RM : Changing the subject, I read an interview of yours where you were saying that two of the most recent impressive movies were "Heat" (1995) and "Leaving Las Vegas" (1996). Personally I didn't really like "Heat," but "Leaving Las Vegas," I found astonishing. I didn't think America was capable of making such a movie.

American movies almost always used to have happy endings. That was what American movies were all about. People would sit back, relax and enjoy because they knew that it was going to be a happy ending. Of course you still get these kinds of movies from Hollywood, but not always, you know. You can't always tell. I realized this when I started seeing the movies of David Lynch, or movies like "Seven" or "Alien 3." They are very "European."

Anyway, about "Leaving Las Vegas," I was very impressed by the way Nicholas Cage and the prostitute Elizabeth Shu didn't really intervene with each other's way of life. They accept each other just as they are. Usually in America, if you are smoking, for example, the person right beside you would tell you to stop and would probably advise you by saying "Hey, you shouldn't do that any more." They interact with each

other and can't leave other people on their own. But in "Leaving Las Vegas," it was different and it struck me as very unusual as an American movie.

SE : Well, I think in "Leaving Las Vegas" you have two characters who are basically, in one way or another, as we would say in America, at the end of their rope. Each of them needs somebody else who is at the end of his or her rope, if only to play out the final scenes of their own lives. I think the two characters in "Leaving Las Vegas" enter into this tacit unspoken agreement by which each accept the other person's life as it is being lived. By doing that, they hope that they can interact on some other level.

RM : The fact that you liked "Heat" and I didn't is very interesting. Of course, the acting of De Niro and Al Pacino was great. But for example, the way Robert De Niro meets this woman, or when Al Pachino's girl friend's daughter tries to commit suicide. . . these episodes don't seem to have reality at all. I think these episodes were intended to be the other way around: to give reality to these characters, but I don't think they work. I have seen "Heat" three times, but I still don't remember the story.

Maybe it has something to do with cultural background. Maybe there is something that only Americans can understand. For example, the image of the family. In America, the firm bonds that used to connect people have weakened, and the family is gradually breaking down. Maybe the movie depicts this change, and this is what strikes the American collective unconsciousness.

SE : I agree with some of what you just said about "Heat." I certainly agree about the meaning and, in fact, the entire relationship between the De Niro character and the woman. I also agree that it may not seem an utterly realistic film, in part because it is purposely a very stylized film. Michael Mann is a very stylized

film-maker. I'm not sure exactly how popular "Heat" was with American audiences, to tell you the truth. I think they thought it was going be another entertaining block-buster with lots of shootings and violence and they weren't prepared for the bleakness of the film. But I responded to Michael Mann's stylization.

Even allowing for what we said about the De Niro's character and the woman he becomes involved with, I was also struck that in this very male, masculine movie, the film maker had taken the time to imagine and write lives for the female characters. We may not have seen and heard everything there was to see and hear about those characters, but watching the film, I never had any doubt that the film maker had thought through the characters and had given them small but crucial role in this bleak, masculine epic.