[projector & typewriter] [ding] [Narrator] "On Story" is brought to you in part by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, a Texas family providing innovative funding since 1979.

[typing] [wind blowing] [witch laughing] [sirens wailing] [shots fired] [water dripping] [typewriter] [suspense music] [telegraph beeping] [piano strum] [Narrator] "On Story," presented by Austin Film Festival.

A look inside the creative process from today's leading writers and directors.

[ripping] [Narrator] In this week's "On Story," the Academy Award-winning director of "Silence of the Lambs" and "Philadelphia," Jonathan Demme, and "There Will Be Blood" and "The Master" director, Paul Thomas Anderson, explore Robert Downey Sr.'s classic 1972 Western Cult film, "Greaser's Palace."

[paper crunching] [typing] [typewriter dings] [typewriter dings] - [singing] It won't be hard if you are on guard and always salt your pork save your flower for tomorrow you never know what's apt to go through a tender maiden's head So save your flower [Lamy screaming] [speaking in foreign language] [Lamy continues screaming] [upbeat mariachi music] - I was given a wonderful invitation to screen some movies that mean a lot to me.

And I thought of "Greaser's Palace."

I really thought of Austin in a way, and I just feel like "Greaser's Palace" is a very kind of Austin kind of film, and it's rarely seen.

It's pretty obscure.

Most people don't even know about it.

And I love this film and I was actually hoping, well, we're up here having this dialogue, that Paul might be able to help me seriously understand why I love this film so much.

But it just stuck.

I just really thought it was a great opportunity to share it.

- Bob doesn't seem to be that worried about what, confusing the audience.

[audience laughing] But that's okay.

And that's why it's great.

Not that he's not delivering, he just has his own rhythm.

And part of, I think, what excites other about him is just this incredible confidence and this sort of [bleep] that it takes to just commit to what his rhythm is.

And his rhythm of telling a story is not what you're used to.

It's not gonna be anything like, you know... And he's intractable about that.

He's not aggressive about it, and he just has instinctual feelings that he follows and he sticks to them and they make him laugh.

They engage him.

And that's kind of it.

And so, as another filmmaker, seeing that is like, it's invigorating and it reminds you to have that confidence, to have that trust in yourself.

And yes, you should give over to- you're making something for an audience.

But that enjoyment that I see.

I see him enjoying himself in the work that he puts out there so much.

- And that's... - Yeah.

- That's really intoxicating and thrilling and that's what you should be doing.

You should really... Whatever you feel about things, do it.

'Cause that is Bob.

I mean, if you hang around with Bob to get to know Bob, you can understand, okay, that's the films he makes.

He makes these films.

He's got the most fantastic, perverted sense of humor.

And he's got a lot on his mind, from politics, to baseball, to sex, to everything.

He made a film called "Moment To Moment," which is even really abstract, and it's kind of like the most beautiful home movie.

I hope everybody's seen it, there's a criterion, an Eclipse edition, DVD Box set out now of all of his early work.

So go find that it's got "Chafed Elbows" and "Moment To Moment" and "No More Excuses."

So all this kind of stuff, "Pound" is on there, "Babo 73," right?

So all this kind of stuff that's leading up to this.

So, if this is the first movie of his that you've seen, you can go look at this other stuff and see that there is a kind of pattern to the way that he does things and that you either get with or you don't, but man, I'm smitten with it.

- I think it's this... Kind of like this extraordinary original American vision of something or other done on film.

And, you know... With no eye on the marketplace whatsoever.

I'm confident that with all those ingredients in there, I just can't imagine Bob thought, "This'll pull him in."

[audience laughing] I just can't imagine that.

[typewriter dings] There's so many exploitation movie ingredients just all over this film.

The violence and the sex and humor.

All those things we associated.

So this was a moment, when he made this, where you could do anything.

El Topo pushed the envelope on violence and bloody violence, all the way.

And this was a moment in time when you could do anything.

There was no limitations on...

Certainly every word in this sexual vocabulary appears in this film.

So I think that Bob was capitalizing on that openness.

We all understand that something that can really be great when you're presenting your film is, that you're really proud of.

If you have these sort of like extended takes.

We love it when we can make an extended take work.

Because there's great power in extended takes, I think part of the bottom line on that is that every time you cut, you suspend the reality that you've just been building up with the shot you were in, so now you're gonna cut.

So isn't it great when we can kinda stay in the same shot?

And of course, in "Greaser's Palace," Downey takes the sustained take to extraordinary extremes, capitalizing on both the power of it and finding the humor in it.

We've all seen that shot when all the bad asses come out and go into the street to confront whoever that's out there.

But we're used to it cutting to whoever they're going to see.

And Downey just holds and holds and holds and holds and holds and holds.

