Action!

Got it.

Cut!

This great Hollywood director's films have won a total of 12 Academy Awards.

He helmed the original versions of "Rollerball" with James Caan and the "Thomas Crown Affair" with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway.

He directed "The Cincinnati Kid," "Fiddler on the Roof," "Jesus Christ Superstar," and "The Hurricane."

A true artist and master filmmaker, he's elicited Oscar-winning performances from Olympia Dukakis and Cher for "Moonstruck" and Rod Steiger for "In the Heat of the Night."

Hi, I'm Norman Jewison.

Welcome to Hollywood's Best Film Directors.

And I'm here to talk about my movies.

And hopefully I won't bore you to death.

Well, we're in beautiful Malibu.

Of course, we're inside and you can't see the ocean, but it's... I promise you, it's quite beautiful out there.

As Burgess Meredith once informed me, it's called the Gold Coast.

And we've got a lot of people in the business down here.

And it's a great place to be in the middle of the winter, rather than Canada.

I mean, I love my country, but it's awful cold up there now.

Well, I grew up in the East end of Toronto.

It was kind of lower middle class, I would say, mostly Irish, tough area.

And my parents had a dry goods store and a post office.

My father was the local postman or postmaster.

So we sold stamps and things and socks and underwear and stuff like that.

Being in the store and having contact with so many people and selling things, I learned to sell.

You had to push a little bit, tell somebody how good something was.

I guess it was kind of doing my dance, as I used to call it, much later.

When I was selling shows and selling television specials, it seems like directors are always selling something.

My father loved theater, and he loved variety, and he loved comedians.

And when I was about six years old, he took me to Shea's Hippodrome Theater in Toronto to see Red Skelton live.

And as we sat in the theater, when the lights came down, the big organ came up out of the pit.

And I just thought that was marvelous.

And I can even remember his name, it was Quentin Maclean at the Wurlitzer Organ.

And he was playing as he came up.

And he was playing Deep Purple.

When the deep purple falls, ba ba dee dee dee.

And he was rising as he was playing this.

And all the lights went purple.

And I thought this was magic.

I thought it was magical.

And I think that's when I fell in love with the theater.

I'd gone to New York from Canada.

I left the CBC and went to CBS in New York.

They gave me a shot in New York and I was given the hit parade.

Remember the hit parade?

It was the 10 top songs in America that week.

I did a show called Tonight with Belafonte.

It was the first really important Black musical in America.

There was a lot of controversy about it and so on.

And then I did Judy Garland and so then I got a call, would I like to meet with Tony Curtis.

He went to a Judy Garland rehearsal with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and I was directing and he was impressed with you so you should meet with him he wants to talk to you so that was it it was really by luck I guess and I went to - met with Tony Curtis and I said I've never directed a movie I don't know how to how to do a movie he said well you know how to direct cameras and I said yes television cameras I it's different it's electronic it's so then he he gave me a script was called 40 Pounds of Trouble it's a remake of Little Miss Marker and he said I'm gonna act in this film and I'm gonna star in it and I had very good luck with another television director called Bob Mulligan.

I said, "Oh yeah, but he shoots drama.

I've never done a dramatic story.

I do all music."

And he says, "But you, I like your work."

So I got the job as director of "40 Pounds of Trouble" starring Tony Curtis.

He took my hand the first day and he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is our director, believe it or not, Normie Jewison."

And he's from Canada, and he took my hand, and I looked pretty young in those days.

And he said, "Now, Norman, this is a camera, and this is a light, and this is a... this would be a 10K, and this..." And he started to show me all the stuff.

And this is a boom, and this is the microphone.

And he was trying, I guess, to make fun of me.

And so I just went along with it.

I said, oh, I've never seen one of those.

And so I played it like I didn't know what I was doing, totally.

And when he finished, I said, "Okay, and you're the actor and I'm the director.

And never forget that."

"And so, I got a laugh from the crew."

[Laughter] Action!

Got it.

Cut!

I think of things like Rollerball.

And that came as a short story in Esquire magazine.

There was this story, Rollerball, which took place in the future.

And I just got fascinated.

I just found it totally fascinating, especially from a political and social point of view.

I wasn't as interested in the game as I was in... And then we had the problem of inventing a sport, of inventing rollerball as a game.

