We had so many different versions and choices. Ultimately what it comes down to is that you’re creating the identity of your film. And you can’t be everything to everybody so you’ve got to figure out who your core audience is and how do you get to them. We decided our core audience was men who were 16 to 40. Guys who like boxing. So that’s why we designed the trailer that way. Even though there is a love story, a spiritual component, and many other things in the film, you still have to pick something and go with it. We worked hard on that trailer.

How long does it take to cobble something together from edits?

You’ve got to write the copy, you’ve got to write the script, the editors have to sit down and make version after version. If you bang one out it’s like six to eight weeks. If you go to the point where you actually make your negative and then Technicolor can start shipping them to theaters. You can get it done, probably, within three or four weeks if you get what you want, quick.

I notice that the clips in the trailer are mostly of the film’s action, the boxing.

We decided that we were going to market it like that. Even thought the film has a strong love story we weren’t going to go into that in the trailer.

You’ve said in recent interviews that you always wanted to direct a film. Why was this project “the one?”

This was the one because it was an interesting combination of an art film about an interesting people that hasn’t been totally exploited and not much has been done about them. [It’s a] a very commercial, familiar, film about a kid who overcomes and triumphs in the end and achieves greatness. It’s an inspirational movie so I thought it was just the perfect combination. To be honest I just love the landscape of not just Arizona. I love landscape whether it be Montana, Arizona, or Colorado. I just love the outdoors. I grew up watching John Wayne movies and they shot them up there in Monument Valley and that’s where the boxing team is. It’s set up there.

Was that something that you’ve always had in you, the country spirit? I’ll bring it up now, congratulations on being nominated for creating Best Video of the Year for “Whiskey Lullaby.”

Thank you. I’m from New York, so on NYPD BLUE, I did completely different kind of work so I appreciate the city, I appreciate the country, but I think my heart is in the country. That’s where I live. I have a ranch in Colorado, I live in Arizona.

Built by hand in 1998 (an IMBD Fun Fact about Rick’s log cabin in Colorado), right?

You know, that’s all fabrication. I am the world’s worst carpenter. Literally, I could not build a tree house for my gerbil. I do have a log cabin but the only thing I did was to pick the logs. It’s one of things where somebody makes something up and then all of a sudden it becomes a fact and everyone starts picking up on it.

About the movie, I watched it. I really liked it a lot. I was blown away for it being a first-time effort. You really hit it out of the park.

Under a million dollars, that movie.

Yeah, visually it looks like it’s right up there with a DANCES WITH WOLVES, something that looks far more expensive with some of the shots you got off.

I got a great cinematographer. The guy is so talented. We had 24 days to film it. We worked six days a week and we worked hard and it was financed 100% by Indian tribes. I had Indian people on the set with me every day, watching me, making sure I did right, make sure I spent their money right and honored their people, so there was a lot of pressure on me making it.

This leads me into the question: the script you wrote by yourself.

Yeah, I wrote it by myself.

It seems that Black Cloud’s character is conflicted, spiritually, with coming to terms…

With his mixed blood.

Right. How did you find that voice? Or how did you write this with authenticity?

Well, you know, I just wrote a movie about people. About human beings. This movie could’ve been told about a Spanish kid from Nogales or a black kid in Harlem. It’s a movie about overcoming obstacles and challenges and we’ve all got them. And I think that’s why Black Cloud is so successful. It’s not written from an Indian point of view. It’s written from a point of view about human beings and they happen to be Indian and I think that’s unique. DANCES WITH WOLVES was the first movie, in my mind, that changed the stereotype that the old westerns created and I think BLACK CLOUD, because I got so much support from the tribes, I think they believe that BLACK CLOUD is going to show the good and the bad of them today. I didn’t know a whole lot of Indian people when I wrote BLACK CLOUD but I know a whole bunch now. And it’s a very interesting culture, very diverse. There are over 560 tribes in the country and there is just a lot to learn about them. We live amongst them and they live amongst us but we really don’t integrate too much. Their culture is all around us. It’s a fascinating culture and I am glad that I discovered it because it just adds a lot of texture to the landscape.

Well, that just leads into issues about the financing. I know in previous interviews you’ve said that the usual Hollywood routes…

Yeah, all dead ends for me.

Right. Any fears that making the call to the Tohono O’odham and Tonto Apache Indians, the eventual backers of the movie, what they would’ve said? Any doubts that the project just wasn’t going to happen because of that?

Well, I met with many counsels around the country. I flew around the country and I cold called many tribes.

Really?