And you start worrying about the cameraman.

He's got this ferocious handheld frame, he's going backwards and on and on and on.

And then it cuts like briefly, you see Lamy Homo, briefly way in the background.

And now it cuts to the long lens and here they come again.

And it's both great cinema to me, I can't explain exactly why and it's hilarious.

- I was just thinking about some of the filmmaking stuff that Jonathan was talking about, which, he's right.

Sometimes just seeing the guys trying to get on the horse, [laughing] and that's just like classic Bob Downey too, because, well, it really looks like they're falling off.

It doesn't really look like they're trying to push it too much.

And there's a real gracefulness about it because there's the closer shot where it is one shot and then they cut to the wider one or the long lens one, and that's actually one that goes on a little bit long, but there's no extra crazy folly or bumps or anything else.

It's all very kind of silent.

And little shush, shush, and things, little sounds like this that make it even funnier.

[donkey braying] [thud] [birds chirping] [hoofs thudding] [hoofs thudding] That's what makes them unique.

That's what makes them these beautiful movies.

Or these kind of combinations of things that Jonathan's reminding me of.

He'll go from using like a fisheye lens or practically a fisheye lens, probably like a 10 millimeter lens, like really wide thing to something really long lens, compressed thing and those combinations of things, which I just sort of take for granted now.

Because I remember when I saw them the first time, I just spent so long trying to get those combination of things to work, and we're like, "Oh my God."

How he puts those two things together and he gets this great result that.

When you re-appreciate them, you start talking about them, you remember, he's doing things that were [censored] nuts to do, that you'd never seen before.

That make it feel unique, completely unique.

[typewriter dings] - We can see that it is this kind of Jesus allegory and what have you.

But, I've seen the film a number of times over the years and I still...

It's impossible to trace it.

I mean, what's he doing out at Hervé Villechaize's place with Petunia, for example?

Where does this fit into the Jesus narrative?

[audience laughing] So I... [chuckles] [Paul chuckles] But there's that theme.

And in a sort of essentially narrativeless film, a storyless film, really kind of, it's a flow of moments and images and stuff, there's this theme and I think it's what we latch onto, trying to figure it out.

By the way, a couple of things I wanna say before, is that that was, for those of you who don't know, that was Bob Downey dressed in the spectacular cowboy suit.

That was Bob's wife playing the beleaguered woman.

And I guess, I think we, have a feeling of what that's all about, her storyline.

And there's lots of other people, a great, great brilliant title designer, Pablo Pharaoh, who's done titles for so many great films.

I was lucky enough to work with Pablo on a lot of things.

And he did, gosh, he did "Dr.

Strangelove."

[typewriter dings] Every Filmmaker wants an audience, but Bob certainly has never kind of decided to take his genius and say this time, this time maybe just for once, I'm gonna make a very straightforward picture and harness all my gifts on something in pursuit of a big audience.

I mean, we've got the most original filmmaker in the country sitting here, but he wants an audience.

Paul really wants his pictures to be seen.

Bob's kind of a little bit different in that regard.

he's like making it to make it, kind of.

I mean, he is like a poet and I like that jazz thing a lot.

But he doesn't have that.

He'd love to have an audience but he's not gonna work to get it and therefore he's a little marginal.

But I wanted to ask you, 'cause you've seen, I think, the earlier pictures much more recently than I have.

I saw them as they came out a million years ago, his early pictures.

And isn't "Greaser's" a lot more cinematic than any of the early ones?

- Probably more cinematic just 'cause it looks like they're outside of like New York City, where all of his stuff before was and you felt like you were in apartments and streets and found locations.

But it's not as if suddenly he got a budget and went out to the desert and wildly changed his filmmaking style.

It was like he just transplanted his style from his friend's bedrooms in the streets of New York to the middle of New Mexico and had a set built and things like that.

And that's what's so cool, is that it wasn't like suddenly here's this cash and I'm completely changing my style or venue.

It's like no... You can just see Bob with his New York accent in the middle of New Mexico with these cowboys.

Like, "Oh, [censored] put the [censored] camera over here."

The way he talks, it's very New York.

But so is it more cinematic?

Maybe a bit more because it's open spaces and things like that, but it's still the same ridiculousness and insanity, which is so...

Content wise, it's so him that it's funny.

And that's what makes this pretty neat.

[typewriter dings] [Narrator] You've been watching "Greaser's Palace" with Jonathan Demme and Paul Thomas Anderson on "On Story."

[typing] [typewriter dings] Next up, director Andrew Napier and his short film "Grandma's Not A Toaster."

- Hi, my name is Andrew Napier.

I'm here today because I directed a short film called "Grandma's Not A Toaster."

So I was really lucky to have worked on another short film before this.

