He is one of the great living masters, and although he has not touched a camera for almost two decades or has had to spend time in prison, John McTiernan is always expected. Taking advantage of his visit to BIFFF, my home for ten years now, I was able to talk for a while with the person in charge of some other favorite movie from all over the world.
a grateful genius
I don’t know how many directors can boast of shooting three classics in a row that, in addition, started franchises that are still in force four decades later, but McTiernan did it with ‘Predator’, ‘Jungle Glass’ and ‘The Hunt for Red October’. Between master classes and screenings of some of his classics, the director of ‘The Last Great Hero’ attended us and looked back with us again.
Kiko Vega (KV): You are one of the great action directors of all time, but also a master of fantastic cinema. Do you identify more with the genre that has brought you to present ‘Predator’ at the BIFFF?
John McTiernan (JM): Nah, I just make movies. Spot. That’s what I do. Action movies, adventure movies… but hey, it’s also true that I have two projects that I would love to do, one science fiction and the other with a significant amount of horror.
KV: Today we will see ‘Predator’ one more time, how do you remember the days before having the final creature?
JM: Actually we were always shooting the part with the human characters, hurrying to the end with the creature, but it is true that when the monster arrived, yes, it was really terrible. Joel Silver and I met immediately to find a solution. We changed the calendar again and stretched it out a few weeks so that Stan Winston had time to present a much better monster and scarier.
KV: You started with ‘Nomads’ and ‘Predator’, two fantasy film titles that prepared the arrival of ‘Jungla de cristal’. Did you ever think “wow, we’re doing something really amazing”?
JM: Not at all. I was just making a movie. You were doing the best you could, all our hearts and minds were on that shoot, but you can’t possibly think you’re doing anything good, much less a classic. I knew I had a chance to make a good movie. All of us involved were convinced that we could do something special, we were an ambitious team. We were a crew of ambitious filmmakers and a film came straight from the heart.
KV: Possibly the most special and beloved film of your career, why do you think ‘Die Hard’ is so unique?
JM: I kept this a secret from the studio, but what I did was structure the film from its script. as if it were a Shakespeare comedy. Imagine ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ as a panorama of all social strata. I was very lucky because ‘Predator’ did very well and the studio entrusted me with this project. Joel Silver was very brave doing it. They showed me the script, three or four times, but I didn’t like it. The villains were terrorists and terrorists are not cool, they are not “entertaining”. Nobody enjoys them. “We must change it,” I told them. And we got it. “Let’s make them thieves, everyone likes thieves.”
KV: Exceptional thieves, don’t get angry Hans Gruber.
JM: Joel and his incredible casting director, Jackie Burch, are responsible. She I had seen Rickman representing ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ in London and it was clear to him that we should hire him. Now we return to what I was saying about the social panorama of a midsummer night’s dream. We have Bruce as working class hero and Alan as a total antagonist of very refined upper class. And their roles are completely opposite of what they are supposed to represent. We take that panorama and put it vertically. That’s what I wanted to do with ‘Jungla de cristal’.
KV: ‘Predator’, ‘Crystal Jungle’ and ‘The Hunt for Red October’. Three consecutive classics that also started franchises that are still in force forty years later. How do you see your legacy now?
JM: I haven’t seen them.
KV: Haven’t you seen ‘Prey’ either?
JM: No.
KV: After these three hits it seems that you take a break and go to the jungle. Did you need a bit of calm away from that type of production?
JM: ‘The Last Days of Eden’ was a reaction I had to a very specific moment in my life when I didn’t want to go back to doing action movies. She wanted to do something different. It was a good idea to make a movie, but it didn’t work out. The cast was not the luckiest and I think the script could have been better too.
KV: Seven years passed between the first and third John McClane adventures, but the genre was going fast. Michael Bay started, Pierce Brosnan was a modern day Bond, and then there was you. Did you feel old school then despite handling a monster like ‘Clay Jungle: Vengeance’?
JM: No, I think we were just different filmmakers with different ways of executing the camera style. And these two jungles now were very different stories. We were making a colleague’s film and the style changed radically, like the setting or the space. The second installment was basically a remake From the first, I wanted to make a different film. I didn’t want to do Jungle 2: Red Alert because I didn’t want to do the same movie again. Nor did I want to do any of the sequels to the third for that very reason.
KV: How did it feel to bring the character back to his ground?
JM: It was a really fun shoot and I think there’s a lot of fun in the end result. I love the character of Sam (L. Jackson). The truth is that I hadn’t seen the movie for many years and the other day I found it on television and it’s incredible how this guy crosses that street, brimming with dignity. The white guy is the asshole, he’s the Republican. You are the straight one, the other is the one who is screwed. And I hadn’t realized how nailed that scene was until I saw it the other night.
KV: Is ‘The Last Great Hero’ your biggest professional frustration?
JM: I have fond memories of that shoot, but I sincerely believe that it was the studio that destroyed everything. The biggest problem of all was the terrible publicity campaign for the film. They wanted to sell it as an action film while I reminded them that what we had in hand was ‘Cinderella’ and not the latest in action movies, what the hell are you doing. And they also insisted on releasing the following week of ‘Jurassic Park’. A complete disaster.
KV: Who do you think killed action movies forever?
JM: I don’t think anyone in particular has killed action movies, there are too many useless people doing the same movie over and over again. I couldn’t do something like that. Shoot the same movie twice? Damn, there are people who have done it dozens of times. Now in the studios they don’t look for directors, they only look for money. They don’t give a shit about what movie they’re up to. The studios don’t care if their movies are about creatures, superheroes, wizards or extinct mastodons, what is clear is that they don’t make movies about people.
KV: Will streaming platforms be the final nail in the coffin?
JM: I don’t think so, I think there will always be movie theaters, even if there are fewer than a decade ago, I think the rooms will remain.
KV: Any movies you liked lately?
JM: I liked ‘El hombre del Norte’ a lot. The script is that of ‘Hamlet’, but the film seemed really good to me.
KV: And which of your films do you prefer?
JM: With ‘The Secret of Thomas Crown’. The studio was run by Frank Mancuso, with whom I did Red October, and I really liked the story. It was fun, it’s fun.
KV: Will we ever get to see the sequel?
JM: No.
By the way, I would like to share with you the most beautiful moment of the interview, which was something that happened without a recorder. Of course, I brought something for McTiernan to plant a nice dedication, and settled on the poster for the first Die Hard. As the director was doodling on Willis’s face, I asked him if he had spoken to him recently. And after getting emotional and answering that for a few months, he confirmed to me that he was not capable of talking about that matter in public. He is a tough guy, but he has a heart.
Thanks BIFFF, thanks Jonathan, thanks Javi.