Cinema: The New Hollywood: Dead or Alive?

• Share

(6 of 7)

Ray Stark, for one, wishes Coppola well. The producer of Funny Girl, seven Neil Simon movies and the $35 million film of Annie, says of Coppola: "I respect him as a creator. He's a fine writer and director. His problem is that he wants to be a mogul. I tell him, 'Francis, there hasn't been a mogul in 20 years.' In the old days Samuel Goldwyn or Darryl Zanuck found material, selected a director, discovered stars. But the age of the great producer is over." If there is no great producer, there is surely a strong one: Stark. "I'm the director's conscience," he says. "Directors know they can't do what they want at whim. We arrive at a happy medium."

Martin Scorsese agrees on the need for a creative producer—in his case, on Raging Bull, the team of Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler. "When you're so close to a picture, you tend to lose perspective," Scorsese says. "You need someone near by who loves you—not to yell at you but to help you along. They act as a buffer between us and the studio so that we don't feel the squeeze as much."

Raging Bull was nominated for eight Academy Awards (tied for top honors with The Elephant Man, directed by Film-School Graduate David Lynch), and Scorsese professes surprise at his film's success. He calls it "a kamikaze film: I went in thinking it could well be my last studio-financed film. The rising costs of film production could make studios opt for pictures with big budgets and bigger box-office potential—and the more independent, individual films, like Raging Bull and Ordinary People, won't get made."

Robert Redford, who will be competing with Scorsese on Oscar night, shares his concern. "I'm afraid that the next four years will see a narrowing of focus, the same old systems being depleted, rather than a real search for new solutions. When movie executives decide what projects to undertake these days, they look at their hand calculators rather than responding to their gut feelings." Sitting in his Manhattan office, Redford exudes both the glamour of an Old Hollywood star and the cost concern of a New Hollywood minimogul. He's proud of his record as head of Wildwood Enterprises —and willing to open his books to the public.

"You want figures, right?" he asks. "O.K.: Downhill Racer cost $1.8 million to make. Jeremiah Johnson, $3.5 million. The Candidate, $1.6 million, with a 41-day shooting schedule. All the President's Men cost $7.8 million, largely due to Government interference and paranoia. Ordinary People came in for about $6.3 million. So it is still possible to make films at a reasonable cost. You just have to work at it." As director of Ordinary People, Redford worked for scale ($52,000), and his entire cast was paid $600,000. "Even the crew took cuts. This mutuality of chance-taking gave the film the look I wanted: the feeling of hunger, of people willing to try things."