Guanajuato 2014: Roger Corman's Master Class (Recap And Photos)

B movie king Roger Corman was honored this year at the Guanajuato International Film Festival (GIFF).

A selection of both Corman-directed and produced films were screened during the festival, at such venues as the city's Teatro Juarez, the graveyard, and the university. Corman presented all of them in Guanajuato Capital (one of the two cities that hosted the festival), staying up late to visit the graveyard where such films as The Tomb of Ligeia and The Pit and the Pendulum were shown.

I arrived late to the celebration but still just in time for the main homage and the master class. On Friday, August 1, the festival's official homage to Corman happened at the Teatro Juarez. It began with a video that introduced Roger Corman to the audience (with footage ripped off mostly from the documentary Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel), and with the legend himself talking for a few minutes about The Intruder, the chosen film for the night. He said The Intruder was a very personal film and probably the best he has ever made.

On Saturday, August 2, the master class was held, which you can read about below. Corman talked about some of his films as well, and you can find what he said on The Fast and the Furious, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Intruder, The Wild Angels, The Trip, and Grand Theft Auto in the gallery below; which also includes very cool, exclusive photos of Corman in Mexico! Read on.

oger Corman's GIFF 2014 Master Class

Photo Credit: Claudia Aguilar Guarneros

A day later, on Saturday, August 2, the GIFF offered Corman's master class at the Auditorio del Estado; sadly, not many people attended this event, but for sure it was their loss, as Corman had never visited a Mexican festival before and, ultimately, the one-hour chat between Corman, a moderator, and the audience, was nothing less than magnificent and, certainly, a true filmmaking lesson from one of the great living legends.

Many themes composed the master class, but you could tell that the audience's main interest was on the how to make your movie aspect and on Corman's role as a mentor for younger filmmakers. For Corman himself, the films he directed are as important as the "Roger Corman film school" that graduated such talents as Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Joe Dante, John Sayles, and James Cameron. "The Academy gave me an Oscar not for any specific film but as a lifetime achievement award. My work as a filmmaker and helping young directors is equally important", said the 88-year-old Corman.

The fact that his company New World Pictures distributed foreign auteur cinema in the U.S., by the likes of Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Alain Resnais, and François Truffaut, was also discussed during the master class. Corman admitted that while he enjoyed a good relationship with, say, Bergman, he never had a deeper friendship with any of these directors.

Another key subject of the chat was the digital vs. celluloid debate. Corman considers digital better in terms of production, as you can shoot faster, and thinks it is very debatable and questionable the saying that 35 or 16 mm looks better than digital. Corman also confirmed that, compared to the days of New World Pictures, today it is much easier to produce a film yet is way harder to distribute it.

"All of our films got theatrical release. Today, the studios with their $200 million products dominate theatrical distribution so much that independents can't sustain a company through theatrical release", said Corman, who also believes the theory that both Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have about many major Hollywood blockbusters flopping at the box office in the near future. For Corman, that might open the door for the independents to distribute their movies.

Roger Corman on THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS (1955)

“The film was actually a fairly good picture. It was a road racing film. I made money twice off The Fast and the Furious. It was very successful and a few years ago I sold the title to Universal, and they had even more success with The Fast and the Furious than I had.”

Corman on THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1960)

“Most of the films I made when I started were shot in two weeks, with a 10-day schedule. That was the standard for low budget pictures at that time.

“When I made The Little Shop of Horrors, I made it partly as a bet and partly just as a joke to see if I could shoot it in two days plus a night of second unit shooting. At the time, a friend said to me when the picture was finished: Roger, you must remember that making a film is not a horse race, is not about how fast you can go. I said, you’re absolutely right, I’ll never make a picture in two days again. And I never did.”

Corman on THE INTRUDER (1962)

“I was very much in favor of racial integration. The north of the United States was pretty much integrated; blacks and whites went to the same schools, the same hospitals. The south was segregated, and they had recently passed a law that the schools in the south had to be integrated. It was just starting and there was beginning to be violence. I felt I wanted to make a picture on this very important subject.

“The film was received very well. My brother produced it and I directed it; we shot it in three weeks in the south, with a new actor who came from Broadway (William Shatner) in the lead role. The film went to the Venice Film Festival and a number of other festivals; the reviews were wonderful, one said The Intruder is a major credit to the entire American film industry; but it was the first film I ever made that lost money.

“If The Intruder had been successful, I probably would have continued along that vein. The fact that it was not successful made me rethink what I was doing; maybe I was lecturing to the audience and not entertaining them, or maybe it was just a film that they didn’t want to see. So I shifted my style and decided my films, on the surface, would be an entertainment, and beneath the surface, the subtext would be a subject matter or a theme or a thought that was important to me. That was how I made most of my films, not all of them, many were just straight, pure entertainment.”

Corman on THE WILD ANGELS (1966) and THE TRIP (1967)

“After making the Edgar Allan Poe pictures, and other films that were shot in the studio, I just wanted to get away from shooting in a studio and go back to do films like The Intruder but with what I thought were more popular subjects. So I made The Wild Angels, which was the first of the Hell Angels biker films.

“It was the opening night film at the Venice Film Festival and it was very controversial. Some critics praised it as an examination of pop culture in the United States; others condemned it for glorifying what they thought was the violence in the U.S. But it was a huge success.

“I felt I didn’t get my fair share in the profits. The exact same thing happened with The Trip, another LSD trip and the only American film at the Cannes Film Festival that year (1967). Again, I felt my share in the profits were not correct and I said, enough of this, I’m going to start my own company so they (American International Pictures) can’t do this to me.”

Corman on GRAND THEFT AUTO (1977)

“Just as with The Fast and the Furious, we scored two times with Grand Theft Auto; one on making the film and then on selling the rights. I sued the video game company (Rockstar Games) and they settled down, of course, so we set a price.”