MIKE SIEGEL
1967 | Sindelfingen | Alemanha

Nota Biográfica:
Mike Siegel nasceu em 1967, em Sindelfingen, na Alemanha, passando a infância no cinema local onde viu mais de 3000 filmes. Aos seis anos, tornou-se modelo fotográfico, descoberto pelo seu vizinho, o famoso fotógrafo Manfred Rieker. Começou a coleccionar cartazes de filmes e teve o seu primeiro contacto com o cinema através dos primeiros filmes de ficção científica de Roland Emmerich, rodados na sua cidade natal. A seguir trabalhou como mecânico e durante dez anos teve diversos empregos: motorista de táxi, gerente de cinema, vendedor de seguros, barman, jardineiro, vendedor de cartazes e camionista.
Em 1992 emigrou para Munique, onde trabalhou num dos maiores cinemas da Alemanha. 1996 foi um ponto de viragem, quando conheceu o cineasta norte-americano Robert Rodriguez (“El Mariachi”, “Sin City”), que o encorajou a filmar a sua primeira longa-metragem, “PENDECHOS!”, rodada em 16 mm, com um orçamento de $ 12.000. Como Rodriguez, Mike fez tudo sozinho: produção, realização, argumento, fotografia, montagem, etc..
No ano 2000 co-organizou em Pádua, Itália, uma restrospectiva do realizador Sam Peckinpah. Actores convidados, como James Coburn e Ali MacGraw, concordaram em participar no documentário “PASSION & POETRY – THE BALLAD OF SAM PECKINPAH”, de Mike Siegel, que seria filmado em 2003 no México, Los Angeles, Londres e Berlim, com a participação de muitas outras “lendas”, como Ernest Borgnine ou Kris Kristofferson.
Em 2003 foi publicado na Alemanha o foto-livro de Mike Siegel sobre Peckinpah, “PASSION & POETRY – SAM PECKINPAH IN PICTURES”, e em 2005 estreou, no Festival de Cinema de Munique, o documentário “PASSION & POETRY – THE BALLAD OF SAM PECKINPAH”. Depois de várias exibições em festivais internacionais de cinema – em Haifa, Bradford, Locarno, Bolonha e Atlanta –, o filme foi finalmente lançado em DVD, como uma edição especial de 2 discos, em 2009.
Gravou comentários em áudio, produziu extras para lançamentos internacionais de filmes clássicos em DVD e ainda realizou documentários sobre os realizadores italianos Sergio Sollima, Sergio Leone, Ferdinando Baldi, entre outros.
Entusiasta do Opel GT há muitos anos, começou a filmar “OPEL GT – DRIVING THE DREAM”, em 2008, um documentário que celebra o 40º aniversário do famoso carro desportivo.
Mike Siegel é também co-autor do livro definitivo sobre o percurso cinematográfico de Steve McQueen, “STEVE MCQUEEN – THE ACTOR & HIS FILMS”, publicado em 2011, em Chicago.
Nos anos seguintes vendeu o seu primeiro argumento e realizou mais documentários sobre Sam Peckinpah, co-produzindo mais de 30 lançamentos internacionais em DVD e Blu-ray: “Major Dundee”, Straw Dogs”, “Junior Bonner”, “Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia”, “The Killer Elite”, “Cross of Iron”, “Convoy” e “The Osterman Weekend”.
Mike Siegel escreve regularmente sobre cinema, quer como autor de livretos para DVD´s, quer para a revista norte-americana “Cinema Retro”. Continua o seu projecto “PASSION & POETRY”, uma série contínua de documentários sobre os filmes de Peckinpah.

Filmografia:
2022 Passion & Poetry – Sam’s Final Cut
2021 Cops in Arizona – Mike Siegel über Electra Glide in Blue
2021 Duke’s Traumprojekt: Mike Siegel über the Alamo
2020 Clintus & Siegelini – Mike Siegel über the Beguiled
2019 Passion & Poetry – The Dundee Odyssey
2019 The Passion & Poetry Project
2018 Marisol: Sergio Leone’s Madonna in the West
2017 Passion & Poetry: Peckinpah Anecdotes
2017 Passion & Poetry: Rodeo Time
2016 The Glory Guys: Passion & Poetry – Senta & Sam
2016 No Retakes! No Surrender!
2016 Pendechos!
2016 Budd Boetticher: Hollywood Stories
2014 Passion & Poetry: Sam’s Favorite Film
2013 Passion & Poetry: Sam’s Trucker Movie
2013 Passion & Poetry: Sam’s Killer Elite
2011 Passion & Poetry: Sam’s War
2010 Opel GT – Driving the Dream
2010 Passion & Poetry: The Early Sam
2008 Sollima & die Piraten – Der schwarze Korsar
2007 Passion & Poetry: Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs
2006 Abenteuer Filme machen – Mario Adorf erzählt
2005 Passion & Poetry: Major Dundee
2005 Passion & Poetry: The Ballad of Sam Peckinpah
2005 Brutale Stadt: Bronson & Sollima
2005 Sergio Sollima: Face to Face
2005 The Western World of Ferdinando Baldi
2004 Sandokans Abenteuer

