I was pondering on the future of the studio system the other day, wondering how much longer it could hang on in the current economic downturn. The last time I was in LA I visited Paramount for a meeting with the new administration. It was on the day when Tom Cruise was booted off the lot for bad sofa behaviour and this was the headline on both the trades and the serious papers. When I first came to LA in 1987 I had an office on the Paramount lot (I was making Internal Affairs) and so this visit had a nostalgic overtone to it. I remember my first feelings of being on a huge movie studio, it was underwhelming, try as I might to have some kind of spiritual connection with the great movies that may have been made here I was never able to make the connection. This may have been to do with the fact that I found it difficult to see anything ‘artistic’ within the walls of the studio. I saw lots of technicians and even more administration folks. I saw lots of extras, some were aliens, (I guess back in the day they would have been cowboys or Indians or Pirates) but I never saw an arty type. In the restaurants I saw agents and execs, suits of a limited persuasion, but I never saw any artytypes. One day there was a strange event, the huge blue screen that towered over the car park was knocked down and replaced with a new version. I took a piece of the blue screen with me and framed it, I have it still, it looks like a piece of 60’s avant garde painting, cracked and over painted many times, and I am moved strangely by the association of what film it might have been the background for. I guess its function was for pick-ups and the cameraman just lined up his shot against it. I think people thought me odd for wanting to take it.

Also on this lot I had my first experience of a test audience. Internal Affairs had pretty much been shot under the radar of the studio and I don’t think they were paying much attention to it. Richard Gere’s career was in hibernation following ‘King David’. The legendary Joe Farrel was in charge of these screenings, I believe he shot to fame after Fatal Attraction proved that the audience is always right, a sad day for the studio system.

The night of the test screening arrived and the film played like gangbusters with the test audience reacting perfectly, screaming and shouting advice to the actors on screen. Madonna was in the audience and afterwards she told me I’d made the perfect gay movie. Standing outside, waiting for the test scores to come I was suddenly surrounded by a group of uber-friendly producers and execs. Someone offered me a cigar and everyone was anticipating very high scores. When the tests came back they were low and the faces fell, it seemed that the audience wanted Dennis Peck (Gere’s character) to die slowly and painfully and fully conscious. And so it was decided that a new (and more audience friendly) ending should be filmed. The day of the re-shoot arrived, actors were recalled from other films, wigs made to deal with problem hair etc but unfortunately no-one had thought to actually write a new ending and as a result of this slip the ‘new’ ending, which was arrived at by a collaboration between various of the actors, myself and the producer was even darker than the ending the studio had wanted to replace.

 So being back on the lot revived a lot of these memories and I thought I might go for a stroll after my meeting and check out the old office. It was in a building named after Bing Crosby but Bing had gone and as far as I could see had been replaced by Billy Wilder. There were signs everywhere saying no photography, which is funny considering the nature of the beast, and why not? What’s the issue here? Having found the ‘was Bing, now Billy’ venue I sneaked out my small camera and was about to take a shot when there was a fierce knocking on a window and I thought I was for it. Door opened and out stepped the beautiful Brooke Shields. “Wow, you have a lot of influence here” I said. She looked puzzled, “exit TOM” I said. She got the joke.

The meeting with the executives was friendly and the man and woman both said they were fans and etc. They both had already assumed the pressured look that executives running studios wear as a uniform and kept glancing at their watches so I was aware that we were already on overtime. I had a few questions for them, I knew that I wasn’t about to get any serious work out of the meeting so it was ok to be a bit more academic. I asked them what the wage bill for the studio was per week. This genuinely intrigued me as it does every time I step into a large corporation be it a studio, an advertising agency or a post-production house. They looked puzzled and clearly had no idea what the answer was.

By the way, if anyone does know the answer I’d love to hear it.

