Four years ago I ran a transcript of an odd Terrence Malick phoner that I suddenly found myself doing on a fall morning in 1995. I was unprepared, winging it, trying to keep the chit-chat going and getting nowhere. It was nonetheless historic for the rareness. I’m re-posting it in recognition of Malick’s Tree of Life (Penn, Pitt, dinosaurs) opening later this year. I’ve heard from a money guy that it’s definitely opening before 12.31. I guess I should call Apparition’s Bob Berney and see what’s really what.

Terrence Malick around the time of the shooting of The Thin Red Line.

I’m one of the only journalists to have any kind of conversation with Malick since he went into his Thomas Pynchon-like withdrawal about 20 or 21 years ago (not long after the release of Days of Heaven) and became this gentle phantom-like figure whom journalists couldn’t get to under any circumstance.

In this context speaking to Malick on the phone — which I managed to do on October 25, 1995, around 11:35 am — was like snapping a photo of Bigfoot. It was a half-pleasant, half-awkward, pretty much meaningless conversation, but at least he picked up the phone.

Malick had been staying with producer Mike Medavoy, who wound up producing The Thin Red Line, but Medavoy was leaving for Shanghai and Malick would be staying elsewhere, so I called to get a forwarding number.

A cleaning woman answered and said Medavoy was out, but that Malick was nearby. She asked me to hold…

Malick: Hi.

Me: Hi, Terry. This is Jeffrey Wells speaking…

Malick: Hi.

Me: And uhh…I was just talking to Mike last night and he said, uh, you might be leaving today and I wanted to see if I could speak with you about an article I’m researching. It’s for Los Angeles magazine and my editor…he worked on that piece about ten years ago with David Handleman for California magazine. It was called “Absence of Malick.”

Malick: Yeah.

Me: I don’t know if…did you happen to read it?

Malick: No, I…I…uhnn…

Me: Anyway, I’m doing this piece and trying to sort things through here. About what’s going on with…well, to start with, The Thin Red Line and that rumored BAM stage production of “Sansho the Bailiff” and…I’ve wanted to speak with you about it, and now that I’m speaking with you I feel…well, I feel nervous.

Malick: Don’t be, Jeffrey. It’s not that. I just don’t feel comfortable talking about it yet.

Me: About Red Line, you mean?

Malick: Yeah and…it’s something that has no date, really. It may happen sometime in the indefinite future.

Me: The indefinite future? Uh-huh. So there’s no approximate, long-range…it’s not even on a low flame?

Malick: I…I’m…uhmm.

Me: I was only thinking, you know…heh-heh… ‘indefinite future.’ You could say the same thing about the sun collapsing and the end of the solar system, heh-heh.

Malick: Uhhmm…

Me: I’m only mentioning this because…well, you may have seen that item in Premiere that you said you had this reading of the script with Costner and Lucas Haas and Ethan Hawke.

Malick: We did it just to get a sense of how it flowed.

Me: How did it flow?

Malick: I just don’t feel comfortable talking about it. I appreciate your interest but…

Locust arrival scene in Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven

Malick: Mike says you’re on the second or third draft, something…it’s a work that’s been through some development and progression, and…

Malick: I….

Malick: I dont want to grill you, Terry. Mike explained the rules and said that grilling you…’that’s the one thing we don’t do’…and I understand that. I had a hope, though, of just discussing movies in general…ones you’ve seen and been impressed by in recent years.

Malick: Well, I appreciate your interest. I guess I do feel uncomfortable talking right now.

Me: I’m just one of…who knows, hundreds of film journalists around the country who regard you as one of the best ever and have watched your films over and over.

Malick: You’re very kind, Jeffrey. I appreciate it and I feel it and it comes to me as very encouraging. But I feel uncomfortable talking about it. I spoke to my brother Chris and he said that you’re just trying to help. And of course I know you’re just trying to do your job.

Me: I was actually just reading about a new laser disc of Days of Heaven that’s coming out, and it’s really something I’m looking forward to because I’ve never seen a print of that film that equalled the first viewing at the Cinema 1 in New York when they showed a 70mm print with six-channel sound, and having a…are you a laser-disc aficionado?

