtuoso viciousness.' Now you adapted the movie
from a novel by Ted Lewis. You wrote the screenplay and you directed it. Why
did you choose this kind of really nasty story for your first film?

Mr. HODGES: Well, partly I was sent the novel. I don't--I mean, it was
my--it was the first time I was ever offered a feature film. So there was
that element. I would have to admit to ambition and I would also have to
admit to the fact that I--during the '60s I'd worked on a program called
"World In Action," which is kind of like your "60 Minutes," only we would do
just one item.

And I'd really seen the underbelly of life just about everywhere I went to.
You know, I went to Vietnam. I was in Dallas in 1964 doing a program with the
Maisel brothers(ph) on Barry Goldwater as the Republican nominee. I'd done a
program on Freemasonry which had been banned in my own country because most of
the board of directors turned out to be Freemasons, which, not surprising, it
never got out on the air.

And I just had basically observed in my own country a great deal of hypocrisy
and a great deal of corruption. And we always had such a grand view of
ourselves. Our police were wonderful. You know, it was only--it was American
cops, you know, that were corrupt and there was no such thing as corruption
here. And all of that changed, really, in the late '60s when we had some
unbelievably vicious villains, basically, some criminals, the Krey
brothers(ph) and the Richardson brothers(ph).

So I--when I was offered this film, whilst I would readily admit I took it on
because it was my break into feature films, I took it on also because I could
make a film that I thought would try to show a completely different side to
the British character. Most of the--you know, a lot of the elements in "Get
Carter" were based, obviously, on the novel. But then when I chose where to
shoot it, which was in Newcastle, which I'd sailed into when I was doing my
national service in the Royal Navy on a minesweeper on the lower deck, again,
I saw, you know, the real underbelly of my country. So I went back to
Newcastle where I set the story. The novel wasn't set there at all. It
wasn't really set anywhere.

And I found that I--there was a similar story which I then began to
investigate of a hit man being sent up there and so on. So the house at the
end is a real villain's house. It had never been used since the criminal had
done a bunk to the ...(unintelligible) to Spain. And the place was--so many
of the elements in "Get Carter" were based on a factual story. And it is a
cruel film, you're quite right. But I decided if I was going to make it, it
would have to be as ruthless as the--as I could make it actually.

GROSS: Now I should mention this placed 16 on the top 100 British films in a
survey of movie professionals so it, obviously, has had a real big impact on
British filmgoers and British filmmakers even though not that many people in
America are familiar with the movie though I think, you know, many are but not
that many.

Mr. HODGES: Right. No, of course not.

GROSS: No one is redeemed at the end of this movie. There's no moral
resolution. Did that suit you, as a filmmaker?

Mr. HODGES: Again I think that you have to be as honest--if you're going to
take on a story like that, you have to be as honest to it as, say, I was to
something like "Flash Gordon," which is the opposite end of the spectrum. I
mean, "Flash Gordon" is truthful to its source, actually. It is a strip
cartoon on film. So I think that when you're dealing with people like Carter
and the people that he uncovered when he goes north to that town, of
Newcastle, none of those people are redeemable. You know--it's interesting,
there is a remake being made with Sylvester Stallone, which I'm now told is a
redemption movie. So it's very interesting that...

GROSS: Figures.

Mr. HODGES: Yes. There's more money in redemption I think, to be honest
with you. So--but I couldn't possibly--I mean, the thing that I did insist
on, which obviously they tried to talk me out of, is Carter's demise at the
end of the film. And that I absolutely insisted on. And it was always in the
original script and I never wavered from that moment. And that he had to be
dismissed in exactly the same way that he dismissed all the other people who
got in between him and his revenge. And that I would not deviate from.

GROSS: Why?

Mr. HODGES: Because I thought that the justice was there. It was built-in
justice. I do believe that your life ends up much the way that you lived it.
So Carter had lived by violence and he would end violently. I mean, it's not
always the case but it is to a large degree I think.

GROSS: Michael Caine is really terrific in "Get Carter." His body language
and his speech are so perfect and he's, obviously, a really cold guy but he
could turn on the charm, he could be funny in a really nasty way. And there
are those moments where you can tell that there is some kind of heart beating
underneath all of that. Let me play a short clip from the movie.

In this scene he's--the Michael Caine character, the hit man, has just gotten
to Newcastle. He's gotten there in time to see his brother laying in state
before the cremation. And now he's going to avenge his brother's death. So
one of his first stops is at a racetrack where he finds someone who he assumes
is in on his brother's murder. His name is Eric. He wearing a chauffeur
uniform and Michael Caine's trying to see what he's up to. And, of course,
Eric is a little concerned about Michael Caine having come by.

Mr. HODGES: Bet you I would be, too.

GROSS: Yeah.

(Soundbite of "Get Carter")

Mr. MICHAEL CAINE (As Carter): So who you working for these days, Eric?

ERIC: Oh, I'm straight. Respectable.

Mr. CAINE: Yeah. What are you doing, advertising martini?

ERIC: Oh, you've been watching television?

Mr. CAINE: Yes. Come off it, Eric. Who is it? Brumby.

ERIC: Obviously, it isn't.

Mr. CAINE: Kinnear.

ERIC: What's it to you anyway?

Mr. CAINE: Well, I've always had your welfare at heart, Eric. Besides which
I'm nosy.

ERIC: Well, that's not always a healthy way to be, is it?

Mr. CAINE: And you should know, hmm, if I remember rightly.

ERIC: Oh, yes.

Mr. CAINE: So you're doing all right then, Eric. You're making good.

ERIC: I'm making a living.

Mr. CAINE: Good prospect for advancement is there, huh? A pension? Do you
know I'd almost forgotten what your eyes looked like. They're still the same,
piss holes in the snow.