How do you play it?

Because it was in motorcycles and it was on roller blades and it was very fast and very frightening.

Well, if I'm more powerful than you, you better not mess around with me.

And so we had to come up with this game.

So we created Rollerball.

And action.

[MUSIC PLAYING] This is after I'd made In the Heat of the Night and Thomas Crown Affair for United Artists.

And I got a call from the head of United Artists, Arthur Krim, to come to New York and meet with them.

This was a kind of a private meeting, secret meeting.

I thought it was kind of strange, but they were paying for my plane fare, and after all, it was the head of the studio.

So I went to New York and there was all of them who ran the company.

And I went in and sat down and talked about how the kids, how's your family, and blah, blah, blah, blah, and I'm thinking, "Norman, what would you say, what would your reaction be if we asked you if you would like to direct Fiddler on the Roof?"

And my heart came into my mouth because it was, you know, it was a huge, successful show on Broadway.

I thought, "They think I'm Jewish."

And I say, "What would you say if I told you I'm a Goy?"

And I watched all of them very carefully.

Krim was coolest.

He was so cool.

He was advisor to Kennedy.

Arthur Krim said, "Why do you think we asked you to direct the film?

We don't want a kitsch, Yiddish, Seventh Avenue production.

We want a film for everyone."

And he went on and made this little speech.

And I thought, Boy, did he cover.

Did he cover good, I tell you.

No wonder he was president of the company.

And so I, a Christian, ended up making Fiddler on the Roof.

So I thought it was unusual.

There were a lot of little things I had to learn about the Jewish religion.

But since I was called Jew boy and Jewie all my life, in my childhood, I realized that I had always wanted to be Jewish.

And this was my opportunity to fulfill that dream.

So I poured myself into the film and I don't think anybody knew.

I don't think anybody who saw the film knew I wasn't Jewish.

I mean I was invited to more bar mitzvahs and more weddings and funerals during that period.

And of course we were in Israel and I did a lot of research on the film and I shot it in Europe and so it was a wonderful experience for me.

Pre-production is a period of time where you've got to reflect on what is the film about?

What is the raison d'etre of the film?

Why are you making this film?

Every story has to have a meaning, a reason.

Pre-production is very personal to each director.

And to me, it's a time of reflection.

And this is when I try to see the film in my third eye.

I try to find it in my mind's eye.

I try to imagine what the scene is going to look like on the screen before I've been to the location.

And it always helps if you can decide where you're going to shoot before you go into your pre-production, which is usually the case.

So this is when you kind of distill all those images and place them somewhere in your brain so that when it comes time to doing that scene and everybody says, "Okay, tomorrow we're doing the scene, blah, blah, blah, between him and her and saying things."

I said, "Where do you want the camera?

Where do we go to do this scene?"

And you have the answer.

All right, let's do one more.

One more and then we'll move on.

I was always worried a little bit about Jesus Christ Superstar because I felt that there was something kind of blasphemous in a way.

You're taking something that is so sacred to so many people and you are putting it into a rock video format.

And that's the genius of course of the music.

So I was blown away by the music.

I was worried about the story.

I was always worried about the interaction between Mary and Judas and the character of Jesus.

So I realized that I was going to do it in Israel.

I was going to shoot it in the Holy Land.

So I went there with the writer and we wore, we took little playbacks of the opera.

And we wandered, just wandered around the streets of Nazareth and around the hills and went to Bethlehem.

And I just let my imagination go and tried to visualize what it was going to look like.

And it was a very... Of all the films I've made, it was a very... enlightening and spiritual experience.

Action!

Got it.

Cut!

Steve McQueen was not easy as a character, as a person to work with.

But we grew to like each other and he counted on me.

And I knew that.

And it got to the point where even in one scene I remember when we were shooting in Boston and he said I would like to wear your jacket and put your baseball cap on and come in looking like you.

And I realized that he was that we were very very close and in our relationship to one another and I did two pictures with him Cincinnati Kid and the Thomas Crown Affair and I had no problem with Steve ever Rod Steiger.

In the Heat of the Night.