Malick: I’m, uh…not..uhm…

Me: Are you…you don’t watch TV? Videos? Do you ever catch movies on tape?

Malick: I’d be happy to talk to you at some later point, Jeffrey.

Me: I know. I understand know what the rules are.

Malick: And someone actually is here, Jeffrey, and I do have to keep an appointment. I would love to, later on…we could talk.

Me: I’ll look forward to it. I understand you’re in town for a few more days.

Malick: Yes, but I really do have to go now.

Me: Because if you have a moment later on, I’d like to run some basic points by you and just go over them one by one, for accuracy’s sake.

Me: I can’t really talk about this. I know what you’re trying to do and it’s not…if you’d try to understand. Chris told me you’d written and that you were trying to help.

Me: Well, I hope you have a good stay. I look forward to chatting again on a more…uhm, relaxed basis.

Malick: Okay, thank you.

Toronto Int’ Film Festival staffer Jen Bell has responded to yesterday’s rant (“Toronto Wifi Jail“) about there not being enough free wifi at the festival with an announcement that TIFF will be hosting a media lounge on the sundeck of the Sutton Plaza this year, complete with complimentary wifi access.

I’m not the first one to say this, but scan the lineup for the 47th New York Film Festival and tell me where the big-jolt films are. Because all I see are a lot of Cannes and Toronto re-runs along with a few marginals and oddities.

The old Alice Tully Hall (i.e., before the big renovation).

I’m sorry but I’ve been visiting this festival off and on for a bit more than 30 years now — I remember what a charge it was in the Richard Roud days of late ’70s and early ’80s — and it’s hard to look at what’s happening today and go, “What happened?” Because the NYFF really used to matter.

I wasn’t around in the glory days of the ’60s and early ’70s, but even in my early New York days (i.e., mid-to-late Jimmy Carter era) it used to be a routine thing for at least four or five must-see major-director films to have their big debut there. You pretty much had to see the whole NYFF lineup back then. Anything that showed acquired a certain associative pedigree.

I can almost reach back and taste the excitement I got from catching first-anywhere screenings of Benardo Bertoclucci‘s 1900, Phillip Noyce‘s Newsfront, Robert Altman‘s A Wedding, Wim Wenders‘ The American Friend, Jerzy Skolimowski‘s Moonlighting, Peter Weir‘s Picnic at Hanging Rock, Werner Herzog‘s Fitzcarraldo and Nosferatu, Pier Paolo Pasolini‘s Salo and Francois Truffaut‘s The Woman Next Door.

Nobody could afford to miss the NYFF in those days. It was vital and mesmerizing. I used to sit in the old Alice Tully Hall and get high from the wonderful projection and sound, and the stimulating q & a’s. By accident I met Truffaut at an early ’80s NYFF, and spoke to him for a few minutes — I’ll never forget that. I used to tell myself “this is it, the center of the cool-movie universe, the time of your life, doesn’t get any better,” etc. The black-tie parties were amazing. The non-black-tie parties were amazing. I met the greatest women at these parties and even got lucky once or twice. I remember how fascinating it seemed to watch Roud smoke those unfiltered cigarettes, one after another.

I guess I’m paying closer attention to the NYFF because I’m living here now and feeling closer to the action as it were. I know what’s been happening at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and I’m not trying to throw any stones at anyone. I’m just sorry that the NYFF current isn’t the same as it once was. I miss that special air. I would breathe that air again.

Warner Home Video’s Blu-ray restoration of The Wizard of Oz will be out less than a month from now, debuting Tuesday, 9.29. The restored classic will also have a one-day showing on screens nationwide on 9.23, and a special 11 am screening at Manhattan’s Alice Tully Hall (a program presented by the New York Film Festival) on Saturday, 9.26.

But no one has yet spoken about the key qualitative aspect regarding this upgrade of America’s most beloved family film. In a phrase, the question every videophile across the nation will be asking as he/she opens up the Blu-ray package (or as they attend the Oz theatrical screenings) will be “what about the damn wires?”

