JEROME HELLMAN
Sally (Jane Fonda) and Bob (Bruce Dern) in Hal Ashby’s Coming Home, which Heilman produced.
everyone absolutely terrified. What sort of rehearsal time were you allowed on a program like “Playhouse 90“? The Playhouse 90s rehearsed for almost two weeks, while a normal one-hour show would rehearse for the better part of a week. The performance would then be aired on the last day of rehearsal. Are there any productions you worked on which you recall with particular pleasure? During most of that time, I was working as an agent and packager. My function had much more to do with putting the elements together, selling them and observing the process I am describing, than it did with functioning creatively within it. I guess the closest I came to that was with The Kaiser Aluminum Hour, where I participated as the executive producer and worked on a rotating basis with three directors: George Roy Hill, Franklin Shaffner and Fiedler Cook. So, forgetting any judgments a b o u t q u a l i t y , The Kaiser Aluminum Hour shows were the ones I have the strongest feelings about. They were really the start of my producing career, as opposed to my role as an orchestrator and entrepreneur. You have produced six films since 1964, directing one of them. While one might not ask this question of a playwright or a novelist, why so few projects? I don’t know. It seems to be an outgrowth of my process, in the sense that I don’t have any ambition of duplicating my past experiences. My objectives, when I got out of packaging and gave up my business as an agent, were very personal, and what motivated 104—Cinema Papers, April-May
process and for people whose talents I admire. And, from having observed how directors work for so many y ears, I was able to collaborate without confusing myself about my role. I feel reasonably safe in saying that each of them would say, if asked, that it was an u n t h r e a t e n i n g collaboration. As a result, I could participate on every level — not in a c o n f r o n t a t i o n a l kind of relationship, but in a mutually supportive one. I was able to remain very close to the productions and, I think, had a significant influence on every level: working on the script, casting the film, discussing the work in progress, looking at dailies, and working right through the cuts, from first to last. Certainly, on the la s t c o u p le of film s w ith Schlesinger, I would say I had a very intimate involvement.
Is the creative process a system of osmosis, rather than you exercising me more than anything else was the some sort of paternal control? desire to do things that on one level Absolutely. I think that is a very or another reflected my sensibility. The simple truth is that it has legitimate form of collaboration, taken me a very long time in each and I welcome it with people I w-ork case to find things that I really care with. I don’t think the best results about, and which I can somehow are achieved by pounding tables and shouting people down. push through the system. All these films deal, in one way or an o th er, with contem porary problems, particularly those facing individual characters who attempt to come to terms with their own space in the world. Has this been a conscious design on your part? I think it is an unconscious design, in that I am governed by what interests me the most and what I feel most connected to dramatically. Part of it may simply be a result of my own conditioning. I don’t have any background in theatre, so my grasp and my command of it is probably limited. My progress as a producer, to an extent, has been a direct result of personal experience. I am drawn to the things that, experientially, I feel I can bring the most to.
Some critics have claimed “Coming Home” goes soft on the Vietnam war and the opposition to it. What is your reaction to that sort of criticism? It is hard criticism to deal with. The reality is that we chose to make a film about one specific aspect of the war: namely, to deal with it in terms of its effect on people. It was a choice that was made at the outset. We weren’t attempting an Apocalypse Now or The Deerhunter: i.e., a great examination of the events and the violence and so on in direct terms. The film was, in fact, an outgrowth of Jane Fonda’s reaction to her exposure at a spinal cord
hospital in Long Beach, Cali fornia. Jane felt very strongly about those men, who were in wheel chairs and who were complaining bitterly about the conditions they found in the U.S.: their feelings were communicated to me when she approached me about taking on the film. All of those involved in the film felt that it was legitimate to try to deal with that segment of the experience, and to do it as honestly as we were able. We felt under no obligation to try to take on everything. So in those terms, I am not stung by the criticism. I feel there is room for a dozen films about Vietnam, like one about the im p a c t of the w ar on the Vietnamese people. I didn’t see any of that in Apocalypse Now and I certainly didn’t see it in The Deerhunter. On a subject as large as Vietnam, there is room for any number of films which collectively will make up a mosaic, and which will present various perspectives on what the reality of those events was. In dramatic terms, are you happy with the way things are resolved in the film? I am speaking in particular about the suicide of Bob (Bruce Dern) . . . 1 have reservations about the end of the film, though not specifically about Bob’s suicide. I think we had structural problems with the last third of the film and these began with the confrontation between Sally (Jane Fonda), Bob and Luke (Jon Voight). These problems were never quite solved, and that carries right through to the final sequence, where Bob commits suicide. Objectively, that’s how I feel about the film at this time. But it is certainly a film that I love, and I am really proud to have been involved in making it. Why did you decide to direct “Promises in the Dark”, rather than produce it for someone else?
You have worked with four directors: George Roy Hill, Irving Kershner, John Schlesinger and Hal Ashby. What part did you play once the productions were under way? If you asked the directors involved, they would probably say each film was a very close collaboration. George was a very good friend and client, and we had years of work experience behind us before we made The World of Henry Orient. George trusted me, and, as a result, allowed me full access to his process. I think a characteristic of all those relationships was that there was never any confusion about where functions, responsibilities and authority began and ended. I really had, and still have, a tremendous respect for the creative
Buffy and her boyfriend. Promises in the Dark.