Magyar Hírek, 1987 (40. évfolyam, 1-23. szám)
1987-01-10 / 1. szám
“Our target had always been to make feature films. Since we did not get such an assignment, I teamed up with a few actors who also wanted to make a film in which they could demonstrate their talents. They wanted to shoot a Western. We put together two thousand dollars and made the film in a few week-ends. We all worked during the week, hired horses on Fridays, the actors brought their costumes and we went up to the hills with the camera Zsigmond lent to us.” "What did, you do with the completed films?” “By then 1 had reasonable contacts with people in the city, and when I ran into one of them a few «lays later, he told me about a young director, Bobért Bush who was looking for a cheap and good cameraman. He arranged a meeting with him the next day. He also planned to make a low-budget film. The James Bond films were just becoming-popular at that time. Our film became the first James Bontl imitation. 1 made five or six other films with Robert later on. Some of them dealt with serious social problems. These more ambitious films brought other good jobs, and that was how I established contact with Peter Bogdanovich, with whom I shot Targets, the first of our films in 1967. Since then we made seven pictures together.” "But in the meantime you also made many bikies?” “Yes, but they also paid well, since withouth them I would have lia«l small chance to be invited by Peter Fonda to shoot Easy Rider.” “When the idea of the Easy Rider came up I felt I had done my share of such bikie pictures. It was the personal charm of Dennis Hopper, that eventually persuaded me to make this picture.” "That f ilm made you world famous. Did your things go easily from then on?” “I was still not a member of the union then, but the company for which we shot Easy Rider wanted to make its next picture, Fvoe Easy Plays with me. They sent an ultimatum to the union that should they refuse to enrol me as a member they would make the film without the union. They accepted me as a member. “What is the next film you will be shooting?” “My last Legal Eagles with Bobért Bedford in the leading role has just got into the circuit. Next time i will be shooting in New England with Peter Bogdanovich. Zoltán Elek won the Oscar for his make-up in t he 1985 picture, Mask. “ Was this profession an early choice of yours?” ”My mother has a small beauty parlor an«l when l finished high-school it seemed obvious to me that I should be an apprentice cosmetician there. The only way one could work in the make-up field in Hungary was to be a trained cosmetician or hairdresser, so my inadvertant choice of a traile gave me the idea to become a make-up man.” "Once you load the idea I tow did you get into the motion-picture world?” “I began to call on various Hungarian theatres, the television and the film stmlios. Eventually they let me know that I could enrol at a make-up course. That was the first time they opened the profession to outsiders.” “ With whom did you work?” “With István Gál, with whom we won a prize in Cannes, then we made two films with Zolnai, and I worked with Pál Sándor just about the time 1 left Hungary. The main reason for that was that one of my brothers, who lived in New York, had a serious kidney complaint. First my mother went to help him, but they found that she had diabetes, therefore she could not be considered a donor. I and my older brother, who lives in Hungary, went out in 1967, and after a series of examinations a decision was taken that they would transplant one of my older brother’s kidneys. Unfortunately, it lasted only for three years, and then I went out again to be available for another kidney transplant. Finally it did not eventuate, because my brother «lied, anil then my wife and I decided that we would stay there and try our luck. That was almost twelve years ago. “And how did luck eventually come to smile on you?” Zoltán Elek with the prize winning mask “I worked for Universal Pictures right until I became a member of the union, then I worked free-lance. I got seven parts of the television serial The Roots, and the series was subsequently nominated for the Emy prize. Later on other films of mine were also nominated for the Emy, for instance The Day After. Then I even had a picture, which was nominated for an Oscar.” “Eventually you won an Oscar for the Iliül Mask. How did it happen?” "Originally Mike Westmore got that film. He phoned me saying that he could not take that film after the preparatory stages, and that he could not work on the shooting at all. The film is the story of a boy, a sufferer of calcium hypertrophy. His skull keeps growing bigger and bigger, yet the intelligence of the sufferer does not deteriorate, indeed, it develops. This child was superintelligent in real life. Showing the changes from step to step, and making the mask realistic was extraordinarily difficult.” “Did it occur to you that you might win an Oscar, when you were making that f ilm?” “I did not think of that even in my most daring dreams. When we were sitting around a table with my competitors during presentation of the Oscars, and we did not know which one of us was to get the prize, 1 said to them that merely to be there, to get to this stage was enough for me. And when they called my name, and I had to walk up to the platform, my stomach shrunk, and I thought I would have an heart attack.” “Since winning an Oscar, you must have been inundated with offers” “It may surprise you, but opposite is true. There could be two explanations. One that they shy off because they think: this fellow has an Oscar, we can’t pay him enough. The other explanation is that they put a label on me and think 1 am capable to produce only that kind of special make-up. Nothing proves better that my fear of having been labelled is not just a delusion that the next film I was invited to work on also needs techniques similar to those of Mask. Naturally, T will take it. But I am sincerely perplexed. Last week, for instance, 1 had to choose between two films. In one of them 1 could create wounds, bloody, torn flesh in Texas, fn the other in Chicago, on the other hand, I would do almost nothing. I chose the latter. Not because 1 like to take things easy, but to let people know at last, that I can handle nothing as well. JÁNOS BODNÁR WHO ALSO TOOK THE PHOTOGRAPHS SOME HUNGARIAN OSCAR PRIZE WINNERS: DIRECTORS: George Cukor Michael Curtis (Kertész Mihály) George Pál (cartoons and puppet films, won six times) Imre Pressburgh King Vidor Ferenc Rófusz István Szabó Jon Kadar CAMERAMEN: John Atlon László Ernest (won two times) Vilmos Zsigmond ACTORS: Pál Lukács Ernő Verebes COMPONIST: Miklós Rózsa