 

ENCOUNTER WITH MIKE SIEGEL
By Mário Fernandes and José Oliveira

«You have to grab hold of the ass of life with your teeth and never let go. You have to embrace life; really live it instead of just exist…Whatever the experience is, take it to the limit. Don´t let the moment go. Live it!»

Sam Peckinpah to Begoña Palacios

Do you remember the first Sam Peckinpah movie you saw? What was your first impression?
CONVOY of all films (laughs), I was very young, 11 years old. In Germany it was rated 16. Somehow I sneaked in anyway and was very happy, it was one of the summer hits of 1978, a film one had to see. I loved the energy of the film, on the big screen it was quite an experience for a young boy. Of course I had no idea who Peckinpah was. That changed very quickly, a year later I saw CROSS OF IRON! A totally different experience, especially considering my family background, not many had survived the war. I spent all my time in the local cinema, like the little boy “Toto“ in Tornatore’s CINEMA PARADISO and I became a student of film at a very young age. I also did some programming there and between 1980 and 1984 I saw most of Peckinpah’s films in our cinema and became a huge fan. Especially after I saw THE WILD BUNCH in 1981, although it was shortened in Germany for the 1975 re-release and ran only 122 minutes.

Much of your life has been a road leading to a mountain called Peckinpah. What motivated you, imbued with the spirit of the pioneers, with low budget and without great apparatus, to meet those legends you interviewed, to travel thousands of kilometers, to visit the “hacienda” where “The Wild Bunch” was filmed, the digging in the desert looking for munitions abandoned by the hordes of Peckinpah, making so many documentaries (with several versions) around his work, rescuing so many lost stories and films from oblivion, gathering a gigantic collection with thousands of photographs, many compiled in the book “Passion & Poetry: Sam Peckinpah in Pictures”, which is an indestructible monument and memorial to Peckinpah’s life and work? Did you have support or did you do it all at your own expense because you couldn’t help but do it?
Many questions (laughs). Regarding my archive: I started collecting photos and posters back in 1979. Did you see Truffaut’s DAY FOR NIGHT? A dream sequence shows young Truffaut stealing CITIZEN KANE lobby cards. I did the same thing. But only once: I felt bad about it, stealing, and very soon I became a pain in the neck at our local cinema until they gave me the job of displaying posters and lobby cards. We had a very big lobby (laughs). So I could take home stuff legally, more or less. By now I have about 50.000 photos, but I still have that first lobby card I stole at our local cinema, EASY RIDER. Which is still my favorite film next to THE WILD BUNCH. My archive is quite big, Peckinpah is only a part of it. Actually, I financed PASSION & POETRY by selling movie posters at eBay! Regarding my ongoing work on Peckinpah: that all happened by accident (laughs). I had spent time with Roland Emmerich when he made his first Sci-fi films here in our hometown of Sindelfingen (near Stuttgart, rather known for Mercedes-Benz), but I never thought about becoming a filmmaker, there was just too much money involved, it seemed much too far away for me. But when I moved to Munich in 1991 and later worked at the biggest German premiere cinema, I was in contact with celebrities, filmmakers and actors, all the time. I met Robert Wise, Budd Boetticher, John Milius, Richard Donner and many others. The continental premiere of GOLDENEYE was held in our cinema and I supplied Pierce Brosnan with Bavarian beer, that was fun. The independent cinema was big in the 90s and when I met Robert Rodriguez (EL MARIACHI), I had found my key to enter (no-budget) film making. I sold movie posters and for about €12,000, I made the cheapest action road movie ever made over here. PENDECHOS!, shot on Super 16, based on what Rodriguez had told me regarding EL MARIACHI, which he did for $8000. It was a big adventure and worked quite well, I was learning every day, every hour. The film had no impact though, the dubbing was poor and the story not good enough. While I was writing a second, hopefully better, feature film I was suddenly invited to co-organize a Peckinpah retrospective in Padua / Italy in September 2000. Together with another Peckinpah – collector, Jeff Slater, I did a big exhibition and provided some rare TV films. The idea of meeting Jim Coburn, Ali MacGraw and others actually started the idea of making a film about Peckinpah. It was supposed to be produced / directed by me and Michael Krause, a German screenwriter who had the German TV interested in our project. We had a terrific time in Padua, we all still talk about it. We all became friends, spending most of our 10 days there in restaurants, talking forever, having a great time. Back in Germany the TV network decided against our project and Michael dropped out. That’s when my journey started: I decided to do it Rodriguez-style. Just go ahead with it and do everything myself. Which is a bit crazy. No money, no crew… and I wanted to film in four or five countries! Four people helped me do it: US film maker Patrick Gleason housed and assisted me in LA for 5 weeks, which kept my budget down. In return, he had a great time of course, meeting Borgnine, Ali, Isela Vega, R.G. Armstrong and so many others. In Mexico Rolly Brook was essential to my film – he found the hacienda for me, back in 2002 it was impossible to find its exact location living 10.000 km away. I spent a week at his place in Torreon / Durango and together we drove every day the 150 miles to the hacienda. I thought it was a good idea to film Peckinpah’s Mexican daughter Lupita there, so I booked a flight for her and she stayed with us for two days. Back in Germany I was broke again and my friend Elmar Berger stepped in and bought me a MAC G4 computer to start editing. A year later, after more filming, I was broke again. To finish post production I needed more money than I could make with my poster sales. I tried to reach Roland Emmerich, back in 1986 I more or less saved a day of filming for him. I naïvely thought they might return the favour, but after so many years they probably did not remember me. My good friend Chris Prowting saved the project. Claiming that he wanted to “invest a little in art“ he gave me the money to finish the film. Once finished, I wanted to go back into feature filmmaking. I wrote a lot and sold a script. But being (too) independent, I could not distribute PASSION & POETRY the right way, legal issues are always a problem with documentaries like this, and money was always tight. That’s why I started producing DVD and Blu-ray supplements. I did many other projects, but somehow I’m still producing stuff on Peckinpah. Whenever I think “enough now!“ another project else pops up (laughs).

