Oswald "Ossie" Morris & Film - Part 4

This is the fourth extract from an interview with Ossie Morris (see Part 1, posted 10th November 2008, with introductory details.)

All of the interview is Copyright © Oswald Morris & Barrie Gordon 2008.

Barrie (B): Ossie, I wonder if you can tell me - you've made 58 films or been involved with 58 films and ... could you tell me your favourites?

Ossie (O): I'm often asked this question and I give a very simple answer ... I ... the films I've made, they go in thirds - the first third I was struggling ...

B: In chronological order?

O: Yes, the first third I was struggling, the middle third I was established in a regular routine and beginning to experiment, and the last third I was determined to make it totally creative and forget all the rules. So, the answer to your question is, the last third.

B: OK, that's very good, that was a nice way to ...

O: There are exceptions because, I mean, some of them go back into the middle half but generally speaking it's a third, third, third.

B: One of the people I want to talk about is Sidney Lumet. Now, the reason I have came in contact with you is because we're both members of the local Film Society - the Blandford Forum Film Society and you are the Honorary President, ... I just want to go and look at one of the films that we saw at the beginning of this season, in 2008/9, and that was ... 'Before the Devil Knows You're Dead' which was directed by Sidney Lumet, and I know you saw it, and I remember us seeing it together, but what were your feelings about that film?

O: Oh, I thought it was a wonderful film, it was ... it was really true vintage Sidney, because I know him so well, and when ... you think he was about 83, I think, when he made this film.

B: There's another one he's getting ready now. (it's 'Getting Out' possibly for 2009)

O: Oh, has he, I didn't even know that ... I done four films with him. Sidney is a wonderful director to work with - he's an absolute whiz-kid. He works very fast, he does his homework, expects everybody to do their homework, and he moves like mad - he really does. He will only work 9 hours a day or more importantly 9 hours a night. He'll ... that includes the meal break. He ...

B: What, you mean he set himself the maximum, the 9 hours?

O: The maximum 9 hours ... so, we work 8 hours and then an hour for the meal. In the meal break he doesn't eat, he goes into a dressing room, and he can go to sleep, and he can wake up 50 minutes later. And I've often said to him, 'Sidney, how do you do this?' and he said 'don't ask me, it just happens' but in that time he does more work than the average director would do in two days.

B: He 's been thinking about ... ?

O: Oh yes, he's done that. He cannot bear to see an actor or an actress sitting on the set reading a newspaper, waiting to be called in. Rather than do that, somehow or other he'll get he or she to come into the set and he'd do something with them, to make them concentrate on making the movie.

B: And one of the films he directed that you were involved in was 'The Hill' in 1965 and I do remember seeing - I don't think I saw the whole film ... but it's quite an impressive ...

O: Oh it's a very ...

B: ... with Sean Connery and this hill!, but there's quite a lot involved. Can you recall your involvement with that?

O: Yes, well it's very interesting actually. It has a unique introduction really. When I spoke to Sidney about the film, he said to me 'this is a rugged story and I want it to look rugged'. There's no women in it of any consequence - just a few prostitutes in one short scene but that's ... it's all about men, and it's harsh and it's hard, and at one point he said 'I don't want to see people's eyes'. Now, normally you're taught when you lie, to make sure people's eyes are seen because that's what ... you're looking at my eyes and I'll look at your eyes. I don't look down at your mouth. So, he didn't want to do that, because they all shout at each other, all the time and so ...

B: A brutal film

O: Oh, a brutal film. So I said, look can I ... I'll go down to Almeria in Spain, where they're building the big prison set and I'll do some tests and show them to you, and I went down and I did 9 tests for him - I didn't tell him what I'd done, and I asked him to look at them and when they came back I didn't say a word. I just sat there with him and he chose the one he liked and we used that, and now I have to go into technical terms because I really gave myself a monumental headache, because the one he chose was a test that I shot one-stop under-exposed and I got to get the laboratories to over-develop ... to compensate that ... which increases the contrast. So you see less detail in the shadows and it makes it more brutal - that meant that I had no leeway in my exposure. I was right at the bottom of the scale and if I blew out there it was a retake, because ... but it worked. I got the laboratory ... I wasn't the flavour of the month when I asked the laboratory to process because they have to alter all their speeds on their machines and they can't do mine when they're doing other processing - mine has to go on on the end.

B: Now, Sidney Lumet also directed '12 Angry Men' - this wasn't one you were involved with, and one of the films I also like 'Dog Day Afternoon', and 'The Verdict' with erm ...

O: I can't think who ...

B: ... somebody whose just died (it was Paul Newman, who died September 2008) ... anyway, and there was a sort of connection with 'Dog Day Afternoon' with the new film wasn't there - this one we just mentioned.

O: Yes, that's right.

B: 'Before the Devil Knows You're Dead' with, if I can mention the actors, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke and there was that sort of style but ... going on again about this particular director erm ... one of the later films that you were cinematographer for is 'The Wiz'. I haven't seen it but can you tell me about that?.

