NEW YORK - Director John Carpenter bites into a cold, gray hamburger that looks
as appetizing as Charlie Chaplin's shoe in "The Gold Rush." The burger,
surrounded by soggy fries, is his lunch.
"It's great being a filmmaker," he says, between bites. "You eat like a
king."
Carpenter - 37, wearing blue jeans, cowboy boots, a red polo shirt and a
beige V-neck sweater - is sitting in the corporate headquarters of Columbia
Pictures promoting his latest film, "Starman," a hybrid science fiction-love
story that opens Friday at the Sack and suburbs.
"Starman" is based on the premise that an alien being accepts an invitation
to visit our planet to learn about how earthlings live. Jeff Bridges plays the
title role, Karen Allen plays his guide. Although the film begins with shots of
the space ship, the emphasis is not on the outer space elements, but on the
interpersonal relationships and social customs that exist between human beings.
Although not as difficult to make as "The Thing" - Carpenter's most recent
science fiction film in which temperatures dropped to 30 below zero on an
Alaskan glacier - it wasn't easy. "I think people have a lot of illusions about
directors. I remember when I was a student at USC film school . . . before I
dropped out . . . I had the illusion that the job was very romantic. It's not.
I like the work, but it isn't as easy as I thought it'd be. There are a lot of
20-hour days and hamburgers like this," he says, holding up the cold sandwich.
Carpenter's reputation was cemented when "Halloween" - a horror film
budgeted at $300,000 and filmed in 20 days - grossed more than $50 million.
While cineastes proclaimed Carpenter's style, the studio executives applauded
his cost efficiency.
After that, he made "Elvis," a TV film with Kurt Russell; "The Fog," a
horror film with Adrienne Barbeau; "The Thing," a re-make of Howard Hawks'
sci-fi thriller; "Halloween II," a reprise with Jamie Lee Curtis; "Escape From
New York," with Kurt Russell starring in a futuristic prison drama; and
"Christine," an adaptation of Stephen King's auto-neurotic novel.
"In the business, I'm known as a director who gets projects done," he says.
"I'm responsible to the budget, the time and to the kind of film they want to
make. Columbia told me that they wanted me on 'Starman' because I'd deliver the
kind of movie that they wanted. Occassionally, a director will go off and make
a different movie. The studio doesn't get what they want, and no one's happy. I
don't commit to a picture unless the script is something that I want to do. Any
changes have to be agreed upon up front, so that everyone knows what they're
getting into. That way there are no surprises."
All the surpises with "Starman" occurred some five years earlier. Columbia
Pictures had to choose between two science-fiction films - "Starman" and "E.T." They chose "Starman," and Steven Spielberg
took "E.T." to Universal where it became the biggest grossing film of all time
with receipts of more than $200 million.
"The Columbia people obviously thought they had something better in
'Starman'," says Carpenter. "I'm sure if they knew in advance about the 'E.T.'
phenomenon, they would have held on to them both. But, at the time, no one
knew."
In 1979, Michael Douglas owned the "Starman" script, but he wasn't satisfied
with the way the movie was being developed. Directors such as Mark Rydell ("On
Golden Pond") and John Badham ("Who's Life is it Anyway?"), who exhibited
initial interest, dropped out. Then, when "E.T." was released, the Columbia
brain trust put "Starman" on hold.
"There was one similarity between the stories," says Carpenter. "They both
feature a likeable alien. Columbia was sensitive to it. It really doesn't make
any difference, now. I wanted to downplay the alien angle and play up the love
story part anyway, so it doesn't matter."
Producer Michael Douglas signed Carpenter because "John has a great sense of
style and deals with action masterfully. I knew he'd get to the emotional core
of the story."
"I imagine myself to be the audience when I read a script," says Carpenter.
"I never read them in a vacuum. I have emotional criteria for judging whether a
script will make a good movie. If it works emotionally, then I want to do it."
Although Carpenter's reputation as a cooperative filmmaker precedes him, he
doesn't allow that to interfere with changes in the story and casting.
Originally, the studio wanted a young actor to play the title role, but
Carpenter resisted. "They wanted Tom Cruise for the lead," he says. "But when I
auditioned actresses in New York, Karen Allen was far and away the best. I
wanted her for Jenny Hayden, and so we had to go with actors her age. I didn't
want a big star to play the male lead because there might be too much
identification with other roles. I thought of Jeff Bridges because he's a name
actor, yet he's not a big celebrity. He's a well known actor, but he's not a
big Hollywood star. He's like a chameleon. He said he wasn't afraid to take
risks with the role and to appear a little foolish on the screen."
"John creates an environment where you are not afraid of looking silly,"
said Bridges, a week earlier during an interview at the Ritz in Boston. "With
some directors, you're afraid to take chances because they might make you look
stupid on the screen, but John takes care of you. He allows an actor to act and
doesn't treat you as if you're a piece of machinery."
Charles Martin Smith, who plays the sensitive, curious scientist in
"Starman," concurs.
"After spending 3 1/2 years on 'Never Cry Wolf,' I needed something that was
a lot more fun," he said in an interview. "John's sets are fun. He's real
loose, and that gives the actor a sense of self-confidence. He's serious
without appearing that way. He also didn't see the movie as a hardware film
with lots of technology. He kept the humans at the center."
Carpenter says he never saw "Starman" as a science fiction film. "It's
closer to 'It Happened One Night' (Frank Capra's film starring Clark Gable and
Claudette Colbert)," he says. "It's a love story about two people who start as
enemies and end up in love."
Carpenter is concerned about his Christmas competition - "Dune," "2010,"
"Cotton Club," "City Heat" and "Beverly Hills Cop."
"You have to be very careful how you market this film," he says, while
pushing the half-eaten burger away. "Those are very expensive films, and it's a
bizarre business. Who can tell what will happen? I just hope we find our
audience."
Does Carpenter wish he were back making low-budget, low-risk films?
"No, definitely not," he says, "but there's really not much difference
between making a low-budget film and a major Hollywood release. There's no
difference. The time is shorter, and certainly you take more chances with a
low-budget movie. But it doesn't make any difference whether it cost $300,000
or $40 million if you get the audience. If 'Heaven's Gate' had been a gripping,
emotional movie, no one would have cared how much it cost. 'Ghostbusters' cost
over $35 million, and no one cares because it was such a big hit."
Carpenter is planning to take a short vacation to spend time with his wife,
actress Adrienne Barbeau and 6-month-old son, John Cody. But he'll have one eye
on the box office.
"I don't deny that commercial success means a lot to me," he says. "The best
reviews you can get are at the box office."
Copyright © 1984 Globe Newspaper Company