So, long story short, it makes me ponder on the future of the studio system. The studios themselves are such an anachronism, huge tracts of real estate with bricks and mortar to maintain and a monster wage bill to find every week, no wonder studio films are so expensive. Is this the best way to make films in the 21^st century? Clearly the answer is no. But on the other hand I can understand the problem from the studio point of view. A very complex and highly profitable structure has evolved and up until the last few years there was no real economic reason to question the structure. And then along came digital technology and overnight most of what the studio offered is redundant. On a tiny scale I can see the problem in my own work studio, I have racks of sound and video equipment that I know I will never use again because everything they did can be done on a computer for a fraction of the cost. I can’t even give this stuff away and I probably paid thousands of dollars for it not so long ago. But I’m not paying any salaries and the studios are. And this has to be a system that looks after itself, protects itself and hangs on to the old status quo, protecting jobs and money. But how much longer can they hang on to a system that does not make business sense? Let’s face it, if it was Ford or General motors the studios would have been closed before now. I guess my other point is that if the studios had a reality check then it is highly possible that better films might emerge from the new order. But who knows? Who knows anything?

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I was in the supermarket yesterday evening doing the rounds when the following incident took place. A young Chinese man (early 20’s) approached one of the supermarket employees who was stacking shelves. Miming a hat, the Chinese guy said “Plastic for the shower?” – the supermarket guy said “No, mate, we don’t do ‘em.” As the Chinese guy was walking away the supermarket dude shouted after him “Try Boots.” Now this is the best feed line I’ve heard in a long while but then I realized it came from a different era. Boots, by the way, is the largest chain store of chemists in the UK. When I was growing up, most of the schoolboy jokes were about contraceptives and the huge embarrassment of having to ask for them in a chemist. One such joke had the young guy whispering to the stern shop assistant “I’d like to buy a packet of three” (contraceptives) and the assistant replying “we don’t sell them, try boots” and the young guy saying “I want to fuck her, not kick her to death.”

I’m reading my friend Paul Mazursky’s book Show Me The Magic. It is hilarious. Paul, like me, is a giggler. He tells many stories about cracking up in circumstances that are inappropriate. One such story involves Danny Kaye and the build-up to the story is so perfectly told that I began laughing before the punchline and am smiling now remembering it. Later I read it to my girlfriend, Rosey, and made her crack up as well. The book is a fascinating account of the more interesting side of American filmmaking and well worth a read.

I like to read several books at the same time – the books live in different parts of the apartment. I finally finished Madame Bovary and was very depressed by the end of it. I’m still loving the Anthony Powell series and am also reading his diaries and autobiography at the same time, dipping from one to the other. Above the bath there is a small bookcase with mainly jazz writing in it. Favourite is Whitney Balliet’s Collected Works. WB was the jazz critic for the New Yorker for 50 years and is that rare thing, a writer who can evoke music. I tried this approach with Pauline Kael and found it quite boring, she doesn’t evoke anything except herself.

I’m now firmly hooked on Mad Men. The 2nd series seems to have settled down and the characters have somehow come to life. I have offered my services to the series – I did one episode of Sopranos and loved it, in and out high energy.

I wrote last time about my friend Ritsaert. I remembered that when he closed his theatre, I went over to Amsterdam with a video camera. He organized a four-day celebration with lots of performances and a party. I’ve moved into a new studio in London and part of the deal was a huge clearing out of thousands of video tapes, dailies from every film. The precious stuff I catalogued and put on shelves up to the ceiling. There I found the tapes from the Ritsaert party. Nervously, I put them onto a machine, often times these tapes do not survive well – but these were perfect. I interviewed him twice during this event, all about his life and the theatre. I will cut it together as a tribute.

I’m reading scripts again. Also I’m writing a novel, it’s based on a joke.

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I'm in Italy having a holiday. But it's a kind of working holiday. The first week, Rosey and I travelled back and forth to a music festival in the pretty little town of Cortona. The second week I went back to London for two days to do a photo shoot for a friend and the third week we went to Switzerland, where I spent three days talking to a bunch of philosophers about the meaning of life. I'll come back to that. Right now, it's eight in the morning and I'm looking out on a view of an Umbrian farming valley.

I fell in love with Italy ten years ago when I was filming The Loss of Sexual Innocence and have been coming back ever since. Four years ago I bought a little stone farmhouse from a retired English couple but when they vacated the place they took everything, every light fitting, toilet paper holder, the works. About this time, I decided to give up the house in LA that I'd been renting for the past 17 years. Things didn't seem to work out between me and the studios and I figured that if I did need to come and work in LA then the Chateau Marmont (my first home there) would be just fine. Over the years I'd accumulated a lot of stuff. I was lonely in LA and every Saturday I would mosey down to Tower Records and Book Soup and I'd spend big money on music and literature to fill up my lonely house with culture. Once home I would arrange the CDs and the books but never use them.

