Walter Salles

0:00Hey buddy That's it Hold on nice What is it, Tin? You know because it's a big fan of the book You never know right? No You've just sat there and was like this Carrot we have He'd be browned in I know It's nothing But I'm just standing On the opposite Yeah Keep on rolling Yeah He's having a lot of fun He's having a little time Everybody's right there Andrew? So what did you get in the town? You get in yesterday's Is that recording? No I got it Yeah Yeah One of those Oh he's shorting from con isn't it? So they cut a little bit Yeah When did you cut? Before your earlier No not too much We did mostly polish And tried to find the essence of certain scenes

0:45Just finished to this part of cans And the bigs were like a tent mix And I think that that for cans So we needed to have a little bit more And we had a lot of time to go through this And it was really great And it experienced that once with Little Secretaries where I polished the film also Between southern and some towns It was great to be able to finish Right I thought that did seem That's what made like I don't know just You saw the joy in that scene It really did some of the people Really really wanted it Also I think that there was The extras in that scene And in most scenes of the film

1:30They see this to be In a position where they're part of something that is being registered And they enter into this They see itself become A real party where you're just capturing something Well that speaks to you as a director It doesn't have any of the Or it's an 80's at that point talking to patrons No no no no no To try to organize that You talk to them, you show Images, we projected There's a party in Shadows, the Casa Vettis film It's quite wonderful Well let's talk about that You show them the bootcamp right? Yeah Are we rolling? Yeah Okay Well let's start there with the bootcamp

2:15So you put these castles Through an intense period of time Going through You like your same shadows And a whole bunch of the beat next films Or I guess pre beat next films? Yeah like You know there's Sheila Clark who came a little bit before Shirley Clark's theme Actually it's one of the first directors She starred a new wave of New York films And she was very very influenced by jazz As well as carawak So we screened those We screened the number of films about Jazz and we invited very wonderful guys

3:00Like a Barry Gifford Who wrote an oral biography of carawak That's just a very interesting thing Oh yeah, just mention that Astounding is because he got to interview Most of the characters when they were alive And you know you recollects Each one of them recollects the same scene From different angles And it's a little bit, I don't know if you remember Russia, Monda, Kursa, where It's a film where one scene is described By different characters in a completely different manner Okay And this is the quality that really emerges From Barry Gifford's book You understand that reality is much more complex Than you thought it would be

3:46So the book camp was what allowed us To understand the complexities of that group And the mechanics within that nurtured it I had also done a documentary for For intense years You know, going through the same routes That carawak took originally And also having the privilege to talk to You know, such great poets of his generation Like Lawrence Ferlinghetti or Michael McClure And Diane DiPrima, Gary Snyder And also really cool cats Like Vymbfender, David Byrne, more influenced by carawak And this led to 100 hours of recorded material

4:34That were then transformed into a documentary That we edited rapidly to share with the actors And all of that was really Indusive to trying to find collectively The film that we wanted to shoot There was one common denominator To that group which was our passion for On the road, for the book and for what it meant And I think we're all in love With the content and the form That is, it's one of the most extraordinary books about youth And the transition into adulthood With all the pain that comes with it We've been through that

5:19So long to run me Me much longer than you And you know, it's also about Being able to redefine a future when that future is denied to you And try to explore all forms of freedom Either through sex or drugs or movement And I think that we're all in love with that But also in love with the improvisational style of the writing And the belief in intuition That is really a thought During that boot camp period We tried to eloculate on that

6:04And see how we can find that improvisational quality In the scenes that we would shoot And how we could be faithful Not only to the content of the book but to its form F So how come that decision? Well that came also during the research period Because in going to Lowell Which is where Kellogg had lived the early years of his life We met his brother-in-law John Sampas Who shared with us the scroll Much before it was published in 2007 This was 2005

6:49So we got to read the scroll And like you always amazed by the fact that even the first line was different And the search for the father was a real light motif of the scroll And this is what also binded the two central characters together Because Saul and Dean Alter Eagles of care work And New Cassidy were really connected by the fact that The loss of the father is so predominant in their lives And those very different characters Saul the observer And Dean the instigator of that journey Had a common point to start from And that was really what allowed us to also start the screenplay

7:39In the way we do start the screenplay How did it come to you? Because Coppola's tried to do this thing for like 30 years Since 1979 but I think that other directors tried before that And it was very tempting Again it's one of the most extraordinary narratives about youth That's so tempting I think that Francis himself did two great films about that phase in one's life And it's the outsiders Then the film in Brazil it's the motorcycle boy range But it's a different name here I try to remember the original name With Matt Dillon

8:25Great rumblefish Those two films that Coppola did are also about that moment Were you transitioned from youth to adulthood? When I came in it was almost 30 years after they had bought the rights And what triggered the responsibility was the fact that When motorcycle diaries screened at Sundance A director of Zoltrop American Zoltrop Francis Ford and Opolis company It was in the room and we ended up talking about this a few weeks later And the possibility to do on the road It was very tempting But also for somebody who's not from

9:15Wasn't born in North America Yeah, not in North America What do I lived in North America for a while Two younger brothers who were born in America When we were living in South America Enough connections But beyond that I knew that my passion for the book wasn't enough to justify the adaptation immediately And thus the four to five years of research that preceded the adaptation That's well worth it Matt, because it's phenomenal I can't wait for everyone to see December Yeah, December, yeah, yeah Thank you so much My pleasure I could go on forever both of us now But I know you gotta go Go on about the impressionist this does Don't wanna get too late We did a second unit journey

10:01After the shoot was completed The principle for talk to you We drove all the way from the east to the west In the Hudson with Garrett Yeah, he was just mentioning that, yeah Drifting to completely different places For three weeks we didn't know where we were going to sleep What we were going to film But looking at what possible roads we would take And this is really in the film It's not that we were five That's cool Thank you for another one coming in here I'm gonna move out of the way Thank you so much I think you're staying here actually I believe so, yeah Just for one last Before you rest