You collected testimonies from a good part of Sam Peckinpah’s “family”: mythical actors like James Coburn, Ernest Borgnine, Ali MacGraw, Kris Kristofferson, LQ Jones, RG Armstrong, also producers, friends and direct family, like Lupita Peckinpah (with whom you visited the “hacienda”) and Fern Lea Peter. And collaborators like Katy Haber, co-producer of your film, who was a kind of guardian angel and caretaker for Sam Peckinpah, saving his life several times, especially when he had his first heart attack on the set of “Cross of Iron ”… Who else would you have liked to have talked to about Sam and couldn’t? Have you tried, for example, to interview Bob Dylan to add to this colossal family album?
I could have met more people. That’s when I regretted having no network-deal, no real money in the film… I was in contact with James Caan and Dustin Hoffman, Mariette Hartley, Stella Stevens, Barbara Leigh, Wolf Hartwig, Rutger Hauer and others, but I could not afford to fly around the globe just for one or two more interviews. I was OK with it. I knew I had more than enough footage from the 23 interviews I filmed. Kris Kristofferson liked me and asked me, whether he should bring me in contact with Bob Dylan. Thinking back on it, of course it would be really cool to have him. But back then I was really struggling to finish the film, I could not afford to go to New York. By the way, Kristofferson is a good example of the difficulties I faced. Kris I really wanted, for obvious reasons. He made three films with Sam. But he lives in Hawaii. He invited me in 2003, but again… I had no money. In 2004 he contacted me and said he was in LA for 2 weeks and that we could do the interview there, in his Malibu hotel suite. He thought that I was American (laughs). I had to find a way to get the footage. So I immediately called my friend Patrick in LA: “Get a cinematographer and prepare the filming in the hotel! Get a speaker phone! I will talk to him on the speaker phone and you will film him!“. Patrick did it. When they arrived to meet Kris he asked “Where’s Mike ??“. Patrick pointed to the phone! “He is on the line from Germany, he lives there…“ Kris wasn’t sure it would work. I was talking „down from the floor“ where the phone was, his eye-line was with Patrick, next to the camera. The connection was very bad, I could not hear him really and I could not see him of course. Very difficult. The ice was broken when I heard the New York Airport radio on the phone and suddenly had a noisy helicopter on top of my house, at four in the morning. Kris was laughing so hard and we relaxed and had a lot of fun. Some of these outtakes I included somewhere in my documentaries. Very funny.
Six years later Kris contacted me again: “I am doing a concert in Stuttgart soon, it’s about time we meet!“ He invited me to the show and I spent time with him backstage. Nine years after I first contacted him we finally met in person (laughs).