So...once I realized that my Italian house was completely empty of everything a logic presented itself. I found a company that would move my stuff from LA to Italy. I checked into the Chateau Marmont and began the business of packing up. I tried to do it without sentimentality but it's hard. I decided to move everything, every dustpan, sheet, bed, furniture, the works. On the day a hit squad turned up, part Israeli, part Mexican. They attacked and within one hour the house was naked. Armed with giant rolls of corrugated cardboard, cling film and scotch tape they cocooned the baby grand piano and everything else and then suddenly I was in an empty space and my 'things' were off in limbo. This was the end of September and they said it would take about six weeks but time went by and no sign or word about my LA stuff. To make matters more complex, I'd broken my leg badly, slipping on oil in a gas station (more about that another time) so I wasn't exactly very mobile. Eventually the container did turn up in Italy and then followed a period of Italian red tape. Italy is amazing but it maybe has the most antiquated system of bureaucracy in Europe. There's a terrific book called THE DARK HEART OF ITALY that I recommend everyone to read, (it gets to the point and all roads seem to lead back to Berlusconi.)

Eventually the container was delivered in a blizzard on the day before New Year's Eve. Luckily for me I had an English couple to look after things for me and they got everything up the dirt track to the house. The piano went on the side of a tractor. I was in England. So my first visit to the house with things in it came a while later. I took a budget flight from London, arrived in Pisa, rented a car and drove. I got hopelessly lost (I now only travel with sat-nav) and couldn't find the house. Finally as dawn was breaking I arrived. My English couple had unpacked for me, more than that they had arranged the house. Nothing was where I would have put it and there were photographs on the wall that I had long retired, relationships that I no longer had etc. My past life in LA staring me in the face. I spent the next days moving, re-arranging and rediscovering things I'd forgotten (or wanted to forget)...but also treasures and objects that I had never seen before, other than the time that I bought them and then immediately forgot about them.

Now, two years later and everything has a place and a new familiarity. What gems I acquired in LA! Beautiful art Books, a fabulous music collection, some quirky furniture from the Rose Bowl, a rocking Chair from Binghamton. Oh, the baby grand, after three months on the open sea and in various docks? I opened the lid with trepidation and played the keys, perfectly in tune.

I now have this angle on LA, there is so much of LA in these objects and I find I miss the place, actually I miss the people, I particularly miss the Farmers Market, which for all those years was my sanity centre. A small group of (mainly) guys who every morning would sum up the Hollywood situation with wit and perspective. (Paul, I would love it if you felt you could contribute something to the ongoing conversation about writing and the film scene there).

Switzerland was interesting. Way up in the mountains there is a graduate school and I was there for three days to do whatever I liked. I deconstructed TIMECODE. Using versions one, eleven and fourteen (of fifteen) I tried to show how the film progressed in the 2-week period of shooting. I was looking at material I'd never really seen before – the film was shot on four cameras and I shot one of them so the other three were without my presence. As I'd only seen the material in quad form the single screen viewing was new to me. What struck me was the brilliance of the actors and how, in that limited period they took responsibility for themselves and began developing their characters and at the same time having an awareness of other space and time. Ms [Jeanne] Tripplehorn is pure genius. Also the camera work is amazing. It's a terrific example of the fact that given the opportunity most people are creative and responsible. It really pissed me off the way TIMECODE was never really appreciated for what it did. All the bollox about 24 and Russian Arc and then Soderberg making a film in which the actors had to do their own makeup and drive themselves to work etc, all of which had been done already in TIMECODE. So it was fascinating to see the development of the film over the three days I was in Yodel central. I finished and Peter Greenaway began his three days. We sat in on his first seminar and it was fascinating to see that he was dealing with the same subjects (film narrative, the limitations of conventional filmmaking etc) albeit in a radically different way.

I have a small DVD player here and we have watched a few movies. Brighton Rock is thought of as a classic....it seemed very straitjacketed by the period it was made in, I remember the book as being much more vicious and interesting, I must check out the ending in the book, surely it's not as dumb as the film ending. The Golden Compass? What the fuck? The score is pretty funny.

