All language subtitles for Midnight Express 1978 The Finished Film

Brad was intense about
almost everything that he had to do.

You know, I mean , he would--

And he was, as I say,
he was eccentric.

I mean , so much so that John Hurt
used to be in awe of him...

...because John
Iiked to be eccentric.

And before each take, you know...

...Brad would do his press-ups
and handstands.

And he had a bucket
that he had to pee in before every--

Don't ask me why, but he did .

And he kind of took everything
very seriously.

He really put his entire heart
into the whole film .

I've never really,
ever in my entire career...

...have had an actor
who has put so much into a role.

Because he was
the first person I saw...

...doing all those sort of intensely
tedious Methody things...

...Iike standing on his head
and things...

...and doing deep breathing
before every shot.

And in fact, there was one time
I thought I'd get him back...

...and I was on the set
and I was going like this:

He said ,
"What are you doing , John?"

And I said , "What do you mean?"

"What are you doing
with your hands?"

"I'm doing my exercises
before the shot."

So...

But, yes, I used to kid him a Iot.

I used to kid him a Iot.

And I suppose I did kind of
Iook after him at that time.

And I kind of pushed him a Iot
during the film .

Sometimes I felt that
I pushed him too far, actually...

...on some
of the more dramatic moments.

But he gave his all to the film...

...and in fact, he was so intense
when he made the film , you know.

At the end of 53 days
that it took to shoot...

...I always thought
that he didn't think...

...that he'd been in a film set
for 53 days.

He thought he'd been in prison
for four years.

He became Billy, totally.

And I think that affected him ,
you know, mentally and physically...

...particularly in the days
after the film .

But with regards to me
having an actor to give of their best...

...to do so brilliantly...

...and to give such attention
and such time to making a film ...

...which was absolutely total .

I couldn't have been luckier,
really, as a filmmaker.

And in a funny kind of way...

...probably deep down , I was pleased
that it wasn't a movie star.

AIan had a totally different way
of approaching all four of us.

With Brad , he used to shit on him
from a great height...

...because that's the way
that Brad responded , you know.

With Randy, who'd you expect
to be the big tough guy...

...actually is an enormously
sensitive man .

And he'd never, ever give him notes
in front of anybody else.

He'd always take him behind the set
or something ...

...and chat to him privately.

With Norbert, I could see him
just Iook at him and say:

"Well , that's what I'm gonna get,
that's what I'm gonna get."

There's no point in saying anything .

With me, he said , "Well , you're
just fucking English . Get on with it."

I was very Iucky in that, you know...

...I had M ichael Seresin ,
who I'd worked a Iot with before.

And so he kind of understood .

He has the same
kind of visual sensibility as I have.

I think the film
has a very strong visual identity.

AIso, my camera operator
had worked with me a Iot before...

...and was particularly good
at hand-held ...

...in the days before inventions
Iike Steadicam .

And it gave it--

Which is why I think the film now
still looks very contemporary.

Because I could block out
conventionally in normal--

You know, wide, medium, close,
whatever.

But I also had the advantage of--

I didn't shoot two cameras,
which I might do-- I would do now.

But at the time, it was just one camera.
It's all we could afford .

But a Iot of it was hand-held ...

...which is in to cut
with conventional shooting ...

...which gives it
another Ievel of energy.

Which , you know,
the moment you do something ...

...where you've got terrific
coverage...

...and you give that, you know,
big pile of stuff...

...to a brilliant editor
Iike Gerry Hambling ...

...then out comes
something remarkable.

And is it exactly what you conceived it
to be in the first place?

Truthfully, probably not, you know.

Sometimes what you see
in the back of your head ...

...when you finish the film ...

...sometimes it's better
than you imagined .

-Name?
-Jesus. William Hayes.

-Name?
-Hayes. H-A-Y-E-S.

This is a strange foreign place.

We deliberately don't do subtitles
for that reason .

We want the audience
to be as alienated ...

...as Billy Hayes must have felt.

And you get this actually quite--

This mélange of different Ianguages,
even .

You know, it's not really Turkish .

Turkish people have pointed it out
to me many times.

The conversation between
the Billy Hayes character...

...and the guy when he's asking him
what he had in the backpack...

...he's talking Maltese.
He's not talking Turkish at all .

We used Maltese, because obviously,
again , a Iot of these were non-actors.

And so he spoke his own Ianguage.

It didn't really matter, because to us,
we were in Malta anyway.

And we were in some strange world ,
some strange Iand ...

...that this American kid
had found himself.

And it really wasn't really
about Turkey anymore.

It was about being
in a foreign place.

Get down . Get down .

The heartbeat, which we use very,
very emphatically...

...and very effectively...

...really, it takes the place of music,
because in the end--

The soundtrack of a film ,
people always talk about...