O: Well, this was the most expensive film I've ever made - I mean, it cost a bomb, and the things we did were unbelievable, but it didn't do any good at the box office. It's the all-black version of 'The Wizard of Oz'. It was from a play in New York and when Sidney got me to go over there, I had to get clearance with the Unions - very difficult but he got it. Err, ...

B: To do ... what was the clearance for?

O: Well, for me to work there.

B: Alright OK, this was your green card or whatever, I see.

O: Yes, they have to give me a permit or they won't let me in without a permit ... and he did all that, and he asked me to go and see the stage play, and I saw the stage play and that had been running for 4 years. It was pretty tatty when I saw it, but the music they all liked and so we started to do this and while we ... unknown to us the producers had not checked with the exhibitors - the clearance - the fact that it was an all-black film and it was only when the film was finished, that the exhibitors in the south, of the United States, boycotted it - none of them would show it. Now that's a major financial disaster, and it wasn't Sidney's fault and it wasn't my fault. It was just they should have checked ... and Sidney, a little about Sidney - Sidney comes from the television side of films - that's where he started and he's really happier with these small budget films, relatively small budget films, but he desperately wanted to break into the big-time money ones and 'The Wiz' was one of those, and it just didn't work. After that, he did another ... I did another film with him just to restore his confidence called 'Just Tell Me What You Want' ... and that was a smaller budget film, and he goes so fast, you know ... it ...

B: ... that was his method anyway ...

O: ... that was his method anyway, yes. He was brought up in the Bronx with people like ... whose the American director?

B: Martin Scorsese, or someone like that?

O: Yes, Scorsese. They were together in television, and they were great chums. Sidney will never work in Los Angeles, never.

B: He just hates it there?

O: He hates it there, hates it there, because he knows that they're gonna control the film, and he can't stand that. He'd much rather do a cheaper film where he's got control.

B: Of the many other directors you've worked for or with, can you mention any?

O: Yes, René Clément, the French director.

B: Which film was that?

O: 'The Knave of Hearts'. Carol Reed of course. Ronnie Neame ... Ronnie was a good technician. Marty Ritt was very good, who did 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' - very talented director. Tony Veiller, Tony Richardson - I did 'Look Back in Anger' and 'The Entertainer'.

B: If I could go right back to the beginning ... as I understand, the role of the cinematographer is to look after the photographic work, even moving or not moving ... if you could explain what the role of the cinematographer is ...

O: Well I can do it very simply - he's responsible for the entire visual aspect of the film - entirely. Now, the director has the right to say what he wants and to criticise me if I don't do it, but I've still got to do it the way the director wants it.

B: So if say there's a scene, you're coming up to a big building or whatever, and you have a drive, and you got some trees and some grass, and he says to you I'd like it this way.

O: Yes, that's right, yes oh yes. He must be in control, but some directors have come from the script school where they write the script and they don't know how to handle a camera ... Joe Mankiewicz is a ... I did 'Sleuth' with Joe Mankiewicz and he's wonderful with scripts and actors, but he's hopeless in setting the camera ... he would rehearse on the set and err, with say Larry Olivier and Michael Caine, and then he turned to me and say 'Now, what do you think?' Now, I don't, in a broad sense, say 'now what we should do is this, that and the other '... I quietly go up to him and talk to him and say 'would it be a good idea if we started in ...' (I'm doing this quietly, they can't hear me) 'with a long shot and then as Larry goes over to the window we track in and go with him and then when he comes back to Michael we'll pan with him to a 2 shot and when Michael goes to the window we'll go with him and then we cut because Larry's got the next line' ... and he'll say, 'yes, that's fine'.

B: ... and actually I've been reading about you, and obviously knowing this ...

O: The crew think that's its his idea, but that's my job.

B: No, what I was going to say, from reading and knowing you myself, is that that is something of being quiet and unassuming, and the way that you handle these things, and is a tribute to you.

O: If you get a copy of 'Fiddler on the Roof' DVD, there's a long 90 minute err, what do you call it ... ?

B: Extra footage or something?

O: No, 90 minutes, erm ... of the making of it, what they call it ... ?

B: No, that is ... more just the making of it.

O: err, err...

B: 'Behind the scenes'?

O: There's a word for it (I think we decided the word we were after, was 'documentary'!) 90 minutes ... I can't think of it for a moment - and if you watch that, you see me there, you think I'm not doing anything.

B: Do you ever shout or get angry?

O: No I don't, not with the ... I shout with the electricians ...

B: At home? ... you mean 'there' (on the set) ?

O: Oh yes, I shout to them, on the set, but never when the director's on.

B: Oh, right (laughing)

O: 'Cause he goes off when I ... see I, most of my movies were made in studios, they weren't in actual location, and if you look at this you'll see me there, at the back of the camera just watching and you'll occasionally see erm, the director's name ...

B: Was this 'Fiddler on the Roof' you're talking about?

O: Yes

B: Oh, Jewison.

O: Norman Jewison ... you'll see Norman Jewison turn to me and say 'what do reckon?' and I'd say 'OK'.

B: That's all you need ...

... to be continued .....