There’s generational issues between the white culture and the Indian culture that go back a long time and here’s a guy, a white guy showing up with a script saying “I want to make a movie about Indian people and I need your money.” (Laughs) It was pretty hard to find that first investor. It took me 18 months of just trying to get meetings, of just trying to get people to read my script. And then the Chickasaw nation in Oklahoma, they were my first partner, and when they signed on board then other partners fell into place. And like you said, the Tonto Apache tribe from Payson and the Tohono O’odham tribe from Tucson are my Arizona partners. The Tohono O’odham, Diamond Casino, is sponsoring the premiere in Tucson and the Matazal Casino, those folks are sponsoring the Phoenix premiere.

Where is the film going now? I was going to talk about distribution. Are you having to sell this movie all over again or have you found that now you have a finished film people are a little more willing to get your project out there?

(Laughs)

You know, I thought I was going to make a movie and then I would be going to Sundance, they would throw a ton of money at me, I’d pay all of my investors back and life would be great. Well, Sundance ignored me, blew me off, didn’t even return my calls.

You’re kidding.

No. So, it’s like, now what are going to do? Well, what I did was, I started my own distribution company, I went back to the tribes, and I said, “listen, the movie’s good, I believe in it, you believe in it, let’s do this ourselves. And we made deals with Dan Harkins [an Arizona theater chain owner], we made deals with AMC, and we bought the media, and we designed the advertising campaign and we distributed this independently which is where we’re at right now.

The poster design is great. Sometimes you end up with the floating head syndrome, but did you work with an art designer?

I got people in LA to make my trailer and my poster and all this stuff. These are the best companies I got and they did it because they liked the movie. And they did it for well below their normal rates. I mean these guys get paid a couple hundred thousand dollars to design a poster for DreamWorks and I can’t tell you what, they basically did it for nothing because they wanted to give me a break, they liked the film, and they knew I needed a hand. Like the guys at Panavision, they donated a camera and lens package worth $75,000 and I didn’t have to pay a dollar. So I called in all the favors I possibly could over the last 26 years of people I’ve met and pulled this one together.

How long did it take you to assemble a cast and a crew and essentially tell yourself, “OK, I know I need a DP, I need a sound guy, I need all these parts.” How long did this entire process take?

Well, I wrote this movie in January/February 2002 and I found my first investor in November of 2002 and I was shooting the movie in June of 2003. It’s taken 2 ½ years writing to this point and I had a good, young producing partner, this was his first time film, too, and worked his butt off and assembled a fine crew of people. Everyone got paid a lot less than they deserved and it was just one of those things where everyone came together for the right reasons: for the love of movies and for the love of the experience. I think going up to the Navajo and living there for three weeks, it’s an experience. We were given great honors to the Navajo senate. We were allowed to film in scared places where no other film has ever been shot in. We had total support from the Navajo people, which is great. When I cast the movie, it fell together real easy. When Eddie Spears walked through the door I knew he was Black Cloud. He was the only kid I ever wanted.

With Black Cloud, I know the whole movie, most of the movie, he’s angry, he alienates everyone around him. Why did you create a protagonist that was almost hard to get to like until he really comes around near the end? He’s not only battling things he has to deal with in his life, but the real turning point is when he finds out his lineage is not what he thought it was.

Look at it from Black Cloud’s point of view for a second. Here’s a proud kid who’s proud of his heritage and his people and look at the challenges his people face today. This all used to be theirs. We came in, the Europeans, and we took what was theirs. If you look at it from his eyes and you look at the problems, culturally, that are going on up there with 70% unemployment and all sorts of problems. You can see the way he feels. At least I could, I can relate to that. So, I wanted to tell a movie from the perspective of the Indian and I haven’t really seen that: the perspective of a kid that needs to overcome his anger. I guess I had some anger, bottom line, for a period of time in my life and BLACK CLOUD helped me release that. It was very cathartic to write BLACK CLOUD because I wrote Black Cloud as a part I would dream to be. Black Cloud was me as I was writing it.

So, how does that inform the ending? Does he come to grips with it? Will there always be that part of confliction in him?

No. No, he finds peace. He realizes that he’s good and he’s ok and he realizes that people are people and there are good and bad, and it doesn’t matter what color they are, there are good and bad in every shape and size. He comes to peace with who he is. In my twenties I had a lot of angst and now in my young 30’s I’m coming to more at peace with me and myself, my life and things.

I’ve found that informs the spirituality portion of the script, that it was real important part of this story, is at least, his spirituality which you don’t see a lot of nowadays in a lot of film.

No, people shy away from it, it scares them. It takes courage to put yourself out there but because you’re setting yourself up for a bunch of people to take cheap shots at you. I’m proud of that component in the film. A lot of people wanted me to cut that scene where he’s in the spirit world with his mother.

I loved that scene.

