...the grumptious Judge Costanza...

Am interested in Lawrence Kasdan because he wrote and directed one of the best movies ever made, Body Heat.

He wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back, as well -- and others.

[excerpts from an interview, by Alex Simon. 
site:  "The Hollywood Interview"
ed. note -- this article originally ran in the Sept. 2001 issue of Venice Magazine.]----------------------

Lawrence Kasdan:  So I started thinking that maybe things weren't really all that bad, and that it was possible for me to do what I had always done, which is to make personal movies.  I think it's more difficult now than it was, but that it's still possible.  So I think the script for "Mumford" came out of that resurgence of optimism. 

And the movie surprised me with how optimistic it turned out to be.  I just started writing it, without knowing how it would turn out in the end. 

 I had written another movie, a big, expensive effects movie that sort of represented everything I find difficult about Hollywood now.  Looking back, I probably shouldn't even have pursued it.  I spent a lot of time having to deal with movie stars . . . and in the end didn't end up making the movie.

Why is it more difficult now than when you started 20 years ago?
The environment is totally different than it was in the late 70s and early 80s.  We were still in the glow of the 70s, which was the best time in Hollywood. 

There was still the desire to do the best, most original work.  Each time. 

Everyone was trying to top their friends. 

But now it's only about money,

and the only topping that happens is financial.  Movies are pretty much judged on how they do commercially, and that's it.  Even the Academy will forget about a movie if it doesn't do well at the box office.  Now if a movie fails financially, it's looked at as being a bad movie.  It's funny, when I broke into movies in the late 70s, people were still talking about making great art. 

Five years later, people would look at you as an idealist if you were still talking like that.  Even the rhetoric of having ambition for quality had disappeared.

Do you think that's because filmmaking became a corporate process, as opposed to an artistic process?
There's no question that when the multi-national companies and conglomerates bought the studios and saw that one hit film...could change their balance sheets and could change the corporations' future forever, that attracted an entirely different group of people who were only in it for the money.

It brought a lot of corporate thinking to what is essentially a mysterious, artistic process.

Do you think the advent of digital technology will make it easier for young filmmakers to break out?
There's no question that technology is in favor of cheaper movies.  Anybody can make a movie now.  The trick is, does the culture nurture artists who are going to be ambitious.  It's not enough to just be able to do the movie.  You have to have the ambition to do something good.  During the 60s and 70s, every time you went to the theater, your mind could be blown.  And the people who were making the movies were trying to do that.  People were very excited about having every movie challenge you.  Now, movies are about researching what will be most acceptable, about what will disturb the fewest number of people.  The 60s and 70s were all about trying to disturb the most number of people.

It seems like a lot of those great directors from that period have just given up.  Many who I've interviewed feel that those days are dead and gone, and if they want to maintain their lifestyles, they have to do what they're told and what they're given, even though there's still the capacity to produce great art within them.
You see, that's the trap, becoming a slave to your lifestyle.  Then you've given up the power.  You can't fight the power if you've given them the power.  If that becomes your priority, which is understandable when people reach middle age, they become used to a very comfortable lifestyle that is enviable because you get to do work you like and then you're well-remunerated for it. 

But when that becomes the priority, you're dead meat as an artist,

because you no longer control your destiny.  The only way to control your destiny is to not need things . . . I've got as many weaknesses as anybody, but what I can't buy is people complaining that they have to do this kind of work.  Why do they have to?  In Hollywood, I think you can make almost any kind of movie if you're passionate about it.----------------------- [end Interview excerpt]

===============
JUDGE COSTANZA:
Mr. Racine, I no longer care whether these alleged toilets were ever actually en route from Indiana or not.  I think we're wasting our time here.  It's pretty clear your client has attempted to defraud the county in a not very ingenious manner.
(he nods at Lowenstein)
The Assistant Prosecutor has made what I consider a generous offer.  And given that you've failed to generate even the semblance of a defense --

RACINE:
Judge Costanza, perhaps when I've presented all the evidence --

JUDGE COSTANZA:
Yeah, yeah.  If I were you, I'd recommend to your client that he quickly do as Mr. Lowenstein here has suggested -- plead no lo contendre, file Chapter Eleven and agree never to do business with Okeelanta County again.

RACINE:
You would look favorably on that?

JUDGE COSTANZA:
He can walk.  But don't test my patience for even five more minutes.  If he hesitates, I'll nail him.

RACINE:
I'll talk to him.

He starts to turn away.

JUDGE COSTANZA:
And Mr. Racine.  The next time you come into my courtroom I hope you've got either a better defense -- or a better class of client.

RACINE:
Thank you, Your Honor.

--------------------
{script excerpt:  Body Heat, written, Lawrence Kasdan - 1981}

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