In 2018 there is no war and there is no crime... The world is controlled by corrupt corporations and the violent game of their making - Rollerball, a vicious mutation of football, motor cross and hockey - is how the earth's population unleash their frustrations. This ruthless, deadly game played between teams in leagues demonstrates to the world the futility of individuality and quashes any spark of rebellion.

The world's most popular and gifted Rollerball athlete, Jonathan E (James Caan), plays for the best team, Houston, alongside another rising Rollerball star Moonpie (John Beck).

But as they prepare for the brutal championship battles, Jonathan's natural rebellious streak and his fight for personal freedom becomes a worry for the sinister corporation chiefs. He is encouraged to retire before the big showdown or suffer the deadly consequences. Jonathan, however, decides to play on and fight the biggest battle of his life - to survive.

Interview With Rollerball Director, Norman Jewison

Q. It all started with a short story, didn't it?

A. Yeah, I read a short story in Esquire magazine by William Harrison. It was called Rollerball Murders, and it just turned me on. I thought it was a terrific idea and I was fascinated by the political implications of it. About the idea of a corporate world: a world where political systems had failed, communism had failed, democracy had failed. Multi-nationals had taken over the world. Then there was this Rollerball game on a Saturday night. There was a description of the game but it wasn't really worked out - it was just a short story - so that's where it all started.

Q. So you got William Harrison to write the script...

A. He came over to England and spent the whole summer working on it. Then I took the shooting script to United Artists and they gave us the money to make it.

Q. Is it true that United Artists didn't have a clue what the hell the movie was about?

A. [Laughs] Yeah, they didn't know what it was about.

Q. And that they only let you go with it because you'd had several hits in a row...

A. Yeah, The Russians Are Coming, In the Heat of the Night and Fiddler on the Roof. I kept trying to describe Rollerball to them but they didn't get it. We had yet to work out what the track should look like and how to build it. It was really an incredible gamble.

Q. So who actually came up with the rules of the game, because it's been said that when you guys were first starting out you weren't really sure of what should be going on...

A. I think it was a matter of us sitting down with models - we learnt a lot on the models. In other words, it was all built on this intrepical force of the relent wall: if we fired a ball at a certain trajectory around the top of the track, and the track was wood, laminated and smooth, the ball would fall at slightly different times according to the power with which the ball was shot and the weight of the ball. All of that. So we had to experiment with a model first. Then, when we had built the actual real track, we had to sit there and then come up with a goal. We wanted the ball to be put in a goal because we started to analyse all the different games, like basketball, football and soccer, and all of the games in the world are played with a ball and feature some kind of scoring system. So we added a goal and then we came up with an idea of a magnet; that when the ball hit the magnet it would stick. One thing led to the other, you know, and we just had to work through it with our imaginations and try to figure out what we could do with skaters and motorbikes. We didn't know how fast you could tow someone on a motorbike, and I think it was one of the stuntmen who finally came up with a brilliant idea of a flexible handle that we could grab onto. But actually we couldn't really play the game until the track was built.

Q. How much do you think your vision of the future has come true? The corporations, reality TV...

A. I think we've seen a tremendous increase in violence. I think we've seen computers play a far more important role in our lives. I think we're very close to having our lives controlled by multi-nationals: we're down to maybe five or six major energy companies, five or six companies that control all of the media.

Q. Don't you think it's ironic that you were attracted to the story by the politics, yet it's the action sequences that people remember?

A. It disappointed me.

Q. And that you set out to make an anti-violence statement yet a lot of viewers got off on the violence...

A. When you make a statement about violence you have to show it. That said, it's tame by today's standards. There was a little blood smeared on the track but that's about it. Still, I don't think I was successful with my aim of showing that we're going back to Circus Maximus, that civilisation is becoming more uncivilised.

Q. Talking of violence, you've always said that your experience of going to Stamford Bridge in the 70s to see Chelsea play - of witnessing violence on the terraces - made Rollerball resonate...

A. Absolutely. Watching ice-hockey also came into it. In America, the NHL had expanded tremendously and they spend all of their time focusing on the fights.

Q. And we have to remember you shot Rollerball back in the days when you couldn't rely on CGI. Those stunts had to be real...

A. Yeah, my film was made before computer images. There are no special effects in Rollerball, everything was done for real. It wasn't that we didn't want to use special effects, just that we couldn't do them! I mean, there were a couple of times I under cranked a few shots, but most of it is done at normal speed.

Q. The track itself looks pretty scary, tailor-made for dealing out pain. Who actually built it?

A. We took a model to a German architect who had built the tracks for the bike races at the Olympics. He came in and built the thing. And I remember when the stuntmen came to the first tryout. We had some of the best motorcycle stuntmen in the world and some of the best skaters in the world - and when they saw the pitch of the track they got really frightened. They didn't think they could hold on it, not realising that when you're going 20, 30 miles an hour you "can" hold. And of course this was all worked out in advance by the technicians and architects who were building it...

Q. But once the guys got used to it, you couldn't get them off the thing...

A. [Laughs] People got hurt before we even started. I couldn't stop them playing; they kept sneaking back onto the track when my back was turned. I was terrified all the time. Absolutely terrified.

Q. And wasn't James Caan was the worst of the lot?

A. He was right in the middle of it. He's a big jock. You have to remember that he was a rodeo rider at the time. This guy wrestled steers to the ground...

Q. What made you cast James Caan in the first place?

A. Well, I went to James Caan because I saw a television film he had done where he played a famous football player. There was something about his character in that film - he didn't try to intellectualise the character, he simply had the heart of an athlete. He seemed to be focused on the game and on his own talent, physically. It's hard for me to describe, but I just thought he'd probably played the best athlete I'd ever seen on screen. And so I went to James and presented him with this film and said, you know, 'I'd like you to play the lead in it'. And he says 'I can't skate', and I said 'Well I know you can't skate but I know you can ride. I know you can play football'. I said 'We'll teach you to skate'. So that's when it all started. I was very lucky to get him because I think he brought a kind of simplicity to the character, a believability.

Q. I read somewhere that James Caan said he absolutely loved doing all the rollerblade stuff and he loved playing the game, but he hated all the 'proper acting' back at Pinewood. He said that he couldn't be doing with all the "walking and talking shit".

A. [Laughs loudly] He never said that to me.

Q. Okay, this has to be asked: Have you seen John McTiernan's remake?

A. I haven't. I can't. It was the same with The Thomas Crown Affair. I mean, when they remake one of your movies before you're dead... I was kind of fascinated with McTiernan's Thomas Crown Affair though. I remember going right up to the box office at the theatre in Toronto... and then I couldn't buy the ticket. I kind of slunk away.

Q. The Rollerball remake is pretty dire. Especially the action sequences. They've gone for a compact, figure-of-eight track, meaning there's no real speed or fluency...

A. Well you can't play it then.

Q. The Rollerball DVD is a strong package. Did you enjoy being involved?

A. I love DVDs because they're our library of the future. The only thing that any director leaves behind are their children and their films, so I'm very interested in DVDs. That's where all my films will end up.

Q. But what about the extras? Did you enjoy recording the commentary?

A. Oh, you get into it. Some of it's laborious and you can't always remember the good stuff that you should be telling, but it's interesting - and especially interesting for the film buffs, the people who are committed to films. So yeah, I'm all for it.

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