Presumably the Blu-ray upgrade will look measurably sharper and more distinct than any video version seen before. But does this mean the wires that hold up Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow (to assist in the illusion that he’s hanging from a wooden post among the cornstalks) will look even more vivid than they did in the last Wizard of Oz upgrade, which came out in 2005? Ditto the wires that hold up those flying monkeys serving Margaret Hamilton‘s Wicked Witch of the West?

Nobody spotted the wires when The Wizard of Oz opened in 1939. They couldn’t have with the coarseness of film stock and 1939-era projection technology and the process of three-strip Technicolor alignment being what it was. And nobody ever spotted the wires on any of those TV showings in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, or on VHS or laser discs or even on early DVDs. But they were easily detectable on WHV’s 2005 Special Edition, and one can only guess how much clearer they’ll be on the new Blu-ray. Unless wiser heads have prevailed, of course.

One way to deal with the wires would be for the Wizard of Oz images to be slightly softened so as to bury them in a kind of simulated 1939 haze. But the smarter way — hello? — would be for the wires to be digitally erased. I would ask Warner Home Video’s George Feltenstein for a comment, but my experience is that WHV publicity always blows me off on questions like this. Today is Sunday — I’ll try them tomorrow morning.

Obviously the Blu-ray upgrade will be fighting itself if WHV technicians decide to soften the image. This would negate the improved clarity and improved three-strip alignment and the extra-sharp focus that could and should be a dividend of the new Blu-ray version, and is what people will certainly be looking for when they buy it.

You can see the wires in the above photo (taken off my old 36″ West Hollywood TV) but if you have any kind of recently-manufactured big-ass flat screen, they look much more vivid than indicated here

Let’s hope and pray that WHV went with digital erasure on Oz. It’s been used by other video distributors in the remastering of older films with wire issues (including Mary Poppins and North by Northwest), and is clearly the only enlightened way to go. [Update: HE reader Drew McWeeny informs below that “the restoration work on Oz this time is nothing short of revelatory. There are about four places in the film where they removed wires, but otherwise their efforts were focused on making sure that this is the single best version of a three-strip Technicolor film that I’ve ever laid eyes on.”]

Digital wire removal infamously wasn’t used for the 2005 Paramount Home Video upgrade of the 1953 War of the Worlds.

Byron Haskin‘s sci-fi classic provides one of the lushest color-baths in Hollywood history and has always looked sumptuous. But the 2005 DVD pretty much ruined the suspension-of-disbelief element because of the way-too-visible cords holding up the Martian spaceships. You can see them plain as day during scenes of the initial assault against the military…a thicket of blue-tinted wires holding up each one.

Their presence makes it absurd when Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry) explains to General Mann (Les Tremayne) how the Martians keep their bright green ships aloft by using “some form of electro magnetic force” and “balancing the two poles” and so on. The illusion is shot.

The obvious solution was for Paramount Home Video to digitally erase the wires, but they didn’t ask for it (i.e., didn’t want to pay for it) and the pooch was screwed. It would have made perfect symmetrical sense to have done so. Just as digital technology had made this 1953 film look sharper than ever before, it followed that digital technology was needed to recreate the original illusion. The wires weren’t that visible 56 years ago, and they weren’t as visible in Paramount Home Video’s 1999 DVD. Obviously the 2005 War of the Worlds DVD was the provider of “detrimental revisionism” — it showed an image that wasn’t meant to be seen.

Four years ago I spoke about this issue with John Lowry, the head of Lowry Digital who’s done some great clean-up and/or digital restoration work on loads of classic films. He was the one hired by Paramount Home Video to clean up War of the Worlds .

“Our job is always to serve the wishes of the client…we do what the client says …and we didn’t have orders to clean up the wires,” he said. “Plus we were working on a very tight budget.”

Lowry faced a similar issue when he was doing the digital remastering of Alfred Hitchcock‘s North by Northwest. “We were working on the scene when the crop duster plane crashes into the gas truck,” he recalls, “and there were 25 or 30 frames of that particular shot in which you could see three wires holding up the rather large model of the airplane.