And so we brought the entire team, the same team, all back together to do another film, but we wanted to do something a little different.

So the idea came for "Grandma's Not A Toaster" specifically, came out that Shawn had a couple of friends in an acting class that wanted to be in a film.

And so we tried to come up with something where we could write roles specifically for these actors, such as the really hilarious Michael Drayer, who's in Grandma and Mara Kassin, who's a producer of "Curfew" and Shawn himself.

And then I, as a director, I wanted to do something a little challenging, technical.

I wanted to do something with long takes.

I wanted to do something a little different, that I hadn't really seen at festivals before and sort of try to challenge myself technically.

So with all that stuff in mind, we came up with the idea to sort of satisfy all those different things, to put these actors in the film and to give me something that would be a little unique and a little challenging to try to direct.

It really kind of came together in the editing room and we didn't know if it was gonna work or not until we premiered.

So up next is my short film, "Grandma's Not A Toaster."

I really appreciate you taking the time to watch and I hope you enjoy.

[suspenseful, dramatic music] [suspenseful, dramatic music continues] [suspenseful, dramatic music continues] [suspenseful, dramatic music continues] - Grandma's Worth $78,000.

[Arnie] I don't like the implications of that statement.

- $78,000, Arnie.

Do you know what I could do with $78,000?

[Arnie] Probably not good things.

- A hell of a lot, Arnie.

A hell of a lot.

And here's the kicker, we're not in the will.

None of us.

Mm.

It all goes to Aunt Gilda!

[Arnie] Okay, but aren't you pregnant?

- Pay attention, Arnie.

I read the thing, head to toe, three times over and we ain't in there.

[Arnie] Really?

Not even me?

I'm not even in there?

Are you sure I'm not in there?

- Forget the details, Arnie.

Pay attention.

Grandma's about to croak, you understand?

I mean, just look at her.

She could be dead for all we know and then everything in that will goes to Aunt Gilda, that whore slut.

[Arnie] Aunt Gilda is a nun.

- So here's what you're gonna do.

You're gonna sneak past Grandma, go the top drawer and switch out the will with this.

- What is this?

- It's a will Grandma would've written had she been in the right mind, poor woman.

[Arnie] This is a forgery.

- Forgery of a [censored] genius, Arnie.

Now climb over Grandma and switch [censored] out.

[Arnie] Everything you're saying makes me feel uncomfortable.

Did Grandma's hand just move?

- If you just switch out the will, everything she's worth goes to the both of us, split down the middle, 70/30.

[Arnie] 70 What?

[thunder booming] [loud thud] [Susanna] What the hell are you doing here?

[dramatic, suspenseful music] - What is this?

- It's a will Grandma would've written had she been the right, mind, poor woman.

- This a forgery.

[Susannah] Forgery of a [censored] genius, Arnie.

Now climb over Grandma and switch [censored] out.

- Everything you're saying makes me feel uncomfortable.

Did Grandma's hand just move?

[Susannah] If you just switch out the will everything she's worth goes to the both of us, split down the middle, 70/30.

- 70 What?

[loud thud] [dramatic music] [Susannah] What the hell are you doing here?

- Woo!

[Arnie] Eddie?

- Hey guys.

[slap] [Eddie inhales sharply] Just dropping by to see what the status is on Grandma.

God, I love that woman.

Hey, anyone read the will yet?

[loud smack] Ow.

What the [censored]?

- Grandma has a restraining order against you.

- That's just a piece of paper, Arnie.

Okay?

Come on.

At a time like this, with Grandma on the fritz, how can you think about a measly piece of paper?

- On the fritz?

What is she, a toaster?

She's a human being, Eddie.

Okay?

A human being whose cat you tried to light on fire?

- I was experimenting.

Okay.

I was a kid.

They were different times.

- It was two weeks ago.

- Mm.

You're pregnant?

Listen guys, I met a girl at a strip club.

I'm gonna marry her.

Even love her sometimes.

[Susannah] You're getting married?

- Before me?

- Gorgeous.

Doesn't know anything about my past.

Dad's rich.

[Susannah] Ooh.

I'm so proud of you, little brother.

- [censored] you.

- Mm.

Eh, I'm a changed man.

I really wanna impress this girl.

You know?

Particularly her father.

So I'm just gonna grab Grandma's engagement ring and I'll be right outta your hair.

- Grandma's engagement ring?

- Grandma's engagement ring?

- Whoa.

- That ring is worth $17,458.

- That was a pretty weird exact guess.

- Also, it's been on her finger for over 4,000 years.

You're not just gonna waltz in here and take it.

No way.

[Susannah] I'm gonna have to veto that as well.

[Arnie] Me too as well.

Too.

[Eddie sighs] - Okay.

