Harvey Weinstein Has Movies That Matter

Harvey Weinstein is one of the great men behind great films, and independent films in particular.  The films that he has produced have collectively won 63 Oscars.  Some of the brilliant films he is responsible for include  “Shakespeare in Love”, “Good Will Hunting”, “Chicago”, “Pulp Fiction”, “The English Patient”, “Gangs of New York”, and the list goes on and on and on.  He stopped by the SiriusXM studios this week to talk about one of his new films, “The Intouchables”. Excerpts of that interview appear below.

* * * 

Ron Bennington: This film that you have out now, and it’s another one I caught at the Paris Theater. The Intouchables is one of those movies, first scene on, and you’re just on a nice ride. It’s just phenomenal.

Harvey Weinstein: Well I loved the movie and it’s just like last year, promoting The Artist was such a pleasure. And doing this movie is the same. I always feel like I’m the relief pitcher because the French guy can’t talk English so well so they don’t want him on radio. So my office says Harvey you’ve got to go and do it. But when it’s a movie like this– I do this rarely. I did it for The Artist, and I’m doing it for this. And then I’m going to be quiet for six seven months. But I really love this movie. I’ve never been involved with a movie that makes you feel this good. You walk in, you see this movie. A billionaire and a street kid– this out of whack friendship; it’s a true story. And people write to me, call me and say oh my god I felt great. And especially in this time– times are rough, politics crazy and people really need a feel good movie.

Ron Bennington: And it is oddly a feel good movie. I’m phobic about being paralyzed, so going into it, I thought this was going to be a rough one. And almost immediately you pick up on the connection between these two guys, and it’s life affirming, it really is.

Harvey Weinstein: It’s based on a true story. It’s kind of got that– I don’t know if people remember that Scent of a Woman with Al Pacino where he was blind and they had such a good time. But you know, this black street kid comes into this billionaire’s life and he shows him girls, and racing cars again and jumping out of airplanes. I’ll tell you something we did–the last day of shooting, we showed these guys the real life footage which was at the very end of the movie of the two real guys jumping out of an airplane. The two real guys jumped out of an airplane! They were crazy, these two guys, in real life. So we said to the actors, okay we’re going to do the plane scene. The director is pretty smart. The actors, said okay we’re doing it. We had finished the entire movie and the plane’s up in the air and the guys say “well, where’s the stunt men.” And he says, “no stunt men.” “What do you mean no stunt men?” They go, no. You’re going out. You’re doing it. We’re throwing you out of this airplane. If those two guys could do it, then you’re definitely doing it.” They said “what happens if we die?” And the director said, “we have enough footage.” (Laughs) We can cut around this scene, we really don’t need this scene, we’ve got the movie. And sure enough, those two crazy actors jumped out of that airplane. You’ve seen that footage. There’s no CGI, there’s no stuntmen, no nothing. There’s just two scared out of their brains actors, paralyzed with fear, and laughing at the same time and then just finally enjoying the whole thing. It’s a great scene.

Ron Bennington: Yeah it is a phenomenal scene because it is panic turning to joy, which, you probably can’t even act that. You know what I mean? It’s probably something that you actually have to feel.

Harvey Weinstein: It was a documentary. It was. It’s the one scene in the movie where there was no acting. That was them. They were laughing, they were stricken with fear, it was great. It was really great.

Ron Bennington: Now, I saw you talking with Charlie Rose, and there’s some stuff where some of the American critics had more of a problem than worldwide critics.

Harvey Weinstein: The movie is the world’s biggest comedy. It’s grossed like three hundred and fifty million dollars– it’s a small little movie. You know, talking big all over the place. Time magazine loved it. Wall Street Journal. Daily News. Blah Blah Blah. So this one critic wrote something in Variety, that he thought that the black guy was too much like an Eddie Murphy character. And he doesn’t understand that in France, this was about an immigrant, and the guy who plays the guy is an immigrant. So between him and the real guy– one guy’s name is Omar and one guy’s name is Adu– you’d think that with names like that– who these guys are– they would have something to say about the character. And I think they completely missed it because this reviewer Americanized it in his brain. And it’s become a bit of a controversy. But as people see it– I mean you saw the movie…

Ron Bennington: Loved it! And here’s the point I love about it too. I think it has a lot to do with interdependence. No matter who you are, you’re dependent on other people. You’re an independent guy your whole life and just think how many people you have to partner up with and how many people you rely on, on a daily basis.

