I couldn’t decide where it would be better to post this - in a special thread dedicated to Rinzler’s Making of Jedi or in this one but after long thinking decided to post here. Sorry for it being so lengthy, I’ll try to put in a more readable way by dividing it by shorter pieces.
Just finished reading of Rinzler and have mixed feelings. When I turned the last page I got depressed about what was there. And the major part of my frustration regards the figure of Richard Marquand and the swing of things on the set he got involved in. I really felt compassion to the guy. First of all some of rumors that were circulating over the years («was indifferent to Star Wars, didn’t understand the characters» and so on) turned out to be incorrect: he really WAS a SW fan and really wanted to direct the movie, he even called himself Lucas after being told that there was other candidate! The whole issue of his presence and the interaction with the cast and crew seems now to be a matter of pure psychology and not that of directorial mastery. I’m gonna expand this.
It was tough to get on with directing for George for it’s obvious and well-established his background has always been technology and visual aspects. Someone had shoulder the burden.
They label Marquand «inexperienced», having «low-resumed» list, however my impression from reading the book was more complexed. Certain things that occured while filiming were later interpreted in a oversimplified, far-fetched way. Irvin Kershner was quoted most frequantly on the occasion as reportedly saying that his assistant together with George did almost all job and Marquand didn’t get on with actors very well. This quote appears here and there on the Internet and so often that I for a moment got very suspicious about the origin thinking whether it was fake. Now I have to admit I was wrong, the source is Shock Cinema #24, I ordered the issue and still waiting to go through the complete interview. It’s sad that of the directors of the SW movies Kershner and Lucas gained the lion’s share of attention while Richard still continues to dwell in obscurity. To my mind the godlike approach towards Irvin Kershner looks quite unnatural and superfluous contrary to dismissive one that comes in with Marquand even if Kershner did deserve such panegyric. Surely Kershner was extremely gifted but to make a cult of him is madness. It shows up with even more sharpness especially if we do consider that in Jedi Marquand was under much less favorable conditions than Kersh. First of all (but not the least) it was Lucas’ budget requirement to stay within it - something that wasn’t the key factor when Kersh was directing. Perhaps, human factor of his reputation as George’s mentor, an acknowledged master and his charisma sort of intimidated Lucas preventing the latter from active intervention in the set’s work. Read «Making of Empire» where Lucas sanctioned almost all decisions made by Kersh.