“Passion and Poetry: The Ballad of Sam Peckinpah” is a “quixotic” adventure, as you wrote in your “Diary of a Crazy Man” [2000-2005], made up of several stages. Having done this all the way, what impressed or surprised you the most about this trip?
It was not a trip, but really a big part of my life for many years. If you make a film like this all by yourself it takes forever, but you really live it. You are not part of the team, you are the team. The painful times I try not to remember, and there were many. Mostly personal and technical, like a broken hard disc when the film was almost done and the backup disc also didn’t work. But the good stuff will always stay in my heart. First of all, these people are all very special. They come from a different time, when individuals and characters were different than today. And Sam gathered some of the most interesting and most talented people around him. I was lucky to spend a lot of time with them.
L.Q. Jones actually “surprised“ me. He taught me how to really fight for someone. He was the only one I was in contact with in the 90s, years before this all started. We exchanged hilarious letters over the years and when I started PASSION & POETRY I thought “L.Q. I will get anyway. He knows me, likes me…“ But when I arrived in LA he did not want to do it without being paid. I was so naive, I didn’t even know that people get paid for these interviews. I understand now of course. Everybody wants something from them. L.Q. for instance worked with Elvis, Raoul Walsh, Don Siegel, Peckinpah… People come and want you talking on-camera and then they sell their DVD’s or whatever, with your interview footage, everybody makes money except the interviewed person… But I did not pay anybody, I could hardly pay my rent. I just won them over with my passion for Peckinpah and my project. Later on I met documentary filmmakers who asked me “How did you pay them all??“ (laughs).
Anyway, I visited L.Q. every week in LA, great private talks, but he wanted money. It’s a longer story, but in the end, I passed his tests and I got him. Two days before I left Los Angeles! He rewarded me with a three hour interview! Almost everyone in my film is connected with a good story, too much to tell here. Personally, I had some of the best days of my life at Mapache’s hacienda in Mexico. It is in a very remote and desolate area, and, except for a few locals, nobody was there for ages. I love Mexico anyway, but when I first walked around there, it was pure magic as you can imagine.