ERIC: Still got a sense of humor.

Mr. CAINE: Yeah. Yes, I retained that, Eric.

GROSS: Well, that was a scene from Mike Hodges' first film, "Get Carter,"
made in 1971. You were so lucky to have Michael Caine to work with in your
first film and then you worked with him again in your movie "Pulp." How did
you get to work with Michael Caine?

Mr. HODGES: Well, I--in truth, I don't know. I mean, I've always been kept
slightly in the dark about this. I had done two television films, one was
called "Suspect" and one was called "Rumour" and they both got a lot of
coverage and I had a lot of freedom as a writer/director in those days. And
they'd obviously been noticed by a producer whose name is Michael Klinger. He
had the rights to Ted Lewis' book. And the book was sent to me and I asked if
I would like to write and direct it. I said yes.

I then wrote the script before I'd chosen the location at all. So I wrote a
draft of the script. And I'd always--you know, my two films in television no
one had ever asked me--Do you believe it these days?--but no one had ever
asked me who the actors were going to be. I chose the actors and no one
ever--that's how it was in those days. It was absolutely extraordinary.
There was no interest in names and--if the story was good, you could make the
film. There was no--you know.

So I hadn't really thought in terms of--I just thought of actors never of film
stars. And I--so I finished the draft and patently what had happened was that
Michael Caine had been interested in working with me and on this project, but
really was not going to--his name was not going to be mentioned I suspect
until the script was written. And when he read the script then he came and
said he would like to do it to the producer who then relayed this information
to me. And then I was astonished, of course.

GROSS: Did you learn things about acting and directing actors from watching
Michael Caine act and directing him?

Mr. HODGES: Oh, well, you could not re--I mean, I'd worked with actors
before but Caine's technique was impeccable. I must say his--you know, his
knowledge of filmmaking is impeccable. Well, I have to say that triverne(ph)
is much the same. It's just this kind of extraordinary sense of filmmaking.
So the hitting of the marks and the understanding what the camera's actually
doing was amazing. And, of course, I was pushing Michael because if you look
at "Carter," there are scenes in there, again--for example, there was one
scene in his landlady's--the room he rents in Newscastle where he brings a
character back and he interrogates him and he--there's a bottle of whiskey and
so on.

And I shot all of that scene in one and a lot of it on Michael Caine's back
and I sort--looking back, I had a lot of chutzpah actually because you've been
led to believe that stars wanted preferential treatment and they wanted their
close-ups and so on. Michael was never like that. So I could do things with
him that I probably wouldn't be able to do with other major stars. So in that
sense, I was terribly lucky. And I was allowed that kind of film. He went
with me completely in the way that I wanted to direct the film.

GROSS: My guest is Mike Hodges. His new film is called "Croupier." More
after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: My guest is Mike Hodges. He directed the British film "Croupier,"
which recently opened in American theaters. Was there a type of movie that
made a particularly big impression on you when you were growing up?

Mr. HODGES: Well, it's been in--I mean, I was great--I mean, I lived in a
provincial town in England and my parents frowned upon the cinema to a large
degree anyway and I--there were three cinemas there and in those days you used
to have two films. You had an A film and a B film. And I was always slipping
away from whatever, to my home to go to the movies. And I often found that
the American B movies I enjoyed more than the more portentous A movies.

And so I did watch a lot of those B movies. Not all of them were good. In
fact, a lot of them were quite bad but I just like the sort of sim--again, I
liked the simplicity. You know, they were conveyor belt movies. The director
just was given a script on the Monday morning, he went in there and, you know,
he was given his cast and he went in and did it, but there was a kind of
precision and a professionalism about the way they were made and the way that
the story unfolded that I just loved.

And, of course, a lot of them were carrying, you know, strong political
messages, actually, strong social messages. And so I became very obsessed by
using thrillers to carry a social message. I mean, "Carter," is an
interesting film in a sense that it reveals a lot about the class structure
here. It reveals a lot about the anger that comes from that situation. And
if you--I spent two years on the lower deck, you know, with seamen. I was the
only National Serviceman on a minesweeper, you know, going around the fishing
ports of England and up to the Arctic.

You saw an incredible amount of anger amongst--on the lower deck. Where you
had the archetypical class society, where the officers were in the ward room
and the--we were on the lower deck. And I came from a totally different
background to most of the people on the lower deck and it changed my life
forever, frankly. It was my eduction, my university without a shadow of a
doubt.

GROSS: You've made comparatively few movies in your career. Is there an
explanation for that?

Mr. HODGES: Well, you know, if you want to make sort of--I don't know, hard
films, you want to make films that don't have obvious commercial potential,
then it's quite difficult to get--I mean, it's been partly--I started
creating--you know, writing and directing my own--basically, my own movies and
then I did various adaptations. But I always controlled what I made. And I
struggled. I was--by the end of--after the "Terminal Man" in the latter part
of the '70s, I lost that. I was four years trying to set up a particular
project which I'd written and I couldn't do it. And the '80s were sort of a
bumpy ride in terms of just keeping my fingers in the pot at all.

And then I made another film called "Black Rainbow" in the early '90s which is
a film that I wrote and directed with Rosanna Arquette and Jason Robards,
which again, you know, had terrible distribution. So I just had sort of--it
isn't from choice, you know, but I am a slow turning around and deciding what
I want to do next. But it's been fate to a large degree. It's a bit like
being in the "Croupier."

GROSS: Yeah, right. Well, I thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. HODGES: Not at all, Terry.

GROSS: OK.

Mr. HODGES: And it's been nice talking to you, if I may say so. Thanks.

GROSS: Nice talking to you. Thank you so much. Mike Hodges directed the
British film "Croupier," which is now showing in many American theaters.
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