Matt Patches: You sound much more involved then I would have expected.

Baz Luhrmann: I was part of every single step. Our units worked on it for over a year. There is material in the picture-and-picture, all the original designs pop up on the video. We released stuff from the vault. Here's the thing: when you're making movies and increasingly so, marketing is developing materials that are sales materials. It's people going, 'Oh, it's so wonderful working with Baz, he's so wonderful.' And you're like, 'yeah, but tell me something that's true about making a movie.'

Matt Patches: EPK's aren't exactly the most thrilling of experiences.

Baz Luhrmann: So I've got video that was shot on Handicam, we're talking fifteen years ago on the set of Romeo + Juliet and it's called, 'Uncut from the Vault.' So when you push that button, there's no manipulation of the image. There are some little pictures on how you develop the scene, but most of it is just, 'here are the actors and the director having it out...'

Matt Patches: Who's shooting that stuff on set?

Baz Luhrmann: Mainly my assistant or me. You see a lot of me grabbing a video camera in rehearsals and working the shots out. When the shot in the video looks like the shot in the film, that's what it is, practicing shots.

To give you an example, the beginning of Moulin Rouge, for a long time was different, it began with Father and Son, the Cat Stevens song. We recorded an orchestration, Ewan Mcgregor recorded vocally, but Cat Stevens said, 'no,' so we changed it. He's actually reversed that point of view and in a very positive way, embraced it. So for the first time, you will see that opening number. You see Leonardo [Dicaprio] and Claire [Danes], they're first rehearsal kissing...I wanted to make it a one-stop shop, because who knows if I'll ever revisit these discs again.

Jump to:

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Baz Luhrmann rattles off a few dozen of his favorite films.

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