QUOTE (jariten @ Sep 21 2004, 02:56 AM)
actors, like set designers, camera men, best boys or whoever, are just tools that the director/creator uses to help bring his/her vision to the screen. and as such, they must accept that their appearance in the film is entirely subject to their descision.
Oh, I see you took that class on auteur theory as well.
Ok, some background: When a director puts on a play, he challenges the actors, he works with the stage director to work out the blocking, and sure, he's there to supervise the construction of the set. But do you know what he does while the thing is running? Nothing. Having set the thing in motion, the director can do no more than offer notes at the end of the night. By that time, the play belongs to the actors. The idea that a director is the only person responsible for the realization of a movie came about not in the early days of cinema but sometime in the era of Truffaut, and it's stuck ever since. But honestly: how many films are made by the screenwriters, and don't most cinemagoers select their preferences based on the actors?
George Lucas did not invent all those races and spaceships and the look of STAR WARS. He selected ideas brought to him by his creative team. And what if that team liked that Han shot Greedo in pre-emptive self-defence, instead of the way it plays out now? Who cares: Lucas is the single only designer of the piece, and they were just a bunch of servants doing the work he asked of them. If Lucas wanted to remove all of their spaceships and add cgi ones: well, fuck them.
George Lucas wrote the lines, but did not bring the personality to the characters he put on screen. Who's more responsible for the success of STAR WARS, George Lucas or Harrison Ford? I was alive at the time, and I'll tell you: that question would not have seemed ridiculous to anyone in 1977; it doesn't seem ridiculous to a lot of people now. Ford carred a lot of the worst scenes in STAR WARS, and made them work; Ford and Kirshner between them came up with everyone's favorite line in EMPIRE. But if Lucas wanted to overdub his voice now, after the fact, and found that he had the legal right, then who cares, right? Ford offered nothing to the film; he's just a hired hand, after all.
Etc. What is Lucas got it into his head that the sky over Tatooine should be red? Well, he's the only creative mind on set, to hell with the set designers and the screenwriters! Change it!
Jariten, I know what you're saying about overreacting and the changes being minor. I disagree, mostly, but I know what you're saying. However: Lucas is not defending hs specific changes, he's defending the right of the directoir as artist to make any and every change he wants, for the rest of time. This "Director's cut" is special, in the sense that other director's cuts in the past have added or removed footage that existed on the day, footage that the actors knew about, that the cinematographer approved, that the gaffer created lighting for, that the cameraman shot. Mostly, it's stuff that was in the script at the time, and quite often actors agree to do films based on the actual scripted material. This is special because Lucas is tinkering with the frames themselves, adding things that did not exist at the time. Lucas asked Harrisson Ford to act out a scene where he shot Greedo. Years later, the motivation for the character is changed. On the day, the actor might have made a different decision in his close-up, knowing that he was firing in self-defence instead of shooting first. But fuck him; we have the image in the frame, and now we own it.
The actors in SKY CAPTAIN had to work in front of blue screens all day, and never saw what they were reacting to. They had to trust the filmmakers to deliver the story they hoped they were in. They could have been screwed, no question about that, and they acted out of faith. I think they were not let down; but what if the director, in thirteen years, decides to change the look of the picture, to fill the sky with Teddy Bears carrying signs that read John 3:16? What is he doing with that trust?
I guarantee Lucas's actions here will have the effect of changing the way film contracts are written. Right now, many actors demand "creative control," defending the film from changes during production. Here and forward, expect clauses to defend the film as an entity after release, to protect against post-production changes as well.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).