A slight redemption of Jerry Bruckheimer

[MacGuffin]

Size does matter. Just ask blockbuster-meister Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer behind such larger-than-life Hollywood hits as Top Gun, Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. When it comes to the grand-tableau action epic, nobody does it better than Bruckheimer. This year alone, the prolific producer is responsible for no fewer than four major studio releases: Kangaroo Jack, Pirates of the Caribbean, Bad Boys II and the upcoming Veronica Guerin.

It should come as no surprise that the director he credits with influencing him most is none other than David Lean, whose spectacular tales sometimes proved too big for conventional 35mm filmmaking (Lean shot his most legendary epic, Lawrence of Arabia, in 70mm). Rather than asking him to predict the films that inspire the directors he hires -- "Each director comes to it with his own point of view and his own references. Some of them just want to create their own thing and don't want to look back," he says -- we asked Bruckheimer to tell us what he thinks about five of the biggest, brashest movies of all time. Here's what he picked...
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The Bridge on the River Kwai
(1957; dir: David Lean, starring: William Holden, Alec Guinness)
The films that influenced me most were the David Lean movies: Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago. I saw them in the order they were released. You look at David Lean's work, and visually it's stunning. I think Lean, just based on the little I know about him, was a real romantic himself. He started as a film editor, and film editors are usually great storytellers. They know how to craft a story for a character. Bridge on the River Kwai is about a Japanese prison camp and the British officer whom the Japanese entrust with getting the captured British soldiers to work on this bridge. Alec Guinness plays the commander in charge of the British, and the movie focuses on his stubbornness and the lengths to which he goes in order to protect his men. In the end, he takes a lot of pride when they finish the bridge, but what he doesn't know is that his men are planning to blow it up. So it's a character study with strong themes, a big scope, great characters and a fabulous concept.

Lawrence of Arabia
(1963, dir: David Lean, starring: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness)
Again, it's a phenomenal character study of a very complicated individual and his vision of what he believed in and how he lived out his dream. I love the chance that Lean took by hiring an unknown actor. He put Peter O'Toole in the lead role and made him a movie star, and he also cast a little-known Egyptian actor named Omar Sharif. What impresses me most is the sense of recognizing talent and sticking to his guns, rather than having a studio forcing him with the big name of the day. [When I'm producing a movie,] I get involved in everything. With casting, I'll see a tape of anyone who speaks. It's rare in my career that I've had a sure bet. With Flashdance, we cast an unknown girl, Jennifer Beals. The director had just finished a failed movie, but I took a shot because I believed that he was really talented [director Adrian Lyne went on to direct Fatal Attraction and Unfaithful]. On Beverly Hills Cop, we used Eddie Murphy, who had never carried a picture by himself, and we were told that no African-American actor could ever open a movie to more than $20 million. The movie did $234 million just in America back in 1985! Can you imagine what that would be today? And on Bad Boys, we took two TV actors, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, who were not considered movie stars, and it turned out really well using a first-time director named Michael Bay. So those are all big risks.

Doctor Zhivago
(1965; dir: David Lean, starring: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie)
It's a classic love story (they just don't get any better!) set against the huge backdrop of the Russian revolution. I think Lean was a real romantic himself. It's just amazing the kind of movies he got to make, and they were very expensive movies in those days. He started as a film editor -- and film editors are usually great storytellers because they know how to craft a story for a character -- and then he hired people who would bolster him in the areas where maybe he wasn't as strong. I studied the quality kind of work that Lean did, and he consistently went back to a lot of the same technicians he had worked with in the past -- cinematographer Freddie Young and screenwriter Robert Bolt -- but also he also had the visual eye to create that stuff. We tried to do the same thing with Pirates of the Caribbean by hiring really gifted cinematographers and the writers who wrote Shrek, who are as good as you can get in Hollywood. You surround yourself with talented people, and they make you look good.

The Godfather
(1972; dir: Francis Ford Coppola, starring: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino)
I just love the richness of character and story and the execution. The phenomenal lighting and cinematography of Gordon Willis, the production design of Dean Tavoularis, the direction and writing of Coppola and the casting are all amazing. It's all about the people you hire. When it comes to picking talent, the only way to do it right is by doing your homework, seeing movies, caring about each individual piece of the puzzle. There's no detail that's too small to grab your attention. Even the dolly grip; if he has the right personality and work ethic, it makes everybody's life a lot easier. If you put the wrong guy in there, he could blow your whole movie. On The Godfather, Coppola did an amazing job choosing the people he hired to carry out his vision. He had such a rich drama with well-drawn characters, all put together by a master. I've never had a script with that kind of dramatic content: You've got a family that's being torn apart, and it's just fascinating how he establishes the characters, then carries through the plot. You care about these people, even though they were on the other side of the law.

The French Connection
(1971, dir: William Friedkin, starring: Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider)
It's like a locomotive. It never stops. The French Connection was a picture that was full of energy. I don't know if it holds up today, but it just went blasting forward. You couldn't take a breath, and I love that kind of drama. It showed cops working in very different ways. They went undercover as repairmen. You'd never seen that before. The only cops you saw on TV were "Dragnet" and "Route 66." It changed your perception of what was really going on in the world. The director and the writers took the time to research what was happening with law enforcement, and they brought it to the screen. It's fresh and unique, and that's what I love.