:09:03
He didn't tell me
horror stories about the war.
:09:07
He made me want to know more.
:09:10
He listened, and I think he
absorbed and internalised it,
:09:14
because it comes out
in the movies later
:09:18
about how he feels.
:09:20
Television was
right there in our world
:09:23
and there were films like
"The Fighting Seabees"
:09:26
and "The Story Of GI Joe"
:09:29
and "Back To Bataan"
:09:30
and "Sands Of lwo Jima".
:09:32
So between my father's stories
:09:34
and John Wayne's
presence in these films,
:09:38
as a youngster I got the impression
:09:41
that war was to be looked at
with a kind of awe.
:09:46
When he was a kid he'd take
my movie camera and use it.
:09:51
He'd say,
"Dad, let me take the pictures.
:09:54
"Yours aren't so hot."
And we'd let him.
:09:59
When I was about 14,
I made some war films.
:10:02
They were filled with glory
and storming the outpost
:10:07
and taking the hill -
:10:09
all that macho, gung-ho stuff
that war movies delivered to us.
:10:14
They'd take these kids
:10:16
and dye shirts dark and light
to be the Nazis and Americans,
:10:21
and played desert warfare
out in the desert in Phoenix.
:10:25
First he wanted real explosives,
:10:27
but I wouldn't buy gunpowder,
so he used this mud trick.
:10:32
We'd bury one end of a stick
in mud and pivot it on a stone.
:10:38
The kid who was to get blown up
would step on the stick,
:10:43
flip the mud in the air
:10:45
and fall and roll over
and contort, stuff like that.
:10:49
It was just making it up.
:10:51
We didn't have any
special effects expertise.
:10:54
It was just making this come to life.
:10:57
I'm in "Escape To Nowhere" -
driving the jeep,