DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. We're going to remember film director James Foley, who died last week at the age of 71 after a yearslong struggle with brain cancer. Foley started his career with the 1984 film "Reckless," starring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah. He followed that with a 1986 film, "At Close Range," a moody neo-noir drama based on a true story about a murderous rural crime gang. The film has gained a dedicated following since its release. Christopher Walken plays Brad Whitewood Sr., the leader of the gang, which specializes in the theft of expensive farm equipment. He pulls his son Brad Jr., played by Sean Penn, into the gang. But as he learns of an FBI investigation, Brad Sr. begins murdering members of the gang he fears will cooperate with the police. He kills his other son, Tommy, and orders the murder of Brad Jr., who is wounded but survives the shooting. In this scene, Brad Jr. is holding a gun and confronts his father. A note to listeners, you will hear gunshots.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "AT CLOSE RANGE")
SEAN PENN: (As Brad Jr.) Is this the gun you used?
CHRISTOPHER WALKEN: (As Brad Sr.) That's a nice-looking gun.
PENN: (As Brad Jr.) Is this the gun you used to kill Tommy? Tommy's dead, isn't he?
WALKEN: (As Brad Sr.) Don't talk to me about Tommy.
PENN: (As Brad Jr.) Is this the gun you used to kill Terry?
WALKEN: (As Brad Sr.) I never did nothing to Terry.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOT)
WALKEN: (As Brad Sr.) Oh. Whoa. Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait.
PENN: (As Brad Jr.) Is this the gun used on everybody, on me? Is this the family gun, Dad?
WALKEN: (As Brad Sr.) Jesus. Put that down. This ain't you.
PENN: (As Brad Jr.) You're going to die.
WALKEN: (As Brad Sr.) Come on.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOT)
PENN: (As Brad Jr.) I know one thing clearer than I've ever known anything in my entire life, except that I loved Terry before you killed her. And that is that you're going to die.
WALKEN: (As Brad Sr.) You got the guts to kill me?
BIANCULLI: The soundtrack of "At Close Range" included the Madonna song "Live To Tell." The music video of that song, as well as two other of her videos, was directed by James Foley. He also directed Madonna in the 1987 movie "Who's That Girl?" Foley's other works include the film "After Dark, My Sweet," adapted from a Jim Thompson novel, and "The Chamber," adapted from a John Grisham novel. For television, Foley later directed 12 episodes of the first three seasons of the Netflix series "House Of Cards" and also directed episodes of "Twin Peaks," "Hannibal" and "Billions."
In 1992, Terry Gross spoke with James Foley live on stage after a screening of his then-latest film, an adaptation of David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Glengarry Glen Ross." Mamet wrote the screenplay. The play currently is being revived on Broadway, starring Bob Odenkirk, Kieran Culkin and Bill Burr. But in Foley's 1992 movie, the cast included Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin and Alec Baldwin. Here's a scene written for the film which doesn't appear in the stage play. Baldwin plays a corporate man who has come down to the real estate office for a pep talk of sorts with a salesman.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS")
ALEC BALDWIN: (As Blake) Do you call yourself a salesman, you son of a b****?
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) I don't got to listen to this [expletive].
BALDWIN: (As Blake) You certainly don't, pal, 'cause the good news is you're fired. The bad news is you've got - all you've got just one week to regain your job, starting with tonight, starting with tonight's sit.
(As Blake) Oh, have I got your attention now? Good, 'cause we're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize, a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. You get the picture? You laughing now?
(As Blake) You got leads. Mitch and Murray paid good money. Get their names to sell them. You can't close the leads you're given, you can't close [expletive]. You are [expletive]. Hit the bricks, pal, and beat it 'cause you are going out.
BIANCULLI: Before we hear Terry's interview with James Foley, let's listen to one more scene from the film. It features actors Ed Harris and Alan Arkin talking about what they could do if they had good leads. The leads are the suckers to whom they hope to sell real estate.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS")
ALAN ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) Are you just talking about this, or are we just talking about it?
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) Yeah, we're just speaking about it.
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) Speaking about it as an idea.
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) Yes.
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) We're not actually talking about it?
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) No.
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) Talking about it as a...
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) No.
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) ...As a robbery.
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) As a robbery? No (laughter). Well, hey.
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) So all this, you didn't actually - you didn't actually call Graff. You didn't talk to him?
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) Not actually, no.
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) You didn't?
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) No, not actually.
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) Did you?
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) What did I say?
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) What did you say?
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) I said not actually. The [expletive] you care, George? We're just talking.
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) We are?
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) Yes.
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) Because it's a crime.
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) Robbery. That's right. It is a crime. It's also very safe.
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) You're actually talking about this.
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) That's right.
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) You're going to steal the leads.
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) Have I said that?
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) Are you?
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) Did I say that?
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) Did you talk to Graff?
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) What did I say?
ARKIN: (As George Aaronow) What did he say?