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I'm in Italy for a break but had to return to London to do a shoot for a friend. Passing through Stansted airport is an experience I would recommend only to enemies. Also flying Ryanair is something depressing. At the airport I noticed that the trolleys are no longer free. As I've made my way around the world, I have noticed how the airports have begun charging for the trolleys. This is so mean spirited. Airport companies must be run by very cynical, mean people. And the private companies that take care of security. The fiasco built around liquids and hand baggage. To be robbed of cosmetics and water and then to be immediately confronted by the duty free offering to sell it all back to you. The unpacking of clothing, wearing four layers in order to pass the entrance exam that gets you past security. The unloading and carrying of computers, only to undress and repack once cleared. It's beyond a joke and only the monkeys seem to be in charge. Pray to God that the terrorists are slightly stupider than security.

I will take the opportunity to explain and debunk an urban myth about myself.

Last year I was employed by Sony/Fox to do a pilot called Canterbury Law. My visa had expired so I went to Toronto for the day to get a new one – which I never understood. Why do you have to leave a country in order to get a visa for that same country? Anyway, I went to Toronto, got the visa and headed back to the airport. Passing through immigration at Toronto airport the guy examined the new visa and asked, "What is the nature of your business in the USA?" I was about to answer, "I'm here to shoot a pilot," but then had second thoughts and changed it to "I'm here to film the first episode of a TV series." Phew.

Cut to several months later and I was doing an interview for the Daily Telegraph in London. To add some humour to what seemed a fairly colourless piece I told the story pretty much as written above. About six weeks later there was a small item in the Observer newspaper saying that I'd been detained at immigration for saying I was there to shoot a pilot. About a month later I got a lot of calls as the item began to be featured in the US press, by which time it had grown legs. Now it was LAX and I had been arrested and detained for many hours.

Talking of fiction, I sat through all of the episodes of Mad Men and admit to being somewhat hooked, as in I want to know what happens next. It's not that the writing got much better, it's more that I know the characters better and am beginning to accept the inconsistencies in them. I predicted that Peggy the secretary was really not getting fat but pregnant. But she is meant to be really smart and clearly she is going to take over the company and put all of those MCPs in their place. How come, then that she's so dumb she didn't notice she had a bun in the oven? Also the chain smoking gynaecologist might have noticed at her next visit. The Beatnik scene was not so wonderful, like, man it should have been funnier. I like the wife though and wondered what happened after she shot the neighbours pigeons. I will persevere with Mad Men and think of it as sci-fi (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and black comedy (Fawlty Towers).

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My friend Ritsaert Ten Cate died on Friday and I’d like to dedicate this blog to him, a small repayment for an immense debt that I and others owe the man.

Ritsaert was based in Amsterdam where, for many years he ran an amazing establishment called the Mickery Theatre. The word theatre is a red herring here, the space that he provided was an old cinema on the Rozengracht and here the most innovative artists and performance groups gathered on a regular basis to push the boundaries of their art. My friendship with Rits’ began in the early 70’s when I was with the People Show Performance group and was a time when the Dutch played host to an international stable of artists and in some ways worked effectively as an alternative to the Arts Council of GB.

I just pulled a book off the shelf, it’s a pictorial history of the Mickery between 1965 and 1987. On the 1st page is a shot of Nina Simone doing a performance and the last page shows Taganka theatre/school of dramatic art. In between those pages a dazzling array of international cutting edge talent.

Like most creative environments the Mickery was presided over by one man, Ritsaert. He had a great group of people around him, loyal and hard working but it was his personality that made the things happen. In those early days Ritsaert was a chain smoking, alcohol fuelled entrepeneur who made it his business to travel the world looking for the avent garde and then making sure they turned up in Amsterdam. The performance space was a shrine to Dutch ingenuity with a seating system that could become a set. I remember once Ritsaert had the idea to put the audience in hovecraft with curtain over the front, these craft would spin around with projections inside and then stop, the curtains would open and a new staging would present itself. To do this the space was cleaned out so that the floors could be made absolutely level. A multitude of small glasses were discovered, each with its own little culture of fungus, each one having been put down by Ritsaert and then lost for some years.

Ritsaert produced my first and 2nd shows and gave me the money to make my first ever film (Redheugh) which became the central image in the show I did. I can say that this 5,000 pounds got me going in film and without it things would be different today.

Ritsaert observed everyone doing their artistic thing and decided to move over from producing to directing and making his own art. He invited me to collaborate on one such piece entitled REMBRANDT, HITLER OR ME. I filmed the show and there is very cool record of this work.