We hear the voice of the great Monte Hellman as the narrator in your film and we can’t help but remember Peckinpah’s appearance in the brilliant western that is “China 9, Liberty 37”. How did that meeting between you and Hellman happen?
That’s a nice story. First, I was fighting for Hardy Krüger as narrator. He just passed at the age of 93. My favorite German actor. He knew Sam and I met him. But he is very much his own man, very strong and independent. The reason I met Monte is actually Peter Fonda! EASY RIDER had a profound impact on me and really changed my life, and he and Dennis Hopper are among my biggest heroes. Next to Costa-Gavras, Pasolini and some other people (laughs). Peter was at the Berlinale 2004, New-Hollywood was the theme of the festival that year. He lived in Livingston / Montana, as Warren Oates had, and Peckinpah, late in his life. So he knew Sam and I saw my chance to have EASY RIDER in my Peckinpah film. One for me, you know… You can’t really approach celebrities at the major festivals, but my actor / director friend Vadim Glowna (CROSS OF IRON) always liked and supported my work. He found out when Peter was in the VIP launch, talked to press officials and said ”Come to Berlin, dress up and meet me in the hall…“. The hall was packed with press people, the Berlinale is a big circus. I greeted some journalists I knew and I could see them thinking ”what is he doing here? He doesn’t even have accreditation…“ Vadim showed up, took my hand, greeted some festival officials and rushed us into the VIP lounge. Fonda’s press official for the day, they watch and ”protect“ the festival guests like guards, granted me 15 minutes with Peter alone. Enough for me to connect. We had a great talk and he agreed to be in my film. I was Mr. Happy for 20 minutes until I learned that the festival practically owns their guests and I could not film him at all! Peter said ”Never mind… come to Montana, be my guest. I’ll show you around, there are some places in the city where you can still see the holes in the walls, Sam was firing his guns sometimes…“ (laughs). As I said before, money is the reason why I didn’t film certain people. I also couldn’t fly to Montana. This one hurt the most probably. I never saw Peter again in person. But in 2018 I finally worked with him on a big project, just before he died. We were doing a big EASY RIDER book for TASCHEN, the best art book publisher in the world. That was a dream project for me. I first had the idea in 2010, I have a unique archive on the film I want to share with the world. Eight years later it finally happened. We were working at it for months when he suddenly passed. And TASCHEN did not want to finish and publish the book without him. That was my biggest professional blow ever, it still hurts. Anyway, I got sidetracked, forgive me. Back to Berlin (laughs). So Peter and the press guard leave and I am devasted. No Peter. Drove up there all for nothing (Rodriguez school: returning without any footage at all I have to regard as major fuck-up). Vadim watches me and says, ”Let’s have a wine at the VIP bar…“ While I’m drowning my sorrows I see this silhouette standing all alone by himself in the dark. Monte Hellman! I go and introduce myself. He is a rebel too, and not as ”famous“ and guarded as Peter, maybe I’d get him! He knew Sam well, I guess you know that he was supposed to direct PAT GARRETT. He was also one of the editors on THE KILLER ELITE (1975). We had a nice talk and I think he would have done it, but I saw in his face that he was not very excited. Of course not. He was a filmmaker himself and always they asked him for Peckinpah. Also, he already was in Paul Joyce’s Peckinpah film MAN OF IRON. The more we talked the more I fell in love with his voice, which I always loved. Getting Hardy Krüger was a lesser chance than 50/50 anyway so suddenly I have a flash of brightness in my dark mood and ask him ”How about becoming the narrator of my film?“ Monte’s face lights up. He loves the idea. ”I never did something like that, I think, that sounds great…“. I wrote all the narration myself and he loved it. He thought it was really good and hearing it from his mouth made me very proud, because I loved the man so much. TWO-LANE BLACKTOP is one of the best films ever made. Sam loved it too, and talked about it all the time to help promoting it. To no avail, of course, because Universal totally ignored TWO-LANE. It wasn’t even released in continental Europe!

One of the many precious testimonies in your film is that of Ernest Borgnine, who recalls a very emotional scene from “The Wild Bunch”, when he plays with William Holden by the fire, like two old gunslingers who foresee the end of their career and, however, they refuse “reform”. Peckinpah forgot to say “cut” and Borgnine saw that he was crying. Do you think that the reverse side of the so-called cruelty in Sam’s cinema is an extraordinary tenderness, as if hiding, in the words of Max Evans, «his beautiful heart behind bullshit, blow, and booze»?
I never think or thought in these terms. To me he was just a man, a very passionate man. An artist, like many great artists equipped with a difficult character. Not suitable for a normal family life – whatever that means. I spent 40+ years now fighting this one-sided “Bloody Sam” image of his. Because, to quote Angel, “You have no eyes.” Most people didn’t get the beauty of his direction, which is about characters, details, mise-en-scène – not slow-motion violence. It is almost a CATCH 22 situation: he did action better than anybody else in the 60s and 70s. So people reduced and still reduce him to this. Sure, THE WILD BUNCH was extremely violent for its time. But it was a film about violent people in very violent times and also a comment on America’s violence of the late 60s. They always say this film and BONNIE & CLYDE were the first to use squibs to show the effect of a bullet hit, but that’s not true at all. It had been done before, I just saw an Audie Murphy western from the 50’s using squibs! Anyway, I think some of his films appear to be “cruel” because he just made them better than other directors. Or let’s say, “more intimate”. They have a strong impact on audiences. Other director’s, like Kubrick, show us that the world is a bad place, but Peckinpah takes us right in. He suffers with his protagonists and does the same to us – we feel with them. To me, that’s a higher artistic level than just “showing” it. Not many filmmakers have that talent. His passion comes across on the screen and his passion also was the reason why he could not control himself sometimes and why he created so much trouble – to himself and to others. He trapped himself, of course, with his outlaw image, which he fed all the time. He was one of the coolest movie people ever, but executives think twice before they trust a director with millions of dollars. Personally, I think he was a manic – depressive. I have a little knowledge about that, very often it is not easy to live with that. But of course he had a big heart and values I live by myself: trust, friendship, the word you give to someone and who those persons really are… There are countless stories dealing with things he did for his friends and crew members. But people rather hear about “firing people” and scandals, that’s seems to be more entertaining. Same with his films. He didn’t want to have a career in “action films”. He was a drama student, a Tennessee Williams fan! People think that directors can pick any subject they like and just make the film. That’s not the case unless you deal with very commercial filmmaking. Sam only chose one film himself, developing it from the very start: ALFREDO GARCIA. But he had that unique talent that he could make a masterpiece out of a mediocre screenplay or lesser book. By adding his values, his themes, the details, his touch… I was so happy to co-produce the JUNIOR BONNER Blu-ray years ago. I’m not sure the film has many more fans now, but at least it is finally available now for future generations. It is one of his best films – and no-one dies. Not even a horse. It deals with people, family, values, the human heart… But people, especially men, prefer the spectacle of course. The more the better… I am not like that, one-sided views bore me to death. One can appreciate and love all different aspects of cinema. I love L’AVVENTURA and DAWN OF THE DEAD (laughs).

