A Constant Forge Page #3

every single day, Gena and me.

But that's only surface. Because we both have

the understanding that when we don't do that...

it's all over.

I took a loft in New York

on 48th Street.

I got about 19 young actors together

to form an acting class.

And everybody paid

two dollars a week, including me.

I started teaching one of the classes,

and I loved it.

Shadows began as an improvisation

the class was working on.

I dreamed up some characters

that were close to the people in the class...

and then I kept changing the situations

and ages of the characters...

until we all began to function

as those characters at any given moment.

During one class, I was so impressed

by a particular improvisation that I said...

"Hey, that would make a terrific movie. "

Every scene in Shadows was very simple.

They were predicated on people having problems

that were overcome with other problems.

At the end of a scene,

another problem would come in and overlap.

This carried it forward

and built up a simple structure.

When we finished

the first version of the film...

we had two midnight screenings

at the Paris Theater in New York...

and they were both

absolutely disastrous.

It was filled with cinematic virtuosity-

with angles and fancy cutting...

and a lot ofjazz going on

in the background.

It was a totally intellectual film,

and therefore less than human.

I'd fallen in love with the camera,

with technique...

with beautiful shots,

with experimentation for its own sake.

I saw all that and wanted to fix it up.

I thought if I could shoot

for 10 more days...

I'd be able to make it into

what I'd originally visualized.

Shadows will always be the film

I love the best.

Simply because it was the first one,

and we were all young...

and because it was impossible,

and we were so ignorant...

and for three years we survived

each other and everything.

In Too Late Blues,

I was working under a studio system...

which I findjust doesn't suit me.

It's a system based on departments

and department heads and chiefs.

I'm not very good

at dealing with department heads...

because I'm not concerned

with their problems.

I'm only concerned with mine.

It was the story

of an idealistic jazz musician...

who falls in love

with a mediocre vocalist-an easy girl.

In turn, his ideals are shaken

and his manhood challenged.

Despondent, he sells out to

a cheap record label, becomes a gigolo...

loses his self-respect and finds

determination to return to his ideals.

A Child is Waiting was strictly

a commercial venture.

From my point of view,

it was a painful experience.

Not because of the retarded children...

but from the fact that it's really hard to

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