I know, so did I!

It was great because it reminded me of GLADIATOR, an almost unfair comparison, the part near the end…

When he’s walking through that field.

When he’s walking through that field and his fingertips…

(Laughs)

It brings together everything that’s been going on in the whole movie.

I just think that the world needs, the place where we’re at right now in the world, and the fear that all of us feel for our future, and our safety and our kids and our country. I think a movie like this is important. Any movie that inspires and uplifts us, helps us to aspire to be better. I think that’s what this world needs. We don’t need any more crap to drag us down and pollute our minds. We need inspirational movies. That’s the kind of films I want to make.

What was one of the lessons you learned about the process of making a movie that you didn’t know before you began on this trip?

The biggest thing I learned was is that you had better love the story you’re telling because you are going to live with it for two years. You’re going to work everyday on it. Literally, that’s what I learned from BLACK CLOUD. Like I said I thought, “you know, man, I’m just going to go to Sundance, I’m going to sell this thing, and I’m on to my next movie.” Well, it didn’t happen that way. So, you better be prepared to stick with it for the long haul and see it through because you’re the only one who’s gonna push it, and what I mean is you’re the producer. I’m the guy who went out and asked people for money to make a film and I’m the guy responsible for paying them back. So I leaned that you gotta think about marketing. I hate to say it. You’ve got to think about marketing before you make a film. You’ve got to think about how you position it, how you sell it and who is the audience and all these kinds of things which I didn’t think about. Luckily, it worked out well on BLACK CLOUD. At least, that’s what I believe. If the business side doesn’t work you’re not going to be making many more movies.

Did at any time you think to yourself, “I’ve maybe have taken on too much?”

Oh man, I bit off a huge chunk.

You’re obviously you were writer, producer, director, and then de facto actor in the movie.

I actually, I can’t do this much again. It’s kind of taken a ton out of me. It took a lot of time out from my wife, my kids. It’s been a big, big demand on not only me but on my family. So, in the future I am going to learn more about delegating and more about trusting other people. And I’ve met some people now that I do trust that are a part of my team so when we do this again I can trust that they’re gonna do their jobs and I don’t have to micromanage it.

Have you seen anything this year that has really inspired you or anything that would make you tell someone, “I just saw this really great film”?

Tell me some things that have come out.

Well, my favorite so far this year has been ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND with Jim Carrey.

I didn’t see it.

SPIDER-MAN 2?

Didn’t see it.

How about any movie going this year? You’ve probably been tied up with this movie and haven’t had the time to go out to the movies.

I watched THE UNFORGIVEN the other day on DVD. I love that movie. I watched NAPOLEAN DYNAMITE, Jon Heder’s film.

I saw that a couple of weeks ago.

He’s coming to the premiere tonight.

That guy is a trip.

Yeah, and he’s a real nice guy. I liked him and he made me laugh and I just haven’t been going to that many movies and I haven’t seen anything I’ve liked. MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE? I fairly enjoyed that.

I’ve got a one year-old so I don’t get to get out to movies myself that much. I get to review the trailers and that seems to be as far as I get these days.

I saw HERO. I thought it was beautiful. Some of the stuff that he did was beautiful but I didn’t dig the plot. But I dug the production design big time, the visuals. Did you see it?

I’ve had it on DVD for over a year.

Remember when stuff would turn from red to yellow and just the change of the leaves?

You could almost turn off the sound.

Yeah, it was so pretty to look at. I thought that was amazing, visually.

So, you find you’re inspired more by one genre or another? Some directors like a McG will only go for action or a Brett Ratner, the guy who did RUSH HOUR, these guys are all informed about how an action movie goes but you seem to be more informed by men like Clint Eastwood.

I like Scorsese. I like Michael Mann I like Clint Eastwood. Those are some of the directors I like.

Did you see COLLATERAL?

I did. I enjoyed COLLATERAL but my favorite Michael Mann movie of all time is the Indian one, THE LAST OF THE MOHICIANS. I like HEAT, too. I didn’t see this other Clint Eastwood movie with Sean Penn, MYSTIC RIVER. Did you see it?

You know, I haven’t. Not yet. I’ve heard it’s good.

I don’t want to bring up the past. You’re done with it, it’s behind you, but even though I wanted to tell you how bad I felt for you when in episode 65 of SILVER SPOONS you had to go to David Horowitz for help in dealing with a crooked mail-order company, I know the world would love to know: How is it to work with John C. McGinley?

He’s the dude from PLATOON, right? He is so amazing, so funny. He’s so smart, so witty, so quick. His character in SCRUBS is hysterical and he’s so dry with it. That show, I think, the best written show on TV. It makes me die laughing.