It is difficult to imagine “The Wild Bunch” without the brilliant William Holden, an inveterate alcoholic at the time, which made him especially apt to adapt to the insanity of a production that also included the “loco” Emilio Fernández [Mexican director who had shot and killed a film critic]. But, interestingly, the role of Pike was to be assigned to Brian Keith, who, however, rejected him with these words: “Thanks Sam, but I stopped drinking.” From the many photographs you’ve collected, what do you imagine the environment would be like when shooting a Sam Peckinpah film?
As far as I know Brian Keith couldn’t do the film because he was tied up in his TV series, he did two at that time. I doubt he ever was a big “drinking buddy” of Sam’s. A lot of folklore out there. But of course he thought of Keith, who had been very important in his life. I think THE WESTERNER is the best TV Western series ever made. Made by adults for adults. And Keith started Sam as a feature director with DEADLY COMPANIONS, he refused to do the film without Sam directing. That lead to certain problems, but Sam was in feature films now. As for the “shooting environment”: I wasn’t there, unfortunately. Too young (laughs). He made himself the center of the work, very demanding, I am sure it was hard work for everybody. And also adventurous, that’s for sure. That’s what creative people should embrace I think, boredom is the nemesis of entertainment (laughs). That’s easy to say now of course, I’m sure he could drive you crazy. But all this energy is on the screen now! I doubt he was partying too much when he was filming. Drinking too much, sure, he was addicted… But don’t forget that he was working around the clock. Any (good) director does. You film for 10 or more hours, you watch dailies, you work on the script and you prepare the next day. Also, you have to answer 281 questions, see Truffaut’s DAY FOR NIGHT (laughs). He liked to have drinking buddies around of course, we all do. Drinking all by yourself is a bit sad. Some people joined in, like Jason or Kris (before he quit), others did not even drink alcohol, like L.Q. Jones or David Warner. Drinking alcohol was just a fact, but certainly not a criterion whether to work for him or not. Vadim Glowna tells the story that he was drinking a lot of booze all day long – without ever being fully drunk. He was not the only one, many people are addicted and do great work. Of course that changed when he started cocaine. It even killed him in the end.

At the beginning and end of “Passion and Poetry: The Ballad of Sam Peckinpah”, we see Peckinpah, already looking faded, directing the video clip “Too Long for Goodbyes”, his latest work. As far as you know, what was his final period like?
His health was going down, he had abused his body so badly for many years. He was writing a lot, hoping for a producer to call. He was sad and tired. Mainly because he got no film after OSTERMAN WEEKEND. He had hoped for a revival of his directing career. He brought OSTERMAN in on time and on budget. It was not a hit, but it did ok at the box office. But the business changed for the worse in the 80’s, Hollywood wanted TOP GUN and crap like that. The great filmmakers were not in demand anymore, the golden age of New Hollywood was over, the producers were back in power and controlled the directors now. Robert Altman even went back to the stage and TV for many years. I worked a lot on OSTERMAN last year. I was so lucky that Sam’s friend and archivist Don Hyde gave me the only existing 35mm print of Sam’s director’s cut. At first I thought that this must be the preview cut, which is on the old DVD. I was so excited when I realized, that this is Sam’s final cut, which he did with the editor after the producers dismissed him and his preview cut. Nobody ever saw that version before, it was stored away for 38 years! And now I helped releasing it, a wonderful project.

Do you think Sam Peckinpah left heirs in American cinema or was his entire cinema too temperamental for that?
Not temperamental, but passionate. And I don’t believe in “heirs”. Great artists influence other great, or not-so-great, artists, for sure. He himself was influenced too of course. But real artists do their own thing. There’s only one Peckinpah, only one Billy Wilder, only one Antonioni. I like John Woo’s 1980s Hongkong films, especially A BETTER TOMORROW and THE KILLER. Sam’s style is all over the place, but Woo found his own way of dealing with similar themes.

