“The Godzilla Interview”
“The Godzilla Interview” – a short story — is now up, well, “under,” the Stories tab atop this page. I hope you’ll enjoy. It’s rather different from all the preceding non-fiction tales told in my compendium of stories.
Kansai Gaidai. Autumn '84.
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Excerpt (read the whole thing here):
Schindler’s List was as story-driven as a film could be.
Agreed. And in another year and a half it will be a 20-year-old film. Besides, it had Nazi uniforms in it.
Nazi uniforms? What of it.
Everybody knows that any movie will draw 10-20% more people than it otherwise would if you put some Nazi uniforms in it. People go to movies with Nazi uniforms in them.
You’re just making that up.
No, I’m not. Some coalition of Hollywood directors commissioned a study years ago. For most people it’s like watching an incredibly clean, well-pressed, train wreck, and usually the Nazis get killed in horrific ways. I guaran-damn-tee you, if Me-Versus-Megalon had had a giant Nazi in it instead of that poseur, Jet Jaguar, it wouldn’t have bombed at the box office. I know for a fact that one of the producers of Water World begged for some Nazis in that film, but lost that battle and, well, the rest is history, eh? Believe me, they’ve listed to that guy since then.
I’d never heard that.
I know it for a fact. You can look it up. I’ll tell you something else. Everyone who’s anyone knows that in Die Hard (Director John) McTiernan told Alan Rickman to play (terrorist) “Hans Gruber” as if he was wearing a Gestapo Colonel’s uniform. I kid you not. It was a masterful piece of direction and it really brought out the (Godzilla does air quotes here – RN) “sophisticated, sociopathic arrogance” McTiernan was looking for. Rickman nailed it, too. No uniform, but that suave-ass sicko Nazi thing came through. Just like how Conrad Veidt did “Major Stasser” in Casablanca, but Veidt was wearing the uniform, Rickman wasn’t. Anyway, I’d love to stomp some Nazis. And people would pay through the nose to see it, too.
Whether or not deserved, you mentioned you prima donna reputation. Where do you think that comes from.
(Sighs) Oh, a number of things. Most of them should be pretty obvious. I win all my fights. Hey, it’s in the script, you know? Plus a lot of the actors I’ve worked with over the years, God bless them all, seemed to have this little thing in the back of their head where it was, you know, real. So they’re like thinking if they can beat me, and I mean really upstage me, in a fight scene, then they’ll be the next Godzilla. I blame The Method. . . .
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