“And I said to myself, my God, too obvious…it spoils the illusion. And I asked myself, what would Hitchcock do? I knew what he would do. Take the wires out of there. So I did, and the Warner Bros. people approved.

“But ever since then we’ve been very attuned to original artistic intent. And with today’s technology, anything that interferes with the story-telling process or which degrades that process, is dead wrong. We got rid of the wires on the Mary Poppins DVD, for the Disney people. We asked and they said ‘get rid of them’ but they had the money to do it.

“When we were working on the snake-pit scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark you could see all kinds of reflections in the glass separating Ford from the snakes, and there was a very conscious decision made by Spielberg to take the reflections out.”

The North by Northwest plane crash scene

What are some of the most successful flim-flam movie marketing campaigns of all time? Ad and trailer campaigns, I mean, in which the content of a certain film was almost completely hidden and/or ignored, and the marketing guys sold a film that didn’t really exist — at least not in the way it was represented by the one-sheets and trailers. A marketing campaign, in short, that didn’t exaggerate this or that aspect of a film (which all movie campaigns do) as much as one that pretty much deliberately lied about what a film actually was.

And got away with it, I mean — that’s the important part. People showed up and then realized ten of fifteen minutes into the film that they’d been hoodwinked by the ad guys, but they stayed anyway and liked the film and came out and told their friends to go see it. Normally I’d come up with two or three examples to start things off, but let’s just toss it out and see where this goes. And if you can’t think of any strong examples, name some films that maybe should have used a deceptive marketing approach — i.e., films that suffered from an overly sincere and truthful campaign.

An oldie but goodie to start things off…fake, of course, but a satiric example of what a fair number of campaigns have done or tried to do. Successfully, I mean.

I want The Informant! (Warner Bros., 9.18), which certain parties saw in Los Angeles a week or two ago and which I’ll be seeing fairly soon, to be a dark and sardonic verite satire piece. A movie, I mean, that’s dryly amusing in a way that will leave Eloi viewers cold…yes! Nobody does non-laughy undercurrent humor like Steven Soderbergh. But what if the film isn’t that amusingly whatever, even for guys like myself, and the Warner Bros. poster creators are just trying to sell this idea in a flim-flammy sort of way in order to boost the first-weekend gross?

Sifting through some oldish mp3 files: (a) A practice recording of Capote review for a podcast thing I was working back in ’06; (b) A favorite Humphrey Bogart clip; (c) A brief dialogue exchange from a certain Roger Corman production from the mid ’70s; (d) Familiar but sound advice about the interweaving of comedy and tragedy.

“Well, what can I tell ya? Last year, two or three…it goes way back, I suppose. I can remember entertaining suicidal thoughts as a college student. At any rate, I’ve always found life…demanding. I’m the only child of lower middle-class people. I was the glory of my parents, ‘my son the doctor’…you know. I was always top of my class, scholarship to Harvard, the boy genius, the brilliant eccentric. Terrified of women. Clumsy at sports. My home is hell. I left my wife a dozen times. She left me a dozen times. We stay together through a process of attrition. Obviously a sadomasochistic dependency.”

Yesterday afternoon Los Angeles attorney Eric Spiegelman posted a time-lapse video — 90 minutes compressed into 24 seconds — of the enormous smoke clouds over the 818 and 626 areas over the San Gabriel mountains and near the La Canada, Flintridge, La Cescenta and Altadena areas. Indiewire’s Anne Thompson and L.A. Observed posted it last night. I’m just tagging along — a day late and a dollar short.

A horrendous flame monster threatening to eat your home is one of the worst things that can happen to anyone, and I’m genuinely sorry for anyone out there who’s caught a bad break. Roughly 20,000 acres have been burned so far but apparently not that many homes. Yet. I’ve never experienced anything like this but I’m sure it’s horrific. I wouldn’t wish a fire trauma of any kind on anyone. Not even Glenn Beck .

Chris Gore‘s video doesn’t compare to Spiegelman’s, but he scored verbally by saying “the whole thing’s on fire…this is like a Godzilla movie.” I wonder if he shot this with an iPhone video camera? Probably, I’m guessing, because he didn’t zoom in.