IN PARTNERSHIP:

John Landis at Night Visions Film Festival:

"It's a mistake to direct when you're in a gorilla suit."

 

In early December in Helsinki, Finland’s biggest genre film festival, Night Visions, came back in style after last year’s pandemic-related hiatus. As usual, the program featured hits from this year’s festival circuit but also included cult classics, and in this category, they went all out this year. Marking the 40th anniversary of American director John Landis’ cult horror, An American Werewolf in London (1981), as well as the film’s new 4K restoration, the organizers included a retrospective of some of Landis’ greatest hits, from Trading Places (1983) to the classic and endlessly quotable Blues Brothers (1980).

To top it all off, Landis himself appeared as the festival’s marquee guest. I attended his masterclass, which he gave to the audience in attendance.

Text: Jan Artiček

Photographs: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY

 

Director John Landis’ masterclass, which lasted about an hour and a half, was a delight for any cinema enthusiast and aspiring filmmaker during the Night Visions film festival in early December in Helsinki. He regaled the crowd with stories of old Hollywood, took us behind the scenes of his famous movies and imparted lessons about filmmaking along the way.

His stories and perspectives on the art of cinema were also incredibly funny, no doubt due to Landis’ relaxed and carefree presence, as he cursed his way through memories and routinely forgot movie titles he was trying to reference (which the cinema-savvy audience members promptly helped him out with), all of which made his knowledge of the craft and his notable presence in film history seem approachable.

Rather than a dry, high-brow lecture, the audience got to hear how Landis made his first film, Schlock, on an extremely low budget which included his own savings, and how this low budget led to him meeting a frequent later collaborator, special effects master Rick Baker, as well as to Landis being compelled to don a gorilla suit and playing the lead in costume while directing. The two lessons that seemed to emerge from this episode were, “don’t use your own money” and “it’s a mistake to direct when you’re in a gorilla suit.” Poignant teachings indeed.

Director John Landis. Photograph: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY

He covered a lot of ground in a short time, starting with his early career in the late 1960s, when he held various jobs in the industry, from mailboy to stuntman, falling off horses for money and having the chance to rub shoulders with industry greats in the process. “I lucked into a lot of things,” he reflected, but also noted that he knew what he wanted to do in life since early childhood.

Then followed the highlights of his filmmaking career, from being on the set of Kelly’s Heroes (1970) in Yugoslavia, where President Tito “gave us an army” to use, to being in the writers’ room for the Bond flick, The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), alongside novelist Anthony Burgess of Clockwork Orange fame. As a director, Landis worked with some of the biggest stars of the era, from Eddie Murphy to John Belushi. Regarding Belushi, Landis made a heartfelt tribute to the late comedian’s talent, recalling his antics on the set of Animal House (1978), and spoke earnestly about the trials of addiction, which Belushi was struggling with on the set of Blues Brothers (1980).

One of the ideas behind the ‘Blues Brothers’ was, according to Landis, to revive the great soul and R&B music of the ’50s and ’60s in an era where disco was the dominant genre. Photograph: Tony Öhberg/Finland Today

Landis opened the talk by saying there is “no difference between making a movie in 2021 and 1912; it’s all the same language.” But in closing, when prompted to give some advice to aspiring filmmakers, he did point out one crucial difference, namely that modern technology allows us to make movies without huge budgets, sprawling sets and big crews, leaving contemporary directors without an excuse. “Go direct,” he said.

And since the masterclass had run a bit long and the organizers had already delayed subsequent screenings for 15 minutes, here ended the tale.

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