[sighs] Alright, you know what?

I thought maybe you guys could forgive me for all those things I can't really list right now.

I thought maybe this is the part of the movie where the lead characters give the younger brother a little slice of redemption.

But no, it's the part of the movie where Michael sends Fredo right onto that boat and makes him think he's going fishing when really he's gonna get shot in the face.

So thank you for shooting me in the face.

[thunder booming] [wind howling] [dramatic, suspenseful music] [Susannah] Oh.

Now I feel bad.

I don't want him to think he looks like Fredo.

- Well, if you feel so bad, why don't you write him into this fake will that you got here?

[Susannah] I don't feel that bad.

- I don't know.

I don't know.

[inhales deeply] Sometimes I wonder if I'm related to you people, you know.

I remember dad used to joke around.

He used to joke around that he found you guys in the abandoned section of a Walmart parking lot and now I'm starting to wonder if it's true.

[gloves snap] What are these?

[Susannah] They're plastic gloves.

- Plastic gloves?

Really?

For what possible purpose?

[glass shatters] What the hell is going on?

[gunshots] [dramatic, suspenseful music] [Eddie] But no, it's the part of the movie where Michael sends Fredo right onto that boat and makes him think he's going fishing when really he's gonna get shot in the face.

So thank you for shooting me in the face.

[thunder booming] [wind howling] [wolf howling] [dog barking] Alright.

Alright.

What do we got?

What do we got?

[Eddie singing] [Eddie continues humming] [rain pattering] [thunder booming] [Eddie continues humming] Oh, bingo.

Shh.

[suspenseful music] Hey Grandma.

Hey.

Shh.

[glass shatters] [music intensifies] [gunshot] Whoa!

[suspenseful music] [Grandma groaning] [Susannah] He's try'na take Grandma's ring!

[Arnie] Get him!

[suspenseful music] [laughing] She's so strong!

[Eddie screaming] [indistinct shouting] [suspenseful music] [Eddie] Oh.

Come.

Off!

[Eddie grunting] I'm getting a hacksaw.

Where's the toolbox?

- Everything is escalating very quickly here.

- Eddie, that ring is with a lot of coin, hacksaw or no hacksaw, I want a piece of the action.

- Deal.

- Can not talk about hacksaws.

Is that a possibility?

- Grandma!

No!

[heavy breathing] [Arnie] Did Grandma's hand just move?

[Susannah] If you just switch out the will everything she's worth goes to the both of us, split down the middle, 70/30.

- Seventy-what?

[thunder booming] [Susannah] What hell are you doing here?

[Eddie] Whoo!

[Arnie] Eddie?

[Eddie] Hey guys.

[heavy breathing] Just dropping by to see what the status is on Grandma.

[heavy breathing] [talking in background] [suspenseful music] [talking in background] [heavy breathing] [Grandma snoring] I really wanna impress this girl.

Particularly her father.

I'm just gonna grab Grandma's engagement ring and I'll be right outta your hair.

- Grandma's engagement ring?

- Grandma's engagement ring?

- Whoa!

- That ring is worth $17,458.

[Grandma groaning] [talking in background] [suspenseful music] [heavy breathing] Okay.

[sighs] Alright.

You know what?

[Eddie talking in background] [heavy breathing] I thought maybe this is the part of the movie where the lead characters gives the younger brother a little slice of redemption.

But no, it's the part of the movie where Michael sends Fredo right off that boat and makes him think his going fishing but really he's gonna get shot in the face.

[suspenseful music] So thank you for shooting me in the face.

[Grandma groaning] [suspenseful music] [Grandma groaning] [suspenseful music] ♪ ♪ - Shhhh.

Hey, Grandma.

[heavy breathing] [talking in background] [heavy breathing] [glass shatters] [gunshot] [Arnie] What the hell is going on?

- Whoa!

[gunshot] - Missed him!

- All right.

Okay.

[Grandma groaning] - He's try'na get Grandma's ring!

- Get him!

[Grandma groaning] [Grandma groaning] [grunting] [Eddie] [laughing] She's so strong!

[Grandma groaning] I'm getting the hacksaw.

Where's the toolbox?

[Arnie] Everything is escalating pretty quickly.

[Grandma groaning] [talking in background] - Deal.

- Can we not talk about hacksaws, is that a possibility?

[Susannah] Grandma, no!

[Eddie] Stop her!

Don't swallow the ring!

[Grandma gagging] [Grandma choking] - Don't save her.

It's better this way.

- Grandma, stay away from the light.

- I'm going in!

[dramatic, suspenseful music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Announcer] For more "On Story" check out our free podcast at onstory.tv or search the iTunes store and get the book today "On Story" Screenwriters and Their Craft" on Amazon.

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