...thinking the soundtrack is actually
a scored piece.

And the soundtrack isn't.
The soundtrack is actually a mixture...

...of all the layers of sounds
that you put together.

And sometimes that includes music,
sometimes it doesn't.

And , you know, there can be 50 layers
of sound in any particular scene.

And using the heartbeat...

...which has been copied millions
of times since in other movies...

...actually, at that moment in time,
it was rather original ...

...and gives you
the edge-of-the-seat tension ...

...that you require in that moment.

I wanted the film to be organic.

And we did make changes
every day.

Something changed .

Some things were very significant...

...in what was changed
from the original screenplay.

And the freedom
to be able to do that...

...is part of the creative process
of making a film .

I've been lucky, really,
in all my films.

Fourteen feature films...

...I've worked with the same editor,
Gerry Hambling .

He's pretty extraordinary
at what he does.

And I'm blessed to have him, really.

I think I shoot pretty accurately
most of the time...

...to what I want a cut to be.

Sometimes it's not.

Sometimes you have to feel
for the cut.

Or the material that you've shot
presents a different kind of cut...

...to what you might have imagined
when you shot it, quite frankly.

Most of the time,
it's pretty well as I imagined it.

I don't do storyboards, but I do Iots
of scribbles and drawings all the time.

And from that, the camera people...

...everybody seems to know
what I want.

And then with Gerry,
it's the same process.

There's no point in me really--

I've never sat on his shoulder
every single minute.

I mean , I'm there all the time
in the cutting room.

But I do my work
and he does his work, you know.

And I'm forever writing notes
on existing cuts or future cuts.

So it's pretty thoroughly worked out.

But in the end ,
it's an organic process.

And I take advantage
of his great skill .

And , you know, I don't cut myself--

Bare in mind , all the 1 4 films
I've done with Gerry Hambling ...

...have all been cut on film .

So from point of view
of the physicality of it...

...it's very different
to cutting d igitally, obviously...

...which is a bit more hands-on ,
probably, for the director.

But on film,
he's about as good as you can be.

And when someone's that great,
you really don't want to interfere.

And I can't remember the times...

...when I've been totally d isappointed
with a cut.

Sometimes I have been ...

...but most of the times,
you just pinch yourself...

...you're so Iucky
to have somebody that brilliant.

With the music,
what happened was...

...that I have what
I call my toolkit method ...

...which is I lay music
all the way through ...

...experimenting with different things.

I n the market, in Istanbul ...

...I had got a whole lot
of Turkish tapes...

...which I fed into the soundtrack,
you know...

...to give us a sense of alienation ...

...and that runs all the way
through the film .

But the conventional score--

I didn't really want a conventional
score and what I'd done is...

...I had Iaid the music of Vangelis
all the way through the film.

And to tell you the truth ,
it really worked well .

We had an artist in our company,
Casablanca Record and Films...

...where I was the chairman
and co-owner with Neil Bogart.

And we had Giorgio Moroder,
who was very successful ...

...in the disco and syncopation
orchestration world ...

...and had many, many hit albu ms
with Donna Summer and other artists.

And he wanted
to break into the composing of films.

And we believed in him.

And I kind of said to Puttnam ,
"I don't really wanna do this."

I said , "I Iove what Vangelis has done
and I think that--"

You know, the music that Vangelis
had already done from his albums.

It wasn't an original score.

That, we would have done
if we had gone the Vangelis route.

And his next score, that Vangelis did ,
was Chariots of Fire.

So can you imagine the music of
Chariots of Fire on Midnight Express?

That's how it would've
probably sou nded .

So they said to me,
"Well , just give Giorgio a try.

If you don't Iike what he does...

...then we can always fall back
to Vangelis."

And Vangelis was not inexpensive
and this film was inexpensive.

Well , the film wasn't cheap,
it was inexpensive.

Very big difference.

And Alan was
a really intelligent soul .

He was willing to cast a wide net,
Iook at everybody.

He could make the decision .
It was his decision to make.

We weren't gonna force
the decision on him in any way.

But he was kind of the person
that said , "Well , I'Il Iook at anything .

If I can make a decision ,
why don't I Iook at all the options?"

And Giorgio met with him ,
he Iistened to the music and he said :

"Cool . I think it was good work."

Giorgio won the Oscar.

The album was a gigantic hit.

And that's to AIan's testament
and Giorgio's testament.

I , again , was just a supporter.

I was a person
that believed in Giorgio...

...believed in AIan ,
believed in the film ...

...and tried
to edge the process forward .

But, you know,
the real qualitative creative aspect...

...was Giorgio Moroder
and AIan Parker in that decision .

So I went with Giorgio in M unich .

There was just Giorgio,
myself and an engineer.