You were on a few episodes.

I did five shows.

Was your acting separated from the others? Were you only spending time with just those who you were on camera with?

All of my scenes were with Elliot; I was her love interest, her guy. Zach kinda had a crush on Elliot so he was giving me dirty looks. It was a good time. That guy, Bill Lawrence, the show runner, he was the guy who was behind SPIN CITY, one of the guys, young guy, but what a hard worker. He writes, runs that whole thing. Super-talented. You want to talk about hard working those people work hard, those writers. They just work their guts out.

I think they’re the unsung heroes, I think, of a lot of stuff out there.

It’s all about the writing, I mean, honestly, it is. The actors are interchangeable.

Really?

Yup.

You think you give any mediocre actor, and give them good material, they’ll shine?

Absolutely. It’s about the writing. The writing is everything. In my opinion the writing’s everything.

What’s your own writing like?

I’ve been working so hard on BLACK CLOUD. To write, I need a block of time and I need to have my head clear and I just haven’t had that since BLACK CLOUD. So, I’m looking forward to it again, when I can get BLACK CLOUD behind me, get it out on DVD in February and then get on to the next thing. So I’m looking forward to that. I do have a script that I didn’t write that I like very much. It’s a western that I’m trying to put together for next spring to shoot and I do have an idea or two that I want to write but you know, literally, there is no time to write. No time to relax. I mean I started a distribution company; I can’t believe the details, the tasks involved.

I just want to thank you, very much, for taking the time to talk. You have your premiere. Thank you, Rick.

Thank you.

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Cast: Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, Dominique Pinon, Jodie Foster, Chantal Neuwirth, Ticky Holgado, Tchéky Karyo
Release: November 26, 2004 (limited)
Synopsis: From the director and star of AMELIE (Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Audrey Tatou) comes a very different love story: A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT, based on the acclaimed novel by Sebastian Japrisot. The film is set in France near the end of World War I, in the deadly trenches of the Somme, in the gilded Parisian halls of power, and in the modest home of an indomitalbe provincial girl.

View Trailer:
* Medium (Simply click on Entrez, and then on Bande Annonce.)

Prognosis: Positive. I don’t know why or for what reasons, maybe I do and I’m just not giving that information up, but I was a huge fan of Amelie. I’m not sure if it was Audrey Tautou’s visual innocence or if it was Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s visual style that captivated me but the movie was a nice blend of sugary romance, oddball characterizations, and just enough directorial panache that I was left satisfied from the entire experience. This new movie, for those that don’t already know, pairs the leading lady with the writer/director once more for a film that looks not as odd but with every bit of that je ne sais quoi that I will delight in partaking once more.

The opening of this film, with everything glazed with an amber hue, has two kids, one boy and one girl who go exploring inside lighthouse. It looks like, however, that Audrey is hitching a ride on her young beau’s back (an eerie metaphor about what the entire female race will do throughout his natural born life regardless of the fact that Tautou’s character can hardly walk). It seems the lighthouse is a place where the kids go to play and even, as the trailer shows, someplace where they come years later to continue games like hide the sausage, capturing the python, consuming the salami, and on and on the debauchery goes. I will say, for and on the record, Senator, with each successive display of Tautou’s wares, first the bustier and then simply nothing but a strategically placed arm, is a good thing. It’s downright wholesome and I think the whole family would delight in all that this kind of offers, French style.

It does, though, seem that these kids really love one another and it doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to devolve into one of those soft-core EMMANUELLE serials. She seems happy, but that, good man, is where things have to go south. Her beau goes off to fight in WWI; he must have been one of seven unlucky ones who comprised the combined strength of the French army. Men are shown in dank trenches, getting their bayonets ready, as Tautou says good-bye to her love for the last time. Or is it?

Bombs go off in every which direction, a sole man marches forward with his gun on the dirty battlefield, Tautou gets food ready in the kitchen, explosions rock the war’s landscape, Tautou flees the provincial life and heads to gay Paris (pronounced Pair-eee for those still keeping score at home) on a train. She gets a letter and voice speaks out; as to what is said I haven’t a clue as the only foreign language training I have is five years of combined high school and college Spanish: Donde esta la biblioteca porque mis gatos son muy chistoso. A zeppelin goes up in glorious flames, a very strange woman in black appears (who, I believe, might be Jodie Foster who does have a cameo in this movie) and then a body, possibly that of her best man friend in the world, rises several dozen feet in the air as a bomb crater is created just beneath him just before descending into what is quite possibly an ignoble death.

There is a shared moment between these two during happier days, again with the piggybacking, and even a forcibly sweet final image of the two of them as kids, standing cheek to cheek which is really quite sweet in a cavity forming way.

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