THE REEL WORLD

By KENNETH TURAN

Dec. 29, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES FILM CRITIC

Harvey Weinstein is the force to be reckoned with in the independent film world. He and his brother Bob run Miramax Films, which financed (with help from parent company Disney) the Oscar-dominating “The English Patient” and also had a box-office success with the Japanese import “Shall We Dance?”

It is Harvey, as he is universally known, who is the public face of the company, and it is not a simple face to read. On the one hand, he is a voracious competitor whose argumentative behavior when he lost “Shine” to a rival company caused him to be escorted out of a restaurant during the Sundance Film Festival, and whose Dimension division was recently involved in a controversy over initially over-reporting grosses for “Scream 2” by $6 million. Yet he has a genuine and abiding passion for film, and his first thought, when asked the one thing about the movie business he would change, is to say he’d lower ticket prices and “make movie-going a little bit more fun.”

Though Miramax is based in New York, Co-chairman Harvey Weinstein makes frequent trips to L.A. for the premieres of his films, and it was on one of those that he sat down for an interview.

Question: There’s been a lot of talk, starting when “The English Patient” won its Oscars, about this being the year of the independent film. What does that phrase mean to you?

Answer: Last year was just a sweet surprise that raised the consciousness of the industry. And by saying, “Hey, it’s respectable to go over and do a movie for the smaller companies,” it really helps motivate talent to get involved. The danger sometimes is that talent sees the success of independent movies and says, “Now we should treat the independents the same way we treat the studios and get the same price and everything else.”

But I always try to make movies for a specific budget. The idea is not to get hurt, so though we may be radical in our taste, we’re fiscally conservative. I try to average $12.5 million as the average cost of a movie. That’s why it was great making “Chasing Amy” last year for $250,000 because it brought down all my averages. I could overspend wildly on other movies and when it averaged out at the end of the day, I couldn’t lose. So long live Kevin Smith as far as I’m concerned.

Q: Why aren’t the major studios able to make the kinds of films independent companies produce?

A: You could say the studios seek to do it with their investments, like Disney’s in Miramax, Universal’s in October and Fox in Fox Searchlight. The studios are big General Motors kinds of car operations, they’re going for the $600-million worldwide gross, and the independents are Saturns or Mercedes-Benzes. It takes a tailor to tinker, and you can’t do that when you’re running a behemoth organization.

Q: So they’re just too big to turn out that kind of film?

A: With the studios, it’s like “Let’s get it out the opening weekend, buy the total awareness, and we either have it or we don’t because four weeks later we’ve got something else in the pipeline.”

For us, six weeks into a movie is when you really have to concentrate, because these movies need nurturing and special handling. With something like “The Wings of the Dove,” I almost feel like I’ve just begun to release the movie. It’s on 200 screens now, and hopefully it will be in 1,000 theaters in February. It’s a whole process of seeding the marketplace, going through waves and waves of it.

Q: What do you say to people who claim that independent companies that are owned by studios are not really independent anymore?

A: I think we’re more independent than when we were scrapping with bank loans and piecing the company together because we have the autonomy and financial ability to make decisions. There’s certainly nobody at Disney telling me what movies to make, and I think that’s the case with the other studio-owned divisions as well. And while it used to be that filmmakers would start with us and then go on and work for the studios, now they can have a whole career at the company because we have the financial wherewithal to give them one. As a result, we get to grow up with our filmmakers.

Q: What dangers do you see down the road for the independent film world?

A: The biggest danger is that there will be such a proliferation of films that it will outpace the audience. I think the audience will expand, but right now it’s being overstimulated and overfed. It’s a crowded marketplace. People from the investment community come in and say, “We made a lot of money in real estate, the movie business looks like fun.” About a year into it, it doesn’t look like fun anymore, it looks like a lot of red ink. Hopefully everybody will get smarter, including us, and do less films, but it’s not easy.

The other danger is that as you get successful, you can shy away from tough material. You say, “Look, I’m growing up, I have a family, I’m not that same kid anymore.” The mayor of Buffalo once told me that in the old days when politicians wanted a crowd, they’d throw a bomb in the middle of the streets. Everybody would come out and they’d quickly put a soapbox up and the guy would make a speech saying, “Vote for me, I’m a terrific guy.”

So in the middle of cinema that’s just for entertainment, all of a sudden we throw a “Trainspotting” or a “Pulp Fiction” in there that just rearranges everybody’s sensibility. It’s the ability to say, “Wait a second, let’s not get old and tired, let’s keep that edge and do something.”

Q: How do you deal with the dangers of runaway productions, with films getting out of control in terms of budget and acting out on the set?

A: I just won’t tolerate that behavior, even from movie stars. You just have to be tough enough sometimes to say, “I’m sorry, this is not the right way to behave.” I had a major star just really lace into a talented director, tell him how they wanted things done. And at that moment I said, “Forget it. Either you straighten up or let’s just pack up and go home.”

I once asked a policeman I know in Boston how he handled a riot situation, and he said you’ve got to act crazier than them. And when you’re making movies you have to say I’m willing to be crazier than anybody else. I told the star, “I know this is insane, I know we’re two weeks into the shooting, and I know that this would be madness, but I’m going to shut down this movie.” And it worked beautifully.

I also learned that from a producer named Robert Hakim, who did “Pepe le Moko,” “Belle de Jour” and many other films. When I was a kid starting out in the business, I used to meet Robert in Paris and he used to lecture me and beat me up five hours a day at the George V [hotel]. He told me that when he was making “Purple Noon,” Alain Delon had just become a big star and was terrible, moody and screaming at the director. And three weeks into the movie Hakim shut it down and fired Delon. Delon couldn’t believe it. And three days later, he came back, apologized, and they made a classic.

If you believe in the movie, you have to do the right thing. Sometimes the right thing might not be the sound business decision at the moment but will set the tone for a long time. Somebody’s got to be Wyatt Earp.

Q: The business aspects of the movies are becoming bigger and bigger news. Every director has a story about how their grandmother in Poughkeepsie knows the grosses the day the film opens. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

A: I think it’s a terrible thing. When you see that the Wizard of Oz is just a traveling salesman from Kansas, it spoils the illusion. The best story I can tell about that is a bad story to tell on myself, but I’ll tell it anyhow.

When I owned a theater in Buffalo and was producing concerts, I had Doug Henning the magician for two nights. And when he comes to town everybody has to sign a confidentiality agreement, promising you won’t go backstage and won’t reveal anything. I saw his show the first night and I loved it. I thought it was amazing, he made me a 2-year-old again. And at 4 o’clock in the morning I woke up, got into my car and drove down to the theater.

I saw my six policemen, who worked for me year-round, and I walked up to them and said, “Guys, I’m going backstage. I want to see how this is done.” They said, “Harvey, we signed that piece of paper.” I said, “Guys, I own the theater.” They said, “No, no, no, no, we signed the paper.” I said, “Guys, you work for me full time. Just turn around and forget I’m here at 4 in the morning.”

So I walked in and looked at every one of the tricks, saw how he did it. And because I know how it works, I cannot go to a magic show again. I ruined it for myself.

So all that proliferation of behind-the-scenes stories about the grosses, the deals, the price of a movie, to me it spoils the wonderful innocent illusion of walking into a dark room and waiting for the magic to begin.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

CROSSROADS

Through Jan. 8, the daily Calendar section will continue its series of interviews conducted by Times critics:

TODAY

FILM: Harvey Weinstein.

TUESDAY

ARCHITECTURE: Zaha Hadid.

WEDNESDAY

TELEVISION: Martha Williamson.

THURSDAY

RESTAURANTS: Nancy Silverton.

FRIDAY