And he had composed
the basic themes.

And , of course,
it was all electronic...

...and was incredibly wonderful
to work with ...

...because it was so easy
to manipulate.

If you do a conventional score
with someone wonderful ...

...say, like John Williams...

...you don't know what you're gonna
get until you strike up the orchestra...

...and an 80-piece orchestra is playing
away there and it's very expensive.

And to change things
is quite difficult.

But when it's all been created
by one man ...

...with his whole set of,
you know, tricks...

...it was very easy to do.

We had a tiny little screen
of the film .

And Giorgio did the whole thing
actually himself...

...with an engineer in Mu nich .

And it was pretty great.

The studio was interesting in that.

See, the studio's not the villain .
I've been a studio head .

I've been a chairman of a company.
I've been every part of the process.

But they're interested in six, seven ,
eight, 1 0, 1 2, 1 5 films at once.

And 50 films in development.

So they Iook at you , they make
a decision and they move on .

And the then-head of the stud io
said to me:

"Over my dead body will we use one of
those disco themes in the movie."

They didn't realise that Giorgio
Moroder wrote all the disco themes.

But, you know, again ,
fate and circumstance...

...and our own prowess
and our own ability to persuade...

...and Alan Parker's vision
and Giorgio Moroder's talent...

...overcame that obstacle.

We had the template of Vangelis
to go with .

And I was able to be there with him ,
as if it was all created .

And then , of course, we mixed it
with all of the effects...

...and other musics
which we bled into it.

And that became the soundtrack.

And indeed ,
it was the first electronic soundtrack...

...to win the Academy Award .

Well , I wrote a Ietter to the crew
before I started shooting ...

...which , you know, was a pattern
of films that I had done--

The film I'd done before
and certainly the films I did later.

--To kind of put in my head
and maybe the crews heads...

...the kind of film
that we were making .

To me, it was a film
about injustice, really...

...and the way in which the Iaws
are so different in different countries...

...because cultures are so different
in different countries.

And it was about the near verges
of insanity...

...which I wanted to explore.

I wanted to make
an uncompromisingly brutal film .

I made no bones about that,
right from the very beginning .

And in a way, I suppose there were
two ways of Iooking at the film.

Was this gonna be a film
about escape...

...or was this gonna be a film
about imprisonment?

And in a funny kind of way...

...the balance went to imprisonment,
I guess.

Mostly because we did change
the story when we were filming ...

...which I did because the film
had a different ending .

One of the things the studio insisted
upon was "based on a true story."

I n actual fact, it isn't.

It's based on a true story,
I suppose, vaguely.

But it isn't a true story. The film isn't.

What you have is, with regards to
people's perception of what truth is...

...Billy Hayes himself...

...his memory of actually
what happened to him in that prison .

H is own hubris
obviously gets in the way...

...when he starts to talk about stories
that happened to him in that prison .

So truth is probably moved away
a little bit there.

And then he recou nts the story
to the ghostwriter...

...William Hoffer,
who writes the book.

And he puts his slant,
Iiterary slant...

...by virtue of the fact that
he's writing a book for a publisher.

He wants to sell a Iot of books.

So truth gets moved along there.

OIiver comes along
and writes his screenplay, which--

And he definitely moved truth
away from the original ...

...in the inventions
and fictions that he put into it.

There was input from myself,
Guber and the studio...

...with regards to that first draft...

...which then transformed the story
even more...

...because of the requirements,
necessities of the studio...

...with regards to what makes
a strong dramatically structured film .

And therefore,
decisions were made.

And more fictions occurred ,
because of that.

So truth was moved away
a little bit more.

And certainly,
when I made the film ...

...and a whole lot of stuff was done
whilst we were filming ...

...because the place itself
and the situation ...

...and the whole 53-day
intense journey...

...that we were on , making the film ...

...created another organic movie.
A film was made again .

And then when we edited it,
another film occurred .

So you get truth moved away
at all those things.

So in a way, it's a fictional film .

And in a way, it's a d isservice to
the film to say "based on a true story."

They wanted this--
The studio or Guber wanted it.

--Because I suppose, you know,
there's some cachet to the fact...

...that it would happen to be
a lot of it was true.

But it got us into trouble Iater,
particularly with Turkish people.

And in a way, it was--

I used to stop apologising for it
being true...

...because it was a dramatic movie.

And they couldn't own up to
the fact that it was a dramatic movie.

Decisions were made
in order to make a terrific movie.

And that was really first and foremost
on everybody's mind .

I hate you .

I hate your nation
and I hate your people.

I fuck your sons and daughters
because they're pigs.

You're a pig .

You're all pigs.

Believe me, it was not at all
directed at Turkey.

And I regret that
and I do regret that...