After so many years working on his legacy, what do you think about the causes of so many clashes and miseries with producers and studios? Sam, as some say, was he looking for this to be scarred and shattered on the screen? For everything to vibrate in an unprecedented way? Or could he not avoid it due to his wild nature?
Difficult to answer. Some say he needed a nemesis, someone, producers of course, he could dislike and fight to get his creative mojo going. Then again, he made JUNIOR BONNER in total harmony. I myself am sure: if he would have had the working conditions of Stanley Kubrick, total freedom so to speak, he would have done even better films after 1972. But the drinking and the drugs surely made him angry very often, unpredictable and he loved picking fights here and there anyway. Then again, he was not alone, hating certain types of producers. Which serious filmmaker would not fight for his film? It’s a very difficult business, sometimes the battle of egos becomes bigger than the work itself. Jerry Bresler could have released DUNDEE in a much better version. But it seems he wanted to fight back at Sam. Or Monte Hellman’s TWO-LANE BLACKTOP… just dismissed by its own studio! Can you imagine the pain? When you give it all for a year or two, all that hard inspired work to make a good film and then they just decide to re-cut, dismiss or poorly promote your film? While they fired Peckinpah on CONVOY, we have a little longer version now, the same producers wanted to cut out the whole Russian Orthodox wedding from THE DEER HUNTER! If they would have been successful the film would have collapsed. Paramount wanted to cut out Audrey Hepburn singing Moon River in BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S. She freaked out and fought hard for it. Thank Heavens, it’s one of cinema’s best moments! They just didn’t get it, like so many times…

Sam admired John Ford. Do you know if they met? Do you have any good stories to tell about this (possible) encounter?
He admired Kurosawa and Fellini even more. But sure, Ford was the man. I love him. GRAPES OF WRATH and HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY are my favorites. The very best in film making. Yes, he met John Ford, very briefly. David Weddle states in his Peckinpah biography that Peckinpah shock his hand, in front of the MGM Thalberg building. After he had finished RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, in 1962. He spoke to Ford for less than a minute, but sometimes that’s enough, just to see a hero and shake his hand. I met a lot of people in my life and was glad and privileged to work with many of them, but one simple hand shake I still do think of a lot of times: I was walking around Picadilly in London in 1994 when someone did exit a house and bumped right into me. It was Dave Gilmour! I love Pink Floyd and felt like a little happy kid when he shook my hand.

Frank Kowalski “shot” Peckinpah in the face one day: “Sam, you’re going to lose so many friends that when you come to die there won’t be enough people to carry your coffin. Say good-bye to one less coffin bearer”. In the book “Going crazy with Sam Peckinpah”, Max Evans describes the director as “the greatest goddamned paradox in the art world”. What part of Sam do you admit you still haven’t figured out that makes you curious? What are the secrets that remain and may never be clear? If you had a Heineken with him, what would you ask him?
Ah, Max Evans. Great man. I never met him in person, but we exchanged letters over the years. He even mentioned me in his last book “Going crazy…”. Although he got the story with L.Q. wrong, I never paid him. (laughs) Paradox… yes. But that’s life. We all have many sides, but most of us are not as wild and passionate as Sam was. I sort of grew up as a street dog, I knew many people like Sam, a crazy and “paradox”. But they didn’t make art. Thank heavens Sam did. My favorite guys in cinema are people who really had life experience, like McQueen or Charlie Bronson. It shows on the screen. Most modern actors do great work, but something is missing. That smell of the streets, of real life, when it hits you hard… I’m not sure I would ask him much about his work. Just talk. Find an interesting subject and just talk. I connect with certain people very well and I am not star-struck. But I don’t like beer, I am not your typical German (laughs). I like Tequlia. That would be a good opener I suppose and if he would have liked me, we would have talked about politics, the human condition. Bitching about the film business, dishonest people. Talking about women, life experiences, maybe. Don Hyde told me he always showed him films over the years. Sam was too busy to follow films. I would have done the same and then maybe trying to find out why he wouldn’t like some of those great films. Probably because he didn’t make them (laughs). I love showing other people my favorite films, always hoping that they are on fire afterwards. I would talk with him about other films, not his own. Every director hopes that he has not to explain his film – not to anyone! Just like Peckinpah I believe in the words he says in my film: “Everything I am is up there on that screen…”. Angel again. You need to “have eyes” to see it. It is all there. No need to talk about it forever…