Harvey Weinstein: It’s true.

Ron Bennington: And that’s what to me, this entire film was about. In an international way, you can almost say, we do have to get along with Africa. We do have to get along with people that are unlike ourselves.

Harvey Weinstein: It’s amazing you said that because the head of the fascist party in France saw the movie and said, I don’t like the idea that these immigrants are going to save France. So he saw the same analogy that you do, in the negative way, in the opposite end.

Ron Bennington: You’ve got a guy that you brought along since he was a kid and that’s Quentin Tarantino. And it seems to me, everybody who was with him in the ’90s is still with him. I mean the buzz about his new film is phenomenal.

Harvey Weinstein: Django. Listen, I just came from New Orleans. I just left DiCaprio there. And it’s Jamie Foxx, Leo DiCaprio, Sam Jackson, Kerry Washington and Christoph Waltz and it’s funny and it’s smart and (laughs) the body count is awfully high. Jamie does a lot of killing in this movie. Lots of killing. And killing justified. In “Inglourious Basterds”, Quentin made his mission movie. He made his Dirty Dozen. This is his epic Western. It’s a Western with James Brown music. It’s Quentin. They don’t even have to define it anymore. It’s Tarantino. It’s like a Scorsese. A Tarantino. You know what it’s going to be. You know how good it’s going to be. You’re going to sit in that theater going Holy S -. And I want to just say, it’s fun. I’m not going to raise the expectations, but it’s also – I think for Quentin, there’s a serious side to the movie too. He’s dealing with so issues here that he’s very very very equipped to deal with. I don’t think any other filmmaker has the bravery to do some of the stuff that he does in this movie. And the way that he deals with American slavery. It’s always been a taboo issue in Hollywood and I think he deals with it pretty strongly.

Ron Bennington: He’s getting more and more confident too, don’t you think?  Over the years, it’s just amazing to see that. And that’s a filmmaker I think that after his initial pop there was like a backlash with the critics. There was let’s just take a shot, he’s had too much success. And it seems like nothing has ever shaken him. It just seems like he’s just always been confident and his audience has followed him.

Harvey Weinstein: Yeah. I think his audience follows him. And I think that he understands actors because he’s an actor. And I just think he has a way with making a movie. I remember Brad Pitt’s first day on the movie and when it was wrapped. Because you can’t bring your phones on to set. You just have to put your phone in a bag and nobody – there’s no such thing as phones, cell phones, texting, forget it. You’re there to make a movie. And Quentin doesn’t look at a video monitor and playback. It’s old fashioned, makin’ a movie. He knows what he’s seeing through the camera. He knows it, he’s that good. And I remember Brad saying Holy Shit, this is fun. This is fun. And DiCaprio, I mean riding a bicycle around New Orleans, just getting an apartment, being a kid again, making a movie without the entourage and posse and all the accoutrements of Hollywood movie making. He’s just there to be an actor. He plays the villain. He’s the meanest bastard I’ve ever seen in a movie. I mean that performance is like an Olivier being a nasty rat. He’s great.

Ron Bennington: Well, I’m sure this is why these guys got into film. These are the type of movies they wanted to make and a lot of times they end up making the other type of movies that we were talking about which is CGI and just something set to hey, can we catch the same lightning that those guys got. You got anything else happening this year?

Harvey Weinstein: I’ve got a few things besides Intouchables. We have a movie coming out called Lawless. And it’s the story of 3 brothers, Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf and Jason Clarke who in the 1920s – 1924, this corrupt sheriff took over Franklin County and these guys just stood up to him. They were bootleggers, not like they were good guys. They were the good criminals and they just went to war in this county. And it became the Franklin County war. And it’s about outlaws who become heroes. And Jessica Chastain is in it and Mia Wasikowska and Guy Pearce plays the sheriff who’s corrupt. And Gary Oldman plays a gangster out of Chicago. It’s Tommy guns, guns, sex, but it’s done by John Hillcoat who did The Proposition, who did The Road.

Ron Bennington: And Nick Cave wrote this too, right?

