The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

Open City
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keep playing the people. It’s possible, but it may also be that that’s the way
he wanted to do it.
And Federico Fellini, he gets a writing credit on Open City.
Hiller: That’s right.
One of the myths about this film was that it was a critical and financial
flop and it was successful only later when it was critically reviewed. But
it was well-reviewed in Paris two months after the Cannes Film Festival.
However, for the rest of his life Rossellini carried around a negative
review of this film. Can you conceive of doing anything that heartfelt
or drastic?
Hiller: I have a phrase that I use all the time. If I said that every creative
person I know is insecure, I’d be doing a disservice to very few people. It’s
just something about creativity, that you can’t be sure. That’s whether you’re
filmmaking or composing, or writing a book, or painting, or whatever—
“Am I doing good?” You’re so dependent on people that everything they say
has such meaning for you.
Do you have or did you have a litmus test?
Hiller: No, not particularly. Usually it would be the writer, how the writer
felt. Was I giving the writer what the writer was meaning? In fact, I always
sit down with the writer just before and say, “Tell me what you wrote,” just
in case the writer might say something that I missed. It rarely happens, but it
does, and then you think, “Oh, OK, then I know how to do that to get that.”
It’s never been a major thing.
I remember when I first put together Love Story, and we were doing a
running, and I wanted to bring Erich Segal out from the East, and the producer
and the studio said, “What are you doing? What do you need trouble
for?” I said, “It was his baby; I’m curious what he says.” I might learn something;
maybe I missed something. If he disagrees and I disagree, I’m a big
boy, I can say, “No, I’m going to do this.”
I feel a close affinity with the writer who sits alone in the dark room or
wherever and comes up with the story. We must have something to work
from. Which doesn’t say that we’re not original and come up with things. I