Joe Dante: “I sold the 'Citizen Kane' sleigh for 12.7 million.”

SilosJoe Dante (Morristown, New Jersey, 1946), the director of the two parts of Gremlins, Piranha either The prodigious chip, is an essential name when describing popular cinema from the 1980s. Forged in the B-movie ethic of the Corman factory, he achieved success under the guidance of Steven Spielberg, who saw him as the ideal director for a script about small creatures with a great potential for chaos. This year, the Sitges Film Festival is honoring him as one of its great heroes.

Congratulations on the Grand Prix d'Honneur you will receive this Sunday.

— This is the second one the Festival has awarded me! I already had a Time Machine Award. At first, I didn't understand why they wanted to give me another one. But they said, "No, no, this one is for your entire career." And I said, "Oh, so it's over, my career?" [Laughs] But no, I feel flattered and grateful.

Like other important Hollywood directors, you started working with Roger Corman. What's the most important thing you learned from him?

— Before starting a shoot, Roger would meet me and we'd go for a Coke. Not for lunch, because Roger was very stingy. And his advice was: "During filming, try to sit down as much as you can. Don't congratulate yourself after every plan. And make decisions." For him, the key was efficiency, because he shot on very low budgets. What I learned from him helped me a lot later, even when I had big budgets, because time to shoot is always limited. Reviews of his films from the 1970s always talk about the lovely autumnal feel of the images, and it was because the only way to get them done was to shoot and shoot frantically until the sun went down, which meant he overexposed the celluloid.

It is true that Trump inspired a character of Gremlins 2?

— There's a character, Daniel Clamp, a real estate mogul, who's a combination of Donald Trump and Ted Turner, because he also owns a cable network. He was written as a villain, but the actor who played him, John Glover, brought a childlike quality to the character and made him likable. That wasn't the intention, but it worked better for the film. But I hope it didn't contribute in any way to making Trump president.

Gremlins 2 It's one of the most original sequels ever. It exudes a great sense of freedom. How did you achieve it?

— Because the studio was dying to make a sequel to GremlinsThey hadn't liked the first part; they didn't understand it. But once they saw its success, they said, "Let's make another one." But I was fed up with puppets and left. They tried to make their own version with various scriptwriters, but they didn't get ahead. So, after four years, they called me, acknowledged that I had something to do with the film's success, and asked me if I directed another one. Gremlins They would let me do whatever I wanted. And they kept their word. And I made a film about why there shouldn't be a sequel to Gremlins.

The scene in which the film pretends that the projector has broken and the gremlins have entered the projectionist's booth is one of the most original and funniest I have ever seen in a blockbuster.

— Well, the studio didn't like it! They were like, "If people think the projector's broken, they'll leave the theater!" And I told them no, the joke ends quickly and they'd get it and laugh at themselves for thinking there really were gremlins in the booth. So we did a test screening, and obviously, it was the most liked scene in the entire movie. And they reluctantly agreed to leave it as it was.

In 1997 he directed The Second Civil War, about a hypothetical new civil war in a United States divided by xenophobia and neo-fascism. He wasn't far off the mark.

— I would love for people to be able to see it today. In 1997 it was science fiction, and now it's actually happening. It's one of the films I'm most proud of, and I'm sorry it's not better known. If I had a TV channel, I'd be showing it all day long. But if movies could change the world, the great powers would have disarmed themselves with the release of Doctor Strangelove, and we know that was not the case.

Can a country experiencing a dark period benefit the creativity of artists?

— That's the way it should be. When darkness surrounds you, you should bring some light. And there's a lot of darkness in America right now. But nobody wants to risk money to talk about what's going on, especially business people. They'd just give Trump whatever he wanted to leave them alone. You want to teach right-wing philosophy in universities? Go ahead, but give us back our subsidies. Trump has hijacked the people and the culture. The guy's not a king, but he thinks he is, because there's a Supreme Court that basically lets him do whatever he wants. He has immunity to shoot. Boy Scouts If he wanted to be on the street, nothing would happen to him. And the members of Congress are too worried about losing their jobs, so they won't stand up to him. Horror movies are based on fear, and that's what's driving my country right now: fear.

And what scares you the most?

— May Trump succeed and the United States end up like Hungary, a democracy in name only. That's the path we're headed in.

Which film in your filmography are you most proud of?

— His films are like your children. Some are problematic and flawed, but you love them dearly. The one I enjoyed making the most was The prodigious chipThe actors [Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, Meg Ryan] were so funny... And the idea of one person inside another talking to each other the whole movie was so fun to pull off. Gremlins 2 It was also a lot of fun to do. I try to have fun making movies, because it's very hard work.

It is true that the original sled was many years old. Citizen Kane, the famous Rosebud?

— Yes, I got it in 1985. I was shooting at the studio, which used to be RKO, and they were throwing a bunch of stuff around: furniture, lights... One of the workers brought me something and said, "I was going to throw it around, do you want it?" And it was Rosebud's sled. I snatched it out of his hands and took it home to the projection room. One time they broke in and took the projector, but not the sled, because they didn't know what it was. So I put it in a safe, but it was ridiculous to have one of the most important objects in film history hidden away, so I decided to sell it. We did it through an auction house, and the bidding was incredibly high. In that sense, it wasn't hard to part with. But I don't know who bought it, because they don't tell you. Maybe an actor, maybe the Sultan of Brunei.

How much did they pay for the sled?

— $14.75 million [€12.70 million]. I kept a portion, but the Treasury kept more. And so now all those ICE agents can pay.

By the way, if you were to make a film about your life, about how you became a successful and world-renowned filmmaker, what would the first scene be?

— Mmm... I think it would be like that of Citizen Kane. It would be the scene of my last breath. I would say "Gremlins!" [in a guttural voice] and I would die.