I recently responded to a query as to whether I had a copy of the August 1996 issue of VENICE, Los Angeles Arts and Entertainment Magazine, since I was the Film Editor from 1990 to 1999, because a cover interview featured Kurt Russell about Escape from LA, written and directed by John Carpenter.

I could not find it among the copies of VENICE in my office, because I had only saved the ones were my articles were featured on the cover, my complete collection having been picked up last year by the Claremont Colleges Library to be added to my archives. Click here for the Elisa Leonelli Photojournalist Collection.

Subsequently, I pulled out the Kurt Russell folder from one of the 20 plus filing cabinet drawers in my studio, and found the Venice interview by Darrel Hope among the clippings.

I recalled the night in 1980 when I was invited to visit the Los Angeles set of Escape from New York. I scanned a few photos I took, but have no recording of the interviews.

I did interview Kurt Russell in 1983 about Silkwood, in 1986 about Big Trouble in Little China, in 1988 about Tequila Sunrise, when I also photographed him, in 1994 about Stargate, in 1996 about Escape from LA, in 1997 about Breakdown, in 1998 about Soldier, in 2001 about 3000 Miles from Graceland, in 2015 about The Hateful Eight by Quentin Tarantino, and a dozen more times.

On July 19, 1996, I also interviewed John Carpenter, with producer Debra Hill, about Escape from LA, and in reading now what the writer-director said then, I found some quotes that could apply to today.

“Most science fiction and action movies since the 80s take the point of view that the hero is usually on the side of the right wing, whether he takes the law into his own hands or not. All of these films basically have the same general idea, look at True Lies by James Cameron as an example. Who were the bad guys? Cliché Persians. The enemy we fear is always the other, either from the outside, like the aliens coming down to Earth, or from the inside.

“In Escape From LA what I really say is that what we have to watch out for is not the enemy from outer space, the enemy are the Republicans and they’re taking over the world. But that’s just because I’m from the old days, when we used to smoke dope and hate the government. In my film we have a Muslim who’s heroic, she’s killed, but she’s a nice person (Valeria Golino). The biggest villain is the right wing white president.

“In horror movies, you always boil it down to a conflict between external and internal. You’ve got a tribe of people sitting around a camp fire and the medicine man is saying, we have all got to be afraid of whatever is out there beyond the darkness, it’s that other tribe down the river, they’re evil, they’re demons, we have to kill them.

“Now what I did on Escape From LA was to create a fictional America of the future in which the country has become a theocracy and the morally guilty are deported to Los Angeles. The idea came from inverting the idea of the first movie, Escape from New York. New York was a prison and the rest of the country was free. In this movie the rest of the country is like Russia during the 50s, it’s walled off, and the only free place is Los Angeles.

“Then I’m sneaking in all sorts of references to what we want to call politically correct. There’s a movement now in America to restrict a lot of our freedoms in order to have order, we’re ready to get rid of all our freedoms, we want to be told what to do and we want the rules really clear cut. But I come from a place of arrested development as an adolescent. My whole being is, never tell me what to do. I hate being told what to do. It’s just an absolute questioning and hatred of authority.”

For incredibly deep coverage of those cult movies, read the two books by Andreas Johansson, Escape Artists Vol 1 and 2, and his blog.