ED HARRIS: (As Dave Moss) What did he say? He'd buy them.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
TERRY GROSS: The language, as we all heard, is not exactly naturalistic. It's a really kind of stylized, like, hyper-realist form of colloquial language. When you're reading the script and figuring out what you want to get out of it as the director, how does a Mamet script read different from what you're used to seeing as a script?
JAMES FOLEY: Well, it's good, which is very - is very different. And I think the most important thing when I read this screenplay, I certainly was aware of what it was, and I really began to read it with some trepidation. Like, why do I want to make a film out of this Pulitzer Prize-winning play? It was not something I ever saw myself doing. And so I read it with, yeah, well, you know, not likely. But what really surprised me was that the reading of it seemed much more emotionally accessible than my memory of the play. I had thought when I saw the play that it really appealed to me sort of from the neck up and was an interesting, intellectual, philosophical, black, humorous sort of experience. But reading the screenplay for some reasons that I later analyzed for myself, it really opened up a whole another level of an emotional accessibility to the characters that had not been evident for me onstage.
GROSS: Did you want people to read the lines naturalistically, or were you looking for something else?
FOLEY: No, that was very important because I became aware early on that there was a real danger that actors could get into with language like this where they get seduced by the superficial level of gratification that comes from just saying good dialogue, that's written in a rhythmic way, because if you just memorize the lines and say them fast, they sound good. And so one could get convinced that it actually meant something. And that actually happened a lot when we had actors come in to read, and some really heavyweight actors had come in and read. And they made a big mistake by sort of having prepared in that superficial way. And so it was flashy and entertaining, but totally boring to me. What I was much more interested in was getting actors who had an interior emotional life that was easily accessible. And I felt as if the technical aspects of being able to fire off this rapid dialogue was something that would come later, but it was secondary to me to this internal life, and an internal life specific to cinema actors.
GROSS: The casting is terrific in the film, but it seems to me you've brought together actors with really different kinds of acting styles. You have Jack Lemmon, who's a kind of, like, naturalistic actor, and Al Pacino is Al Pacino, you know?
FOLEY: I was kind of sitting, waiting to hear you get an adjective for each guy (laughter).
GROSS: Yeah. But Ed Harris is kind of chameleon-like, in a way. He can really, like, blend into a role. But there - I don't know, like, Lemmon's of a different generation than a lot of actors in there, both in terms of his age, but also in terms of his style. And I was wondering if you consciously picked people with different acting styles, and what it was like to work with people who, it seems to me, probably take really different approaches to their characters.
FOLEY: Yeah, there was certainly no intention to deliberately pick people with different styles. It was really - I mean, Al and I literally sat down and made a list of who we thought were the best living actors, without even regards to what parts they could play or how old they were. Who do we think is great? And, the list isn't that long, you know, when you sit down and just say, who's the best? And we started from that idea and wound up with these guys. And it's very true that they all have very different styles of acting, and it was great fun for me when - particularly when they were all in the scene together, and, you know, you say, cut, and then you need to go out and speak to each one of them, and you would - I'd find myself instinctually sort of speaking entirely different language to each one, which was nice because it made me sort of really expand my own idea of what it means to be a director. And, you know, for me, the most important thing is to do what needs to be done rather than what you want to do.
GROSS: So you need to speak a different language to each of the actors?
FOLEY: Totally, yes.
GROSS: OK, so what would you tell Jack Lemmon as opposed to...
FOLEY: Well...
GROSS: ...Al Pacino as opposed to Ed Harris?
FOLEY: Well, for instance, Jack Lemmon is very - will speak very clearly about the thing, quite literally, the thing being what's going on at the moment, that - and I - perhaps the most telling thing is that when Jack would talk about the character, he would say he. He would say, I think he's feeling this because of this and blah, blah, blah, and say whole articulate sentences. Al would never speak like that 'cause first of all, he would say, I, referring to something, but he would never talk about any kind of singular idea or notion. And it's something that I understand very much because if you articulate a single idea that's happening, then you might try, you know, you might sort of glom onto that in too much of a specific way rather than letting all the contradictions and ambivalences that might naturally come out.
So he's very reluctant to identify any one particular feeling and even reluctant to finish his sentence. But I began to understand very well what he was talking about, and I agreed with him. So our communication was more like him saying, I think, you know, maybe, you know? And I'd say, yeah, right, more so. (Vocalizing). And we somehow did it, and even to the point where it got to, you know, where once we had done enough takes, where we both felt like we really had it, we would always do one crazy one. And that's - we just call it a crazy one because to try something just that was a stupid idea, but it's amazing how many of the crazy ones are in there.
BIANCULLI: James Foley speaking to Terry Gross live onstage in 1992, after a screening of his then-new movie, "Glengarry Glen Ross." More after a break. This is FRESH AIR. Let's return to Terry's 1992 live onstage conversation with director James Foley, after a screening of his then-new film version of the David Mamet play, "Glengarry Glen Ross." Foley died last week at age 71.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: You know, in the movie, all the actors have to sell really crummy real estate. They have really bad leads. The real estate isn't good, and the people who they're supposed to sell - be selling it to don't have the money and they don't have the interest. I wonder if, like, getting assigned to or volunteering to make a movie that you don't really believe in would be the equivalent of what these guys are up against, selling stuff that isn't good.
