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Then later in my career, after I left David Lean, I began to wonder why I was doing all these set ups for other people when I might as well be doing it for myself. So I started directing.
“The thing I didn’t know about then was how I would relate to actors, because that was something I wasn’t terribly concerned with before. I had to find my way in that, and was very care- ful to cast actors who knew what they were doing. I still think that’s important, that casting is one of the vital elements in getting a picture to work.”
Interestingly Green had no problem
letting go of his old area of responsibili- ty: “You don’t realise it before, but while directing looks fairly easy it’s not. You’re very pre-occupied by it, so I was very glad to leave those other problems behind me to someone I respected, and let them do it. Mostly it worked.”
Although Green might now be enjoying a well earned retirement, he is still active. He is even contemplating a co-directing job, with “a big star” who wants his help on a forthcoming pro- ject. And he has stayed in touch with the business, seeing plenty of movies in his role as a committee member for the
Academy, helping to view and select candidates for Best Foreign Language Film contention. He keeps an eye on modern cameramen too.
“I think they’re all pretty good these days, though no-one really stands out. I suppose one has to recognise Vittorio Storaro. He’s got a terrific record. There are half a dozen American cameramen at the top of the list too.
“But to me the giants of cinematog- raphy are people like Gregg Toland and Charlie Lang. In fact Charlie pho- tographed a picture for me years ago. When we were about halfway through it I
said to him: ‘I’m a great admirer of your father, I watched all his films when I was a young man.’ But incredibly he told me that his father wasn’t a cameraman - that in fact he himself was the same Charlie Lang whose films I’d seen and enjoyed