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You were on the set a couple of days. What was it like for you? I saw you hanging around with Iggy and Vincent. How'd you like them?
I had a great time hanging around Iggy. It's the first time I actually got to sit and speak in a non press kind of way. And I got to ask him all of the record questions, about stuff he's recorded over the years that I was always curious about, si we had a good time. I didn't speak to Vincent all that much because he was busy shooting just about the whole time I was on set. But he seemed really enthusiastic about it and he gives a really commanding performance. In some interviews that Iggy's been doing, when he's asked about comics, he says he likes The Crow and found the graphic novel very affecting, but overall he kind of disses the whole comic world. How do you respond to the fact that he seems to be sort of down on comics? I just think Iggy obviously hasn't been exposed to the right material. Because he just off-handedly dismisses the whole genre, and that's wrong. He's probably thinking back to when he was a kid and the only thing out there was Batman and the Fantastic Four. He doesn't really know the wealth of material that's out there now. A wealth of material he's partially inspired. Yes. In fact, I was going to say that Iggy, in spite of being the godfather of punk, he was at least the godfather or the step-father of the Crow, responsible for the whole look and feel. In The crow, they used Joy Davision to work through the melancholy and passive segments in a pattern of that frenetic speed freak thing, the violence, the Iggy Pop fashion. I was really glad that they could get Iggy for the second one since they couldn't do the first, and I was really thrilled that he gave them such a good performance, because I knew from seeing him live that he was very commanding and very charismatic, and I was sure that the camera would really love him. I really hope that it does something for his future in film. I'm sure he'll be getting lots of calls after people se him in this one. I don't think people are even aware that Iggy has an acting career, and I think that when they see (City of Angels), maybe it'll pull it all together, or people will look at his body of work instead of just a little whimsical thing that he's done over the past two years. Have the fans you've been talking to since the filming of City of Angels has started being worried about the film? What are their feelings about the sequel? At the beginning when they announced they were going to do a second film, it was actually a bad time to announce it because Brandon was still fresh in everyone's mind. And no one could picture anyone else in that type of role. Everyone that I spoke to agreed, that they anted more material like this, but they couldn't offer any suggestions for how it should be approached. Wasn't there also a natural assumption that when you say sequel it means someone else will be playing Brandon's role as opposed to a new Crow? Yes. And I tried to make that understood to everyone that it wasn't the same character. The bird would tie the two together. So in the original graphic novel, the bird is actually a manifestation of Eric's own state of mind? Right. And it was the (first) film that brought in the idea that it was perhaps bringing people back for eons. So you didn't have a problem with this sort of modification of the Crow mythos or even the beginning of a Crow mythos? It didn't really change anything. To me there was really no difference from it being manifestation of his splintered personality. To me, it's something spiritual and that's not a big leap for me. But it was pretty much just a matter of looking at it in a different area, different direction. And I'm really glad that the bird doesn't talk like it does in the book. I don't know if anyone could pull that off without it being a joke. What do you hope that the new film will accomplish, besides having good performances and a strong story? I don't know. Beyond entertaining someone? Do you hope it will help in furthering the dialogue about the world of the Crow? Yes, but mainly in the feelings and issues that abound within the first one. Which has never really been done in film before. When you achieve a certain amount of success and fame, you do have a certain responsibility to your audience. How do you perceive these responsibilities? Well I do feel that, I'm not trying to sound pretentious, but I know I've put something above average out there and wouldn't think of following that with anything less. I just sincerely don't want people to assume that I'm taking steps backwards. I mean, it just comes down to being honest. Repetition is a factor, too, because I don't want to leave the areas that I'm in. I'm comfortable working with these themes. So it's a case of being honest with myself and not letting the media influence it in any way. If I'm successful with that, then I think it will work. Do you think you will stay in comics for a while or go to other mediums? No, I like comics a lot. I guess logically that would be my next step: all the way into films. But I don't feel like done saying all the stuff I can say through this medium. It's so versatile. I'm not ready to deal with making compromises on anything.
You saw The Crow the day it opened.