...and when I went to Turkey,
they tried to make me apologise.

I said , "I'm not gonna apologise.

I regret the misunderstand ings
about racism that occurred .

But it was not based
in a racial approach to your cou ntry."

AIthough he says,
"You're a nation of pigs"...

...which insults the Muslim concept.
I realise that.

But that was his anger talking ,
to me.

I mean , he never said that.

But in the character's anger...

...it was such that I think
he had to say something Iike that...

...because he was at his wit's end .

At the Cannes Film Festival
I think was the first time...

...we were a bit in shock, really,
at the reaction to it.

I mean , it went from being ,
you know, a brilliant masterpiece...

...to a CIA-backed fascist scandal
of the festival ...

...in that you're not allowed
to criticise other nations.

And the criticism of the film was,
of course...

...that there didn't seem to be a nice
or pleasant Turkish person ...

...in the whole piece.

Well , there isn't in the book either,
actually.

And the story we went
was from that book.

AIthough as I've said ...

...it got changed so much in minute
detail in so many different stages...

...that we had created
a complete fiction .

And I think that, for myself...

...I did n't ever think of myself
when I was doing it.

And boy, did I become so engrossed
in making the film.

I didn't even think that
I was in Turkey.

Or even that my movie was.

It was some strange foreign place
that this kid had found himself.

And that was all it was.

So to be anti-Turkish
was actually far from our mind .

I think that the film
does have a dark heart.

I think that dark heart comes from
OIiver Stone's original screenplay.

I think there is a very powerful
monologue in court...

...which probably disturbs
a lot of people...

...particularly if you're Turkish .

And in a way, you know,
we were you ng filmmakers.

And somewhat naive in that regard ,
I think.

I mean , it's easy to say now,
"I would've done it differently."

I probably would . I'm more intelligent,
more worldly, you know...

...more politically astute
than I probably was then .

AII I thought I was making
was a movie...

...a really strong dramatic movie
about injustice of a penal system...

...and a very brutal penal system ,
at that...

...all of the clues of which
and all the evidence...

...we'd got from Billy Hayes' memoirs,
so I thought it was pretty accurate.

Would you have someone now--?
You'd have the good guy--

You know, Iike you always have
a good Nazi ...

...because not every German
was horrible.

Yeah ,
I suppose you would do that now.

But I stand by the film completely
and utterly...

...because it's the film that I wanted
to make at that moment in time.

And I'm still very, very proud of it.

Midnight Express was a really
important watershed in my Iife...

...in AIan Parker's Iife,
probably in Peter Gruber's Iife...

...and Alan Marshall's life.

It's a fine, fine, fine film .

It moves people and affects people
as much today as the day we made it.

You can't say that about a Iot of films.
I mean , there's not that many films...

...that are able
to work outside of their time.

I think Midnight Express does.
For me, The Killing Fields does.

There are films that somehow
transcend ...

...the moment in which they're shot.

It was Ieaving an executive job
running a studio...

...and starting down the road
of being a riverboat gambler...

...which a producer is.

And recognising
that you better suck all the juice...

...all the marrow out of the bone
when they work.

Because when they don't work,
wow, they're painful .

And so it was exciting to go
on a roller-coaster ride of that film.

And that came together and it was
a moment in time and it worked .

Tremendous success for Columbia.
Big .

And it launched my career.

Out of nowhere, I was suddenly
getting the Academy Award .

It was only my second film.

So it was certainly a Iot
more controversial than the first one...

...which was a kids' gangster
musical .

But yeah , I mean , it was my first brush
with the fact that actually...

...it isn't just about movies...

...and this is a very powerful way
to commu nicate to people.

It was a film
that was hugely successful .

And whatever is within it
from a political point of view...

...is actually
gonna get to a Iot of people.

And therefore, it's naive of me to think,
"Well , it's just a movie."

Well , movies can do that, you know.

They do it less
and Iess these days...

...because they really are
about entertainment, in the main .

But sometimes film can be political
and it can show the human condition ...

...and it can show how human beings
can be cruel to one another.

And out of that world ...

...out of that situation comes some
kind of hope that we can be better.

And I think all of that is in the film .

I Iove this movie. I love its energy.
I Iove its vitality and madness.

Its very zeal , its sense of excess.

I mean , nothing wrong with that.

Why it holds up
is there aren't stars that aged in it.

You know, you're not seeing
Robert Redford at 74.

You're not seeing people
that you know today.

They're contemporary characters,
in some sense.

I make no excuses for it.
I'm extremely proud of it.

I think that it's 30 years old .

And I actually defy anyone
to look at 30-year-old films--

Any 30-year-old film.

--And see one
that is as contemporary...

...and has, you know,
I'm very proud to say...

...influenced , you know,
a lot of other filmmakers.