When he was playing Sheriff Gillespie he came in he said maybe if I chew gum that'll help and I was thinking I said that's a terrible idea and and then I realized that that I didn't want him smoking because he wanted to smoke he wanted to smoke a cigar and I I didn't want him smoking so it was a trade-off I let him chew the gum I said now but you have to use the gum maybe when you're excited you chew very fast and then when you're thinking you stop and the mouth goes motionless and he thought about that and he I said if you're addicted I mean if you're chewing gum all the time then it's got to fall into a pattern of behavior so he used it beautifully when he was discovering the murder of a man who had been murdered and you can see him his mouth going a mile a minute and when he's thinking but when he's thinking he stops and you know something's gonna happen he's gonna say something so it became a kind of a signature which which we enjoyed playing with and he used beautifully and in that film we got the Academy Award.

Well Cher you know when I went to her about Moonstruck she was worried about the Italian thing.

She said I don't I don't know how to play an Italian from Brooklyn.

I don't I don't have a New York accent.

I can't.

And she went on and on and on and told me all the reasons why she couldn't play Loretta Castorini.

And I said I'm going to get you some help.

I'm going to get you a vocal coach.

I'm going to vocal coach.

He's going to listen to you and it's going to send you everything that Loretta Castorini says in this picture.

She's going to send you a tape, an audio tape with a real Italian Brooklyn accent, authentic.

And no interpretation, just the the accent itself.

So you can study it.

And you've got dark eyes and dark hair and you're perfect to play Loretta Kastrini.

So I had to romance her.

But I think that's part of Cher's shtick.

I mean, I think Cher always approaches something, every new film, with all the reasons why she shouldn't do it, when secretly she wants to do it.

She, you know, she liked the script.

Now, let's try it without getting up.

If she gets married, I'll pay for the whole thing.

John Patrick Shanley's script was wonderful, and we got along great, and she became Loretta Castorini.

And action!

Well, I was kind of honest with Denzel.

I said, you know, you're not young anymore, because he was in his 40s, I guess, 50s.

I don't know.

I said, "You're too old to play this fighter."

So, remember, he's a boxer.

He was the middleweight champion of the world.

And I said, "I can't help you.

You're gonna be in boxer shorts, trunks, and a pair of shoes, and that's it.

I can't help you.

So when you go into the ring, you gotta look like Reuben Hurricane Carter.

Now, how are you gonna do that?"

So I really put it up to him that way, "That's my reservation, you playing this role."

I said, "I'm not worried about your chops, I'm not worried about your acting ability, but I am worried about your body."

And that man went into training and I tell you, I got a hand it to Denzel when he took that robe off and stepped into that ring the first day.

It was unbelievable.

The man transformed himself.

He turned himself into a fighter.

And he became a pretty good fighter, as I remember.

But he wanted the role, and he made it.

Action!

Got it!

Cut!

I think Jesus Christ Superstar was a breakthrough film for me.

The spiritual aspect, I don't know, I think everybody talks about In the Heat of the Night because it won the Academy Award and it was an important film at a period time in America when we had problems with race relations I think and I think as Bobby Kennedy once said to me, it's all in the timing Norman.

Timing is everything.

In life, and in politics, and in art.

And then when it won the New York Critics Award at Sardi's restaurant, Bobby Kennedy showed up to present as Senator from New York to present the award.

And he said to me as I came up to get the award, "See, I always told you, Norman, the timing was right."

And he gave me the award.

So I think "In the Heat the Night" was my breakthrough film.

It was an early film of mine, and it kind of set a pattern for me, and I was able to make two or three other films that dealt with race relations, which played an important part in my life.

Everybody having a good time?

And... Roll camera.

I think Fiddler on the Roof is probably as good an adaptation of a theatrical play, musical, that you're gonna see in a long time, and I'm very proud of that.

Very proud of Fiddler.

That's it!

Absolutely.

Person is the sum total of their own experience.

Silenzio, per favore.

Action.

And I think there's one thing I've learned that there's always another exciting film to see that someone has come up with, that some director has found another form of telling a story.

And so I kind of, I'm always spending a lot of my time now at the Canadian Film Center where we're training the filmmakers of tomorrow and at Victoria College where they started a Norman Jewison stream of studies in imagination and art and trying to get people to realize that this is essentially part of the human experience, is imagination and art and the use of it and how powerful it can be.

And I think this is what I'm most interested in now.

Roll camera.

One more.

[music]