That's right. The first time I saw The Crow was opening night at Mann's Chinese Therate. It was my third week in L.A. and my friends took me. We were expecting the theater to be totally deserted, becuase it seemed to me The Crow was a fairly obscure, almost cult thing, but the theater was packed! I was so enthralled. I remember the film stayed with me for weeks How were you approached about appearing in the City of Angels? I was sent the script through my agency. I relly like The Crow, and I found that what I liked about City of Angels was that it's so different. I love the fact that an action fillm, which seems fairly mainstream, was really challenging. It definitely appeals to a mass audience, but at the same time it's very literate, and I loved the character of Sarah. I liked the script's theme, the whole notion that every single character has this void that they're yearning to fill, this void of lonliness, and what people fo in order to overcome their own lonliness. As a fan of the comic and the first film, were you initially skeptical when you were approached for the part of Sarah? Of course, but that was before I had met Tim (Pope). That was before I had read the script. I found the script so poetic and beautiful, and the characters so ricj and so different that my opinions were immediately reversed. I was extremely intrigued by the challenges. How was your first meeting with Tim Pope? It was amazing, Tim and I instantly connected. I was able to speak in abstract about colours and sounds and music and it seemed like we were both into the same music and we both saw the same things in Sarah's character. Then we met for a second time. Tim took me downtown and showed me where we would be filming. Then we went to the Gun Club and we shot at the indoor range, then we went to the Dresdeb Lounge afterwards and talked some more. A few days later, I was offered the role. Tim is really great. He's very gentle and very sensitive and extremely creative. He's extremely visual. Many directors get so caught up in the visuals they forget about the dramatic story, and that's not the case with Tim, although the visuals come very naturally to him. The dramatic part of the story is crucial to him, and the acting and rehearsing and the characterisarion are extremely important. he really respects the fact that I love rehearsals and that subtext is very important to me. He's really given me a lot of freedom. Vincent Perez said he had a theory that Tim Pope was filming an actual City of Angels, where everyone was an angel, and that it was the viewer's job to decide which were the good angels and which were the bad angels. I agree with that. I prefer not to think of them as being bad, though. People are just fallen angels. There's a commonality between all the characters; each character has a certain pathos. It's diffocult for me to say Judah is bad or Curve is bad. I like to think of Sarah as a dark angel; her soul is almosy dead and she's simple waiting to die. She's led this horrible life up until the point that she meets Ashe and suddenly she finds the will to live. After she's found it, she dies. For me, that's why Sarah's an angel. Dying and wanting to live is better than living and wanting to die. Do you think the film could be interpreted as Sarah's dream or hallucination? Absolutely. I think there are many psychedelic elements in the film and I think that for Sarah, especially in the beginning of the film, the lines between fiction and reality are blurred. Sarah's state of mind is so fuzzed and blurred. In the beginning of the film, she's not able to distinguish between fantasy and reality. So, certainly, it could be a dream. What about Sarah's look? I think intially they wanted me to shave my head. And I thought, "No, this girl would not shave her head." As Tim says, ahe's a modern Ophelia, or a fallen angel. I wanted there to be some harshness, but at the same time I wanted there to be a purity about her character that contrasted wuth the harshness. You would never know that this girl had through so much until you stripped away the layers. you'll see at the beginning of the film that she has scars, that she's actually taken a razor and cut herself up. How did you prepare physically and culturally for the role? I work out a lot and I lost quite a bit of weight. i wanted Sarah to have a very gaunt mien, almost an emaciated look. I think the modern primitive movement has a lot to do with the world of The Crow, and I found that many people involved in the movement were into denying themselves a lot of plessure as a test of their own endurance. The reason why they were scarring their bodiess and why they had lost so much weight was self-sacrifice and to see how much pain they could endure. I think that Sarah's resolved herself to a life of pain. It's such a cliche to say that there's a lot of pleasure in pain, but I really do think that Sarah comes from that. Some people are happier being unhappy. Sarah's unhappy esentially, but she's happy that way. Sarah finds that this pain has an incredible amount of depth and truth. In terms of creativity, I think that she feels fullest when she is in that sort of pain. I find that her relationship with Ashe, although it's supposed to be a very happy time in her life, is a very painful relationship because, essentially, they never consummate it, and that in itself is quite painful for her. In preparation for the role, i did as much research into the world as I could, especially into the modern primitive movement. I went to a shop in Long Beach and I watched an application where a man was having Teflon balls inserted under his skin. i spent a lot of time in tatto shops. I wanted to figure out the nest way for Sarah to be, the most truthful was for Sarah to express herself through tattooing. I wanted to make sure that she'd fit in with that world or the world that I thought it would be. BR> You've beena fan of comics for a while? I love comics. To be honest with you, the people who I went to school with were into X-Men and Spider-man, so that was the stuff that I grew up with. But then some friends of mine at college introduced me to The Crow. I thought it was really cool. I think James O'Barr is a wonderful artist, and that the lore of the Crow is beautiful and poetic. And so touching, yet so hard. I love all the contrasts in the film and in the comic. Do you think that a certain responsibility comes with being in a Crow movie? I've never really though of it in that way. I feel very lucky to be associated with a film that has such a strong fan base, and I hope the film really pleases the fans. I hope I;ll be proud of my work and I think that all the other actors have done a really great job. I can't think of anything beyond that. I was always taught that it's just about the work, and that's it. i hope it always stays that way.