Perhaps because we drive, in Fundão, a yellow Opel Corsa – manufactured in Rüsselsheim, Germany, in 1993 – a car with many kilometers of stories and which we baptized with the name of Yellowleg [Name of the protagonist, played by Brian Keith, in “The Deadly Companions”, by Sam Peckinpah], we would like to ask you about your film “Opel GT – Driving the Dream” [2010]. How did this project come about?
That also happened by accident. I love the GT, I used to work as a mechanic in the 80s at the local Opel dealer. My first car was a GT and now I drive another one – for 22 years now. At the 40th anniversary of the car, we held the big Europe Meeting here in Stuttgart. Hundreds of cars and thousands of visitors. I wanted to film a few interviews and screen them at the 4-day event. But the Rodriguez’ school kicked in again: why work on footage for “just an event”. So I decided to make a full documentary on the car. I got the designer of the car interested, its father so to speak, and it became a nice project. Filming it all Rodriguez’ guerilla style… The film came out quite well, although made on a shoe – string budget…

You´re telling us things on Rodriguez. We are also curious about your meeting with him in 1997. Do you want to tell that story? You’ve been talking a lot about Robert Rodriguez and we’re just as curious about your meeting with him, if we are not wrong, in 1997. Do you want to tell that story?
Of all the movie people I ever met, he had the biggest impact on my life. 1996 he was in Munich with Salma Hayek to premiere FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. I had heard that he had made EL MARIACHI for $8000, but I didn’t really believe it. Even CLERKS, EVIL DEAD and those other, wonderful, super-low budget films had cost 30.000 or 50.000. That summer I wanted to make my first short film on 35mm. I had saved up about €5000, selling movie posters, as usual, and had written a nice script. The German DUSK premiere was superb, we had a Titty Twister, Bikers, Mariachis, Tequila, the works… I got to dance with Salma a bit, truly memorable. Robert took some time to explain to me how he did EL MARIACHI. He talked me out of making a 35mm short (“Waste of money Mike!”). I wrote down everything he told me and decided to follow his steps. I got very excited and stopped production on my short film and the following year I made my feature film PENDECHOS! Shot on Super 16, using my friends and locations and props I got for free. Editing on BetaCam at the local TV station. They let me do it for free because I showed them a little trailer, just like Robert did in Texas. I went a little over budget, film stock is more expensive over here, I filmed in many different places and also I am less talented than Godfather Rodriguez. But at about $12.000 I did pretty well. His book Rebel Without A Crew became one of my bibles (laughs).

You also dedicated part of your work to other directors, such as the magnificent and rarely remembered Sergio Sollima, author of “Faccia a Faccia”. How did you discover this filmmaker and what interested you the most in his work?
That happened because my friend Ulrich Bruckner (Explosive Media) had started the DVD label at Koch – Media (now Koch Films) back in 2003. He asked me whether it was a good idea or not to release SANDOKAN in Germany. I strongly voted for it, my generation grew up with Sollima’s 5-hour film. Ulrich had people in Rome to film Sollima for us and he gave me the job of doing four documentaries on him once he got the rights for the Van Cleef / Milian westerns, the Bronson film (CITTA VIOLENTA) and CORSARO NERO . I forwarded them all my questions and over the next years I spent many months editing, translating… That way I spent so much time “with him”, it felt like he was my own grandfather (laughs). His westerns are great of course. In Germany he is well – remembered for those, by film fans anyway. We probably helped a little bit. In general, I’m quite critical with the Western All’Italiana genre, because there are so many bad ones. But because I’m a scholar of some of them, people always think that I love the whole genre. But that’s not the case. They made about 500 Italian westerns from 1964 to 1980 and I think over 400 are not that interesting, many actually being quite terrible. But at its best the genre produced dozens of great ones, including some real masterpieces like IL GRANDE SILENZIO. Or Damiani’s QUIEN SABE? I also like Giuseppe Colizzi a lot, people never talk about him, he died very young, back in 1978. He had a great style, being a protegé of Leone, the very best of them all. A few years ago, I made a little Blu-ray documentary about FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, I had become friendly with Marianne Koch, who lives near Munich. I would have done more on Leone, but he already has his biographers who take care of his legacy. I decided to do that for Peckinpah. On Peckinpah, so much was written over the years, more than 40 books altogether, but not many documentaries existed, that’s why I’m doing them. The more people hear about him, the more they get interested in his work. At least that’s what we’re hoping for (laughs).