In the last period of his life Ritsaert quit the Performance world, things were changing and I guess he knew it was time to move onto something else. I flew from LA to Amsterdam to film the last huge event. Many groups turned up to participate in the emotional farewell but I remember being not sad but positive about the closure of the Mickery. Looking back now I can see the huge gap that it left and how places like this are so vital for creative people to express themselves in.

For the next period Ritsaert founded an educational establishment. I visited with a view to maybe doing some teaching there. It was clear to me that it was maybe harder for Rits to express himself there. His emotional life was always interesting and he finally found his true love in a woman called Colleen who hailed from the USA. I remember meeting him in NY and how happy he was. About this time he began creating his own art and exhibiting with great success in Holland. We saw each other less frequently but kept in touch through friends. I think he just turned 70. I heard he was unwell a few months ago and was directed to a short film he made and placed on U-tube. If you feel like it you can check it out – type in “The Offering” or “Ritsaert” and you will find it.

Today his passing makes me very sad but I also know that what he did for us all was pretty damm cool and I will always have him in my DNA, as will many people who don’t even know who he was, that being the nature of art and how it all connects.

Mike Figgis – 7th September 2008.

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I've been thinking a lot about writing. When I first began expressing myself back in the late 60's I was with a performance art group called the People Show and the work was almost a reaction to the written word. We felt a revulsion for the over written world of post war English culture, particularly the theatre with its narcissistic love of the sound of its own voice. That therefore became a period of exploration of the visual image and also the sound image. Gradually I have become lured back into the world of language with the understanding that the more evolved and sophisticated a language becomes the greater the possibility of the culture evolving. Language describes emotion and feeling in a useful way. But the danger with language now, as in the 60's, is that it becomes merely a device for demonstrating ones knowledge or cultural superiority over lesser educated individuals. Something I observe often in British intellectual circles. So it seems to me that it is necessary to be careful with language never to use it as a weapon. But at the same time it is also essential to protect language from being debased to a point where it becomes less effective as magical tool for expression.

So I'd like to take two examples that have come to mind recently, one is specific, the other more general.

About four weeks ago I had Sunday breakfast in a favourite café in London. I bought 2 newspapers and settled in for a trashy read. In the Sunday Times I came across an article which had as its subject, pretentious books that you want to hurl across the room after 10 minutes. I scanned the list compiled by various writers and celebs and was shocked to find included therein Tolstoy and Anthony Powell. The person so incensed by Powell was a journalist called Rod Liddle. Having Googled Liddle I see he is a successful journalist who used to host the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4. As it happens I am re-reading Powell's 12 novel epic A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME. I first read it 25 years ago and found it stimulating and interesting. The novels chart the life of a central character from his childhood at the time of WW1 and it finishes with the character as an older man (I think in the 70's but I haven't got there yet). What struck me as fascinating was the idea that a writer could take such a long time to tell the story of a life, with all of its subtleties and nuances. It mattered not a jot to me that the character was upper middle class and educated at Eton etc. Normally I have little time for 'Brideshead' drama. But with this work it clearly was not the point.

I am now on volume 9 and enjoying the read even more than I did many years ago. It is entirely character based and the plot is secondary. Well not entirely...the plot accumulates as a result of character. Powell is a brilliant observer of character and a master of understatement. (In my opinion, of course) What shocked me about Liddle's comments was the idea that he thought it entertaining to open his mouth and trash. Actually what crossed my mind was how odd it was for a journalist to admit to being such a literary yob. In music the parallel would be for someone to say they didn't understand the late Beethoven Quartets and therefore they must be rubbish. It struck me as sad.

A few months back I watched an episode of MAD MEN, the American TV series that is based around the advertising industry in NY in the 60's. I was quite taken by the episode I watched, it seemed to demonstrate my feeling that the best filmmaking and writing in mainstream cinema right now is coming out of US TV. I've guest directed one episode of THE SOPRANOS and the standard of writing is high. Also HBO has a reputation for less interference than studios and networks. I also shot a TV pilot last year for a network (SONY / FOX) and found it to be (for me) unworkable. SO my girlfriend bought the 1st series of MAD MEN boxset and we sat down to watch the episodes in sequence. It's well made and interestingly cast...but there is something about the writing that I find almost surreal, and not intentional. It is character based (like Powell) but the characters do not seem at all real. It feels to me like the 60's are being observed through glass. More of a period piece than restoration comedy. Because smoking is a big deal (advertising themes) everyone smokes all the time. At first this is interesting but by episode 6 it is more like a Python sketch. So it doesn't seem modern, which is a shame because the 60's were very modern. Balzac is modern, his dialogue and characters are modern. I will ponder on this as I continue to watch. I can sense that it is post-Soprano, but I also felt that towards the end THE SOPRANOS began to lose its way because the characters began to get unglued from the frame that had been established.

