“For twenty years,” Fitzgerald says, “Mexicans have gotten screwed by virtually every outsider that has come in here. I wasn’t prepared to do that. In our picture, they are full participants, from every source of income, all over the world. They recoup in the same position, they have the same proportionate profit participation that everybody has. On top of that, they were given all profits in Mexico itself, as a gift from John.” Fitzgerald sold American rights to Universal Classics, while Twentieth Century-Fox took the rest of the world.
At the same time, casting was proceeding. Finney agreed to do the picture. Huston wanted Jacqueline Bisset for Yvonne; he’d directed her early in her career in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. Fitzgerald had been impressed by Anthony Andrews in Brideshead Revisited and showed his work to Huston, who approved him for the part of Hugh. And the work with Gallo continued at Puerto Vallarta.
“All of a sudden,” Fitzgerald says, “we were … I mean this all started at the AFI dinner in March for Chrissakes, and by mid-June we were in feverish preproduction in Mexico.” He remembers Huston’s original interest. “He said, ‘Well, Volcano is there, and it will never get done otherwise; what about taking it over and doing it in the same vein that we did Wise Blood? Which was basically: small, tight, putting every fucking dime on the screen, rather than on bullshit. And that’s what we’ve done.”
Jacqueline Bisset was approached indirectly, through John Foreman, who was Huston’s friend and had produced The Man Who Would Be King. “He told me about the project and asked me would I read it,” Bisset says. “And I thought, Well, it’s an interesting idea, an interesting combination of people.” A first-draft screenplay was sent to her. “My part was not particularly fascinating, but I felt it had to go one way or another: more enigmatic, or much more ‘directioned.’ Both of which seemed fine, if they could move it in one direction or another. John, Wieland, and Guy were all down in Puerto Vallarta working together when I got the second script. So I went to Puerto Vallarta to see them. I read the book in between. In the book Yvonne is not that clear. She’s there very much, if you go through the book looking for her. But I needed to start from some concrete point. There are a lot of abstractions in the book, a lot of symbolism, and things difficult for me to understand: just in terms of story line, from A to B to C, to the end. In the second script, a lot of my queries were answered. I was very touched by the atmosphere of the piece; it haunted me completely; it’s still with me very much. I think it’ll stay with me.”
Bisset had some apprehensions about working again with Huston, and thus found the novel a comfort; it, too, answered some of her questions. “I didn’t imagine John Huston would be someone with whom I could be having a million detailed conversations. I felt one would go to him during the course of shooting for major decisions, rather than quibbling-quabbling. I heard he liked actors to prepare — I’d worked with him before, and didn’t have a particularly close contact with him. I was in that film [she played Paul Newman’s girlfriend in Judge Roy Bean], but didn’t have the benefit of scene preparation or anything like that; I did my bit and it was fine. I think it’s important to know the style of the director and what he expects. Some people like to change everything. And on Judge Roy Bean, they were rewriting the script before every scene, and actors were left with quite large speeches to learn, fifteen minutes before. And I thought, That’s something I would not like to be in [again], because I’m a slow study.”
Bisset laughs when asked about the macho atmosphere of the Volcano set (“It has its moments; it has its nonmoments, too”), but seems quite happy with the experience of making the film. “I quite like things to be run in a fairly businesslike fashion, because there’s a tendency on location for people to start thinking they’re on holiday.”
By the time the film finished shooting last November, it was under its $4 million budget, and five days under its eight-week shooting schedule. “What matters,” Fitzgerald says, “is that we’ve made a film of Under the Volcano, one that some people said could never be made.”
Certainly, a major share of the credit, if the film works, must go to Finney. On one of the last days of shooting, the actor talked about the process that goes into the making of such a performance. “In the beginning, I’m obsessed,” he said. “Getting up at three in the morning, lines buzzing in my head, I’d sit with the script, just think about it. Now, of course, I’m not so obsessed. No, I don’t make notes, don’t write anything down. I just try to remember, to understand what’s going through the character’s mind. Of course, sometimes those thoughts are not going through your mind while you shoot, but I believe that they’re there, that they’re part of the hoped-for density, or the life effect. I don’t make a claim that there is one; but if there is any, they’re there.”
Does he draw on the experiences of his own life to fill out a character like the Consul? “Well, yes. But I’ve never gone this far, as far as the Consul goes, and I don’t think I ever will. There are times in one’s life where one is scratched or kicked, or maybe there was a strange accident of responsibility, because you’re supposed to be good at something and, therefore, you have to deliver. And you want to say, ‘Ah, fuck it, I’ll decide whether I’ll deliver; that’s up to me, not to some sense of responsibility.’ As the Consul does. Therefore, we use those occasions when one’s felt that. But what one needs here is a much deeper, á much more painful extension of that. The Consul goes all the way. So far, I’ve not. I’m still walking about. I’ve not actually thrown the reins away.”
To illustrate what he meant, he talked about acting in Shoot the Moon. “If you are doing a part which is about the breakup of a marriage, about the pain of a relationship coming to an end, a good relationship, a love coming to an end, then constantly you are tinkering subconsciously with your own past. And the memory’s a remarkable thing. I mean you do actually, if you concentrate hard enough, you do remember, you do go back. You don’t only remember the locations, you don’t just remember the apartment you stormed out of with your few belongings. But a capsule opens, and I’m flooded with the emotions I felt at that time. The memory stores those emotions; not just pictures of ít; not just facts or figures; it actually does store the emotions. Therefore, doing a picture like Shoot the Moon is very depressing, because you’re constantly in that area that you can’t help but be.”
Finney said it isn’t simply a matter of using one’s life; certainly for younger actors, there isn’t enough life to draw on, not enough memories. “Imagination does come into play. And possibility. ‘If only I had.…’ ‘And what if.…?’ There’s more in the vault than one thinks, isn’t there? The big problem as you get older is to retain the lack of self-consciousness, to retain a kind of child in your work, to be open. One of the things I love about John is that it’s your own total responsibility. John just says, ‘Well, show me.’ John thinks if he’s cast it right, if the actor’s got some degree of talent, he doesn’t need to direct him. He doesn’t direct. He won’t direct. In other words, he doesn’t direct a lot — seemingly. If you say to John before a scene, ‘Would it be a good idea if…,’ he’ll say, ‘Show me.’ He doesn’t say, ‘That’s quite interesting, but, on the other hand…’ he says, ‘Show me.’ And then you show him, and he says, ‘Well, maybe.’ So John likes to see you offer something. And then he will cajole it, nudge it, bully it, or just say, ’A little less oil and vinegar — a little more lemon.’ Or he may say nothing. If you don’t know John, you may say, ‘Well, he isn’t giving me any direction.’ But when you get to know him a bit, you know that when he doesn’t say anything, he’s happy.”