Creating For Smaller Screens

TG: You wrote for the HBO series "Rome."

MILIUS: Yeah, and that was a very good result. I did not like particularly working with HBO; I had sort of a bad experience with them. But the end result, the product is excellent. I mean, it stands with anything I've done, and it's really good. I created that show and I couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out.

Ray Stevenson (left) and Kevin McKidd in "Rome," the acclaimed HBO series co-created by Milius.

TG: A lot of writers fled to television and cable because they got tired of their movies turning out bad, and being stuck in development hell.

MILIUS: I wasn't one of these guys that go, "Oh film, the shared experience." I liked "Lawrence of Arabia" on television as best as I did the theater. "Lawrence of Arabia" is a good movie, it's a great experience. "Seven Samurai" is good in any size. There's a different effect sometimes, but basically a story is a story. To me, if I had lived in the 19th century, then I'd be writing novels, because that's what I do; I'm just a storyteller.

TG: You're not worried about the screen getting smaller?

MILIUS: No, I'm not worried about any of that. My son said something that was very interesting. I said, "What do you think of these big screen televisions? Do you want hi-def and all this kind of stuff?" He kind of likes that stuff, but he said, "No, I want access. I want to have it when I want it. I can have it on a little screen, but I want to be able to have it when I want it." And that's interesting, because I think a lot of people that like this whole thing of "Oh, we've got to be able to see the special effects" [also claim that] people are interested in everything being just like a theater with surround sound. It's a bunch of crap. People want stories; they want to see the stuff that's going to last. There's got to be a story.

TG: When I saw "The Wind and the Lion," I thought it must have been great to see on a big screen.

MILIUS: Yeah, that movie was very, very good, very powerful on a big screen. It got blown up to 70 millimeter. But if I see it on television, I like it. I maybe like it better now because I was too close to it then.

TG: So without a good story, no fancy stuff is going to help?

MILIUS: Yeah. It's visuals and movies and often music. I think music is lost now. I think one thing that's sort of sad is that movies are no longer scored. They just put in background music or rock and roll drums or something cool sounding. There's no score. There's no thematic music, or maybe that just shows how old I am. I love the idea of the music telling the story. The music is all trying to be cool and give a slant to everything. Music is rarely emotional anymore. You don't find any rousing themes anymore. And yet, we went through a period where music was terrifically important, like in "Star Wars." Look at how important that music was.

TG: Having The Doors in "Apocalypse Now" started their revival.

MILIUS: Yeah, but it's funny because when I first heard The Doors, I always thought of war. I never could hear The Doors, particularly "Light My Fire," "The End" or "L.A. Woman" without thinking of Vietnam mostly. I remembered hearing "Light My Fire" right during the Six Day War, and all I could think about was driving a tank through Gaza!

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