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I've been thinking a lot about writing. When I first began expressing myself back in the late 60's I was with a performance art group called the People Show and the work was almost a reaction to the written word. We felt a revulsion for the over written world of post war English culture, particularly the theatre with its narcissistic love of the sound of its own voice. That therefore became a period of exploration of the visual image and also the sound image. Gradually I have become lured back into the world of language with the understanding that the more evolved and sophisticated a language becomes the greater the possibility of the culture evolving. Language describes emotion and feeling in a useful way. But the danger with language now, as in the 60's, is that it becomes merely a device for demonstrating ones knowledge or cultural superiority over lesser educated individuals. Something I observe often in British intellectual circles. So it seems to me that it is necessary to be careful with language never to use it as a weapon. But at the same time it is also essential to protect language from being debased to a point where it becomes less effective as magical tool for expression.

So I'd like to take two examples that have come to mind recently, one is specific, the other more general.

About four weeks ago I had Sunday breakfast in a favourite café in London. I bought 2 newspapers and settled in for a trashy read. In the Sunday Times I came across an article which had as its subject, pretentious books that you want to hurl across the room after 10 minutes. I scanned the list compiled by various writers and celebs and was shocked to find included therein Tolstoy and Anthony Powell. The person so incensed by Powell was a journalist called Rod Liddle. Having Googled Liddle I see he is a successful journalist who used to host the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4. As it happens I am re-reading Powell's 12 novel epic A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME. I first read it 25 years ago and found it stimulating and interesting. The novels chart the life of a central character from his childhood at the time of WW1 and it finishes with the character as an older man (I think in the 70's but I haven't got there yet). What struck me as fascinating was the idea that a writer could take such a long time to tell the story of a life, with all of its subtleties and nuances. It mattered not a jot to me that the character was upper middle class and educated at Eton etc. Normally I have little time for 'Brideshead' drama. But with this work it clearly was not the point.

I am now on volume 9 and enjoying the read even more than I did many years ago. It is entirely character based and the plot is secondary. Well not entirely...the plot accumulates as a result of character. Powell is a brilliant observer of character and a master of understatement. (In my opinion, of course) What shocked me about Liddle's comments was the idea that he thought it entertaining to open his mouth and trash. Actually what crossed my mind was how odd it was for a journalist to admit to being such a literary yob. In music the parallel would be for someone to say they didn't understand the late Beethoven Quartets and therefore they must be rubbish. It struck me as sad.

A few months back I watched an episode of MAD MEN, the American TV series that is based around the advertising industry in NY in the 60's. I was quite taken by the episode I watched, it seemed to demonstrate my feeling that the best filmmaking and writing in mainstream cinema right now is coming out of US TV. I've guest directed one episode of THE SOPRANOS and the standard of writing is high. Also HBO has a reputation for less interference than studios and networks. I also shot a TV pilot last year for a network (SONY / FOX) and found it to be (for me) unworkable. SO my girlfriend bought the 1st series of MAD MEN boxset and we sat down to watch the episodes in sequence. It's well made and interestingly cast...but there is something about the writing that I find almost surreal, and not intentional. It is character based (like Powell) but the characters do not seem at all real. It feels to me like the 60's are being observed through glass. More of a period piece than restoration comedy. Because smoking is a big deal (advertising themes) everyone smokes all the time. At first this is interesting but by episode 6 it is more like a Python sketch. So it doesn't seem modern, which is a shame because the 60's were very modern. Balzac is modern, his dialogue and characters are modern. I will ponder on this as I continue to watch. I can sense that it is post-Soprano, but I also felt that towards the end THE SOPRANOS began to lose its way because the characters began to get unglued from the frame that had been established.