FOLEY: That's very interesting. I think exactly that. I have thought about that because I had one experience where I did that, and it was hell. I directed an episode of "Twin Peaks," and it was in the second season. And I had - they asked me in the first season, and I couldn't do it. So they asked me at the beginning of the second season, and I said, yes, and I made this commitment and thinking it would be like the first season. By the time I got there, David Lynch had totally abandoned the thing. The scripts - he was not putting input into the writing of the script. He was off in Tokyo selling his art. And there I was stuck with this script that had nothing. It was like faux Lynch. You know, it was like a bunch of people sitting around, sort of making believe they were David Lynch.
And I'm stuck with this script, and it was horrifying. Nothing was more terrible in my life because you don't know what to do. I don't know where to put the camera. I don't know what to say to the actors. I just want to go home. And it was really, really an awful experience. Luckily, it was only four or five days, you know, one episode, but it gave me a lesson about that very thing that there's no way I could get through making a film that I didn't - even if delusional, didn't think had the potential to be good.
GROSS: When you're directing a movie in which all the actors in it are playing the part of somebody who's very aggressive in selling, are they that way when you're trying to direct them? Was it intimidating at all because they're all playing these really manipulative people who have their raps and they have their ways?
FOLEY: No, it was - which has been my experience, really, on every film that actors really, really want to be directed, and they want interaction.
GROSS: Even the big stars?
FOLEY: Oh, well, that's what's great is that, you know, it doesn't matter who it is. You know, they just - and I really think the best actors, I mean, you know, like Al and the rest of the guys, are so interested in trying anything that they very much want a reaction. And what was interesting, as you said before, is that each person wants that reaction in a different way. I mean, some people don't want you to say certain things, and other people do want you to say certain things. And that's the fun part, this instinctual idea of figuring out what it is that they need, at what time, including sometimes being a little bit, pushing a little bit more than they might want at the time. But there's a mutual understanding of what you're doing.
GROSS: Who did you push?
FOLEY: Oh, I pushed them all at different times, in different ways, you know? But it's all different how you push them 'cause sometimes pushing just means, let's do another take right now, really fast. And then go, well, wait. And you say, no, it has to go really fast 'cause, you know, we're really - and you sort of discombobulate them on purpose because you feel like perhaps we're getting into a kind of rut and it's getting too precious and people are getting too conscious of what they're saying, and you want to. And I've taken to do weird things like, you know, I demand silence all the time from everybody on the crew and everything - I'm always barking about that. And then I get total silence. And then when it's ready to go, I scream, cut. Not cut. What do I scream? Action. One of those two things.
This - and just scream, action, like, as loud as I can, which is, like, really startling. And then the actors got to be - start saying his line. But it's sort of, like, sometimes you see them standing there, and they're getting too much into a plan of what they're going to do, and you want them to forget their plan and let whatever happens going to happen. And so it's all different things of doing. I actually threw a fit once, a fake fit, yelling at somebody in the crew just to, you know, get the actors out of their lethargy and change the mood, the electricity on the set.
GROSS: Was the crew member in on the fact that...
FOLEY: Yes.
GROSS: ...That this was a fake fit?
FOLEY: Yes. Yes. I made sure I did that.
GROSS: So what were you throwing the fit about?
FOLEY: I was throwing the fit about people talking because I'm famous for throwing fits, real fits, 'cause people will not shut up. So I asked this one guy to talk - right? - so then I could turn around and scream at him (laughter). It worked.
GROSS: Did it get what you wanted?
FOLEY: Oh, yeah, definitely.
GROSS: So what did it get you doing this?
FOLEY: It got me the actors being more immediate, that the thing you always have to fight, you know, on take 11, is that people are doing the exact same thing, and it begins to become - they begin to remember that they just did it before. And so there's a repetition, an inevitable repetition. So it's almost like this feeling you have, you know, when all of a sudden, in the middle of the day, the weather changes dramatically, and it goes from being sunny and calm, and then wind is coming, and you feel your whole mood and everything change. And you've got to sort of change the weather on the set sometimes.
GROSS: Listen, it's been wonderful to have you here, and it's been - I don't know - it's been wonderful to get the kind of insights that you could give us into this film and into filmmaking in general. So thank you very, very much for being here.
FOLEY: OK, thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
BIANCULLI: James Foley, speaking to Terry Gross in 1992, live onstage after a screening of his then-new film "Glengarry Glen Ross." Foley died last week at age 71.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BIANCULLI: On Monday's show, Cole Escola, the writer and star of the Broadway play "Oh, Mary!," a crazy comic reimagining of first lady Mary Todd Lincoln in the days leading up to her husband's assassination. The New York Times calls it one of the best comedies in years. I hope you can join us.
FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Briger is our managing producer. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Diana Martinez. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIVE TO TELL")
MADONNA: (Singing) I have a tale to tell. Sometimes it gets so hard to hide it well. I was not ready... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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