Harvey Weinstein: And Nick Cave wrote it. So it’s classy, but it’s fun. It’s a gangster movie. And gangsters of all stripes, from the rednecks to the gangsters. They’re going to love this movie, I mean it’s fun. It’s really fun. We’ve got Brad Pitt in Killing Them Softly. I don’t know. This must be my year for gangster movies. That’s a contemporary gangster movie where there’s been a robbery, things are out of whack in New Orleans. Brad Pitt’s the enforcer. They bring him in to make things right. He’s got to decide who to kill, who lives, who dies and how does it get done. With James Gandolfini and Ray Liotta. And we played in Cannes and it’s a really smart movie. And then we have Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master with Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams and Philip Seymour Hoffman. And David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook with Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Bob De Niro and Chris Tucker. And then Django Christmas.

Ron Bennington: And The Master of course has got everybody talking even though no one knows exactly what it is. And I think that’s some old school promotion.

Harvey Weinstein: Well I think this movie is old school great. And you don’t want to hype it. You just want to lower expectations. I just will say that it’s going to be in 70 mm, at least the initial theaters. I think it’s something special. And he’s something special, Paul Thomas Anderson. He threw up another teaser.

Ron Bennington: Yeah, I saw it.

Harvey Weinstein: You saw it already. Yeah, right. He’s amazing. He just puts it up on his web site, people follow him and all of a sudden, the buzz is all over the place and then we take it and we whack it out everywhere. And the buzz on the movie is incredible.

Ron Bennington: So many times that when a trailer comes out, they give away too much. But this gives you tonality without exactly knowing what you’re going to be going to see.

Harvey Weinstein: And you watch the promotion on this movie and I think I know something about marketing, but with Paul Thomas Anderson, I’m going to put out like bottles of booze on this movie, going 100% PTA. Whatever, that’s going to be my new brand. Because it’s Paul Thomas Anderson, there’s nothing else in there. You know it’s 100% whiskey from Paul Thomas Anderson.

Ron Bennington: And another really confident confident filmmaker.  A guy who just feels like he knows what he wants to say and goes out and does it. Time and time again.

Harvey Weinstein: No question about it. And he makes movies because he wants to make movies. We might show this at a film festival, he may come, he may not come, whatever. And we have to accept that from our artists today. We can’t just say okay well, Paul has to follow lockstep into everything. If his thing is unorthodox, God bless him for more of that. He’s the nicest guy in the world. And Johnny Greenwood did the music by the way. So there you go. It’s pretty damn good.

Ron Bennington: But it’s an interesting thing that you that we’re saying that the movies look alike, but they’re also being released the same way, everybody kind of goes on all the talk shows the same way and then here you are with these bands of really individuals getting away from the Hollywood machine.

Harvey Weinstein: Yeah. I don’t know if there’s another way to promote a movie other than actors going on talk shows and doing things. Because one time I made a study about it. When somebody goes on the radio and talks about the film that has so much more effectiveness, God forbid I say this to the advertisers, than the ads because people hear the spot “The greatest movie, said Vincent Canby in the New York Times”. “Manohla Dargis said see this movie and you’re teeth will become white”. They don’t believe anything, the audience. But 2 people talking, they can sense the truth. They’ll hear you and me, Ron and go alright I believe him. Or I don’t believe him. He’s full of beans. He’s selling. But they hear you talk about the movie and they know you genuinely like it. Otherwise, you’d be steering me off “The Intouchables”. So we did studies and surveys and anecdotal evidence, people love when they hear it. (laughs) I wish there was another way because asking actors to go on the air, it’s one thing, they love to talk about the movie, but inevitably someone’s going to say so what’s happening with that girl you’re going out with?

Ron Bennington: Well you’ve got a great year coming out and The Intouchables is already doing massive business everywhere. But I think it’s exciting, I know you feel like you don’t have to come back, but stop back anytime you want.

Harvey Weinstein: Ron, that’s an invitation I’m not going to refuse. Thank you so much.

* * *

=============================================

Find out more about Weinstein films on twitter @weinsteinfilms and find out more about this film in particular on its official webpage.

You can hear this interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio.  Not yet a subscriber?  Click here for a free trial subscription.

.

You can learn more about Ron Bennington’s two interview shows, Unmasked and Ron Bennington Interviews at RonBenningtonInterviews.com.