In the studio system, things are expected of a film. By the first, second, third act, there's a generic language that comes out of the more commercial system.
My dream as a teenager was to run a movie studio, as in the old studio system.
I don't think the idea of working in Hollywood really exists anymore. I think you work in films, and where the film is shot is where it's shot. The studio system doesn't really exist.
There's no room for being a visionary in the studio system. It literally cannot exist.
If you work in the studio system in America, they've almost got to the point where a computer programme could write scripts. Effectively, they hire and fire enough writers until they get something generic.
I'll still make movies for studios, but my editing process will be much further removed from the studio system. Because I don't understand it. I don't understand the whole testing-numbers thing. It is not how I want to make movies. So if that's how they do it, then I don't think I want to do it.
A commission and an original are two different things, and both have their virtues and vices. A commission is a bit more collaborative, in that you outline the story that you think should be told, and then you write it. And then, there are notes and you change it, in the conventional studio system.
When you do a movie in the studio system, there's a committee. A committee of six or seven people you answer to. There's two or three producers, a studio executive and one or two people above that studio executive.
I was at the end of the studio system so when I walked into movies, I had a magnificent suite in which I had a living room and a kitchen and a complete makeup room. I had everything just for me. With the independents, you're kind of roughing it, literally.
You know, they just don't make big movie stars the way they used to, maybe because the system has changed, the studio system, but it's sad to see people like Jimmy Stewart go, all the giants of the past.
