Cat People

:00:11

Hello, this is Paul Schrader.

:00:13

This film, Cat People,
was made right after American Gigolo.

:00:19

It was offered to me.

:00:21

Universal was doing remakes
of a number of their classics,

:00:25

they had also done The Thing.

:00:28

I thought it'd be interesting
to make a film that I didn't write -

:00:33

this was written by Alan Ormsby -

:00:35

and that was a genre film.

:00:40

It didn't quite turn out that way.

:00:44

It ended up being as personal,
or more personal,

:00:47

than any of the films I've done.

:00:51

The original script
had a very conventional ending

:00:55

and the final film has

:00:59

one of the more bizarre endings in films.

:01:06

The most important name
on the credits, for me,

:01:09

is a man named Nando Scarfiotti
who was a very dear friend,

:01:17

who I had brought over from Italy
to do American Gigolo.

:01:22

He wasn't yet in the union,

:01:24

that's why he's called
a visual consultant.

:01:28

He had worked for Bertolucci

:01:30

on The Conformist
and Last Tango In Paris

:01:33

and went on to get an Oscar
for The Last Emperor.

:01:37

He was

:01:39

very, very influential

:01:43

on this film.

:01:45

He had the power to walk on the set

:01:49

and stop shooting and consult

:01:53

if he didn't think it was going right.

:01:56

This whole credit sequence was his idea.