How were you first approached about The Crow?
I think it was because of Queen Margot. Suddenly, my name was one of the possible actors on the list, and my agent organiseda meeting. I saw Tim (Pope) and we talked. T liked the man. Tim's intelligence really caught me. I felt that he had a vision. If I feel that the director doesn't have a vision, I don't go into (the film). I'm not interested. Were you familiar with the comic book at all? No. I doscovered the comic book during the preperation of the movie. I'm not really into comics, but I have to say it's very powerful. Why do you think O'Barrs story translates so well to film? The comic book was created because of a huge pain, a real emotion. The comic book is a catharsis. I'm sure when James O'Barr did the (comic) in the beginning, he was just doing this thing (for himself), it was just coming out of him. We talked together, and I feel that the film is based on that real emotion. Had you seen the first film before? I saw it just before meeting with Ed Pressman. I had my ideas on what I would like to do and what I wanted to avoid. I thought that the first film was really good- especially Brnadon Lee's work. I think he did an amazing job. Thhe story and the tragic ending were something I had to think about before accepting the role in City of Angels. But it's true that sometimes I had the feeling that i was on the same journey as Brandon Lee, because this is the same kind of atmosphere. The same kind of world. The same kinda of relationship with death. It's like this huge pain that I'm carrying throughout the movie. In the Crow mythos, there is a fantasy device where, a certain type of character with intense capacity for love can transcend death. Would you say that the first film set that up and the second expands on it? I don't know if it's the beginning of a new legend, but there are lots of symbols in The Crow. I think everybody's carrying masks. I was reading that in a Joseph Campbell book jus today. He was saying that a religion can be a mask, and it's good to have masks. But, when thesubject is death, suddenly, you're putting your feet into a few questions: What's my relationship with death? Am I afraid of death? What is life? What is love? It's a wonderful field and it's interesting to see what things grow. We are reaching the end of the century, and suddenly we have to turn back into the centruy and ask ourselves. Everybody's afraid of the year 2000. When I was a child, everybody would say that 2000 is going to be the en of the world. I think something is happening today, we are losing our tales, losing our referbces, we're losing our stories. We don't have any story to tell. The only way of being in touch with what made us as we are today, (is through) these symbols, going back into fairy tales and mythology. We are, today, in the world of technical problems. The Crow, in a very strange way is connecting us with a mythologic fairy tale and I think people need that. I think that there is a very strong soul in The Crow. Everybody can project themselves into this story. It's very easy to project your own fears, your own questions. The way Tim (Pope) did the movie, everything is very logical, so if you go into the trip- because it's a real trip- you go into yourself. I think people need that. When I see movies, I often feel that there is a lack of personal involvment in the story. We're just witnessing a story, but we're never concerned. That's the feeling that I have in a lot of movies, especially big blockbusters. What was the most physically demanding part of making the film? You did most of your own stunts, which is unusual in Hollwood filmmaking? That's what people told me. But if I can do something, I will do it. The most (taxing) thing, I would say, was when I stayed eight hours in the water. Eight hours, in and out. That was really tough, all the scenes with the child in the water. And also the end of the movie, the big meeting between Ashe and Judah. I was being dragged, and whipped, and hanged. At the end, I was really giving the last drops of energy, it was really tiring. But it was really fun, and very easy because everything was so organised. What were some of the major issues for you in developing Ashe's character? Each killing was a very important issue for me, because each killing was bringing me to the next one, and I had to change. I had to become a mirror. I was hoing into the weaknesses of my victims, but I had to understand them to be able to kill them. So, that was the most difficult thing. We rehearsed (a lot) before shooting those scenes, because we had to find, each time, a new reason and a journey into each killing, a different journey. And putting in this journey my own transformation. The movie is also about rituals. I'm becoming a guide, because I'm guiding these people to death. And I'm joking with death. It's very intimate. Like when I'm killing Curve. It was like a communion of some kind. It was like we were very close to one another until the last, his last story. Like a mother to her child. time (Pope) was always saying: It's like a (grug) trip. You're taking dope, or whatever, and at the beginning you have the excitment, but after that, you're a little bit scared. You're not enjoying it the same way. Then you go into this nitemare. Children's movies do it like that. That (feeling) was quite difficult to find because it was very precise. I really needed the help of the (Crow's) mask to be different in each killing. I'm somebody else in each because I'm becoming them. So each victim is being, in a sense, killed by himslef, though you. Exactly. Or I was killing something in myself, because I think Ashe wants to die. I really do think that he wants to die. The last victim is himself, because Judah is his shadow and his shadow is also the Crow. Ashe has to kill his own shadow. It's very strange. At the end, he;s carrying sll the sadness, the pain of the worl. It's his pain. This is the nightmare for him, the beginning of the nightmare. He has to be there. Standing up. Is Ashe an Angel? A black angle. I think my point with the movie, which is very personal, is that all the actors in the movie, all the characters in the movie, are angels. And Time filmed what is not possible to see with your eyes. He filmes what is behind you, your angel. This is, literally, a City of Angels? I think so. Maybe the game of the movie is to find the one who's not the angel. Would you like to do some more Crow films after this? We will see. Why not? If it's different. If it's better, which is going to be difficult, because this movie is going to be very good. I have to say I really enjoyed myself on this movie. I feel that there's a great freedom in my work. I'm still growing and learning and I hope I'm going to do that until my last day on Earth.
