San Francisco Film Society Oral History Project Interview with ...

CLAUDE JARMAN: Yes, it led to the showdown. And I saw Albert at a press conference. What did he
say? “Tomorrow, Mr. Syufy, I’m going to call the mayor, if he’s available, and if I cannot reach a
satisfactory conclusion, I shall resign.” I said, “Albert, you might as well resign, because that ain’t
gonna happen.” (LAUGHS) And as you say, by that point, with Heat and everything, they were ready to
fire him anyway, so it was like, too bad, but—
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Was he surprised?
CLAUDE JARMAN: I think he was. He was living in a dream world, anyway. He was a sweetheart but
it was time for a change. It really was. He thought he was the Festival. And I’m the guy who’s there all
year round while he’s out running around the world. So we just said, “OK. We’ll move on.” I called
Tom Luddy: “Tom, you’re Albert’s friend.” And I said, “Do you want to come and work and take over,
because I know you’re friends.” He said, “I couldn’t do that to Albert.” So I said, “OK. We’ll have to
move on.” Then we went back to New York to a film archivist named Marty Rubin and hired him to do
the tributes. Then we asked Scott Beach to moderate the tributes.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Mark Chase did a lot of them.
CLAUDE JARMAN: Mark did them after—we used Scott one year, and then we felt Mark could do
them. Mark spoke fluent French and was a very sharp guy.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: And he had the knowledge, too.
CLAUDE JARMAN: And he had the knowledge.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: So he would translate simultaneously if—
CLAUDE JARMAN: If he had someone like Truffaut, yes.
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