Comment And Interact »

comment 

I've been thinking a lot about writing. When I first began expressing myself back in the late 60's I was with a performance art group called the People Show and the work was almost a reaction to the written word. We felt a revulsion for the over written world of post war English culture, particularly the theatre with its narcissistic love of the sound of its own voice. That therefore became a period of exploration of the visual image and also the sound image. Gradually I have become lured back into the world of language with the understanding that the more evolved and sophisticated a language becomes the greater the possibility of the culture evolving. Language describes emotion and feeling in a useful way. But the danger with language now, as in the 60's, is that it becomes merely a device for demonstrating ones knowledge or cultural superiority over lesser educated individuals. Something I observe often in British intellectual circles. So it seems to me that it is necessary to be careful with language never to use it as a weapon. But at the same time it is also essential to protect language from being debased to a point where it becomes less effective as magical tool for expression.

So I'd like to take two examples that have come to mind recently, one is specific, the other more general.

About four weeks ago I had Sunday breakfast in a favourite café in London. I bought 2 newspapers and settled in for a trashy read. In the Sunday Times I came across an article which had as its subject, pretentious books that you want to hurl across the room after 10 minutes. I scanned the list compiled by various writers and celebs and was shocked to find included therein Tolstoy and Anthony Powell. The person so incensed by Powell was a journalist called Rod Liddle. Having Googled Liddle I see he is a successful journalist who used to host the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4. As it happens I am re-reading Powell's 12 novel epic A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME. I first read it 25 years ago and found it stimulating and interesting. The novels chart the life of a central character from his childhood at the time of WW1 and it finishes with the character as an older man (I think in the 70's but I haven't got there yet). What struck me as fascinating was the idea that a writer could take such a long time to tell the story of a life, with all of its subtleties and nuances. It mattered not a jot to me that the character was upper middle class and educated at Eton etc. Normally I have little time for 'Brideshead' drama. But with this work it clearly was not the point.

I am now on volume 9 and enjoying the read even more than I did many years ago. It is entirely character based and the plot is secondary. Well not entirely...the plot accumulates as a result of character. Powell is a brilliant observer of character and a master of understatement. (In my opinion, of course) What shocked me about Liddle's comments was the idea that he thought it entertaining to open his mouth and trash. Actually what crossed my mind was how odd it was for a journalist to admit to being such a literary yob. In music the parallel would be for someone to say they didn't understand the late Beethoven Quartets and therefore they must be rubbish. It struck me as sad.

A few months back I watched an episode of MAD MEN, the American TV series that is based around the advertising industry in NY in the 60's. I was quite taken by the episode I watched, it seemed to demonstrate my feeling that the best filmmaking and writing in mainstream cinema right now is coming out of US TV. I've guest directed one episode of THE SOPRANOS and the standard of writing is high. Also HBO has a reputation for less interference than studios and networks. I also shot a TV pilot last year for a network (SONY / FOX) and found it to be (for me) unworkable. SO my girlfriend bought the 1st series of MAD MEN boxset and we sat down to watch the episodes in sequence. It's well made and interestingly cast...but there is something about the writing that I find almost surreal, and not intentional. It is character based (like Powell) but the characters do not seem at all real. It feels to me like the 60's are being observed through glass. More of a period piece than restoration comedy. Because smoking is a big deal (advertising themes) everyone smokes all the time. At first this is interesting but by episode 6 it is more like a Python sketch. So it doesn't seem modern, which is a shame because the 60's were very modern. Balzac is modern, his dialogue and characters are modern. I will ponder on this as I continue to watch. I can sense that it is post-Soprano, but I also felt that towards the end THE SOPRANOS began to lose its way because the characters began to get unglued from the frame that had been established.

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I've been thinking a lot about writing. When I first began expressing myself back in the late 60's I was with a performance art group called the People Show and the work was almost a reaction to the written word. We felt a revulsion for the over written world of post war English culture, particularly the theatre with its narcissistic love of the sound of its own voice. That therefore became a period of exploration of the visual image and also the sound image. Gradually I have become lured back into the world of language with the understanding that the more evolved and sophisticated a language becomes the greater the possibility of the culture evolving. Language describes emotion and feeling in a useful way. But the danger with language now, as in the 60's, is that it becomes merely a device for demonstrating ones knowledge or cultural superiority over lesser educated individuals. Something I observe often in British intellectual circles. So it seems to me that it is necessary to be careful with language never to use it as a weapon. But at