started making pop videos for clients like Soft Cell and Psychedelic Furs when he was 24-years-old. He has gone on to direct for such acclaimed artists and bands as David Bowie, Queen, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Tin Machine, The The, Siouxie and the Banshees, and The Cure, for whom he made the theatrically-released The Cure in Orange. (Pope's working relationship with the band stretches back over ten years.) In 1987 he started making commercials, his clients including such international companies as Coca-Cola, Quaker, Kodak, Proctor & Gamble, Kelloggs and McDonalds.
THE CROW: CITY OF ANGELS, a native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, gradu-ated from the University of Southern California in 1988 with a degree in screenwriting. He subsequently wrote the 1990 Deran Sarafian-directed action/adventure feature Death Warrant, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, and 1994 thriller The Puppet Masters. He has three features forthcoming, including Ghost Rider and Venom, is currently developing a science fiction series for ABC television, and is working with director Alex Proyas (The Crow) on his next film, Dark City. Somehow, David also found time to get married over the Christmas holidays.
THE CROW & CITY OF ANGELS has been one of the most suc-cessful and respected independent film producers in the last quarter century, with more than 40 diverse motion pictures to his credit. A New York native and graduate of Stanford University, Pressman's first film producer credits were Out of It, The Revolutionary, and Dealing (all directed by Paul Williams). In 1973, Pressman produced Terence Malick's acclaimed Badlands and Brian DePalma's breakthrough feature, Sisters. The following year, Pressman produced DePalma's Phantom of the Paradise.
Many other directors have gotten their first shot at filmmaking with Pressman, including Sylvester Stallone (Paradise Alley), Oliver Stone (The Hand), David Mamet (Homicide), and David Byrne (True Stories). Foreign directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Despair), Wolfgang Peterson (Das Boot), Fred Schepisi (Plenty), and Taviani Brothers (Good Morning Babylon) have had Pressman as their producer. Pressman's producing credits also include John Milius' Conan the Barbarian, Oliver Stone's Wall Street, Danny Devito's Hoffa, Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, Kathyrn Bigelow's Blue Steel, Mark Frost's Storyville, Sam Raimi's Crimewave, Bob Swaim's Half Moon Street, Alex Cox's Walker, Chris Monger's Waiting for the Light, John Frankenheimer's Year of the Gun, John Byrum's Heartbeat, and Joan Tewkesbury's Old Boyfriends. Recent releases include last summer's futuristic thriller, Judge Dredd, starring Sylvester Stallone; the hugely successful release The Crow, which grossed more than $100 million worldwide; and Street Fighter, the explosive action-drama starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and the late Raul Julia, which also grossed over $100 million. Among the honors Pressman has received are the John Cassavetes Award for Independent Feature Project West in 1991 and the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres medal in 1989. He was named the best producer of the 1980s in an American Film poll of 54 of the nation's top critics, and has been honored with retrospectives at New York's Museum of Modern Art, the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the National Film Theater in London. Forthcoming from Pressman is City Hall, directed by Harold Becker and starring Al Pacino, John Cusack, Bridget Fonda and Martin Landau; and an up-dated version of The Island of Dr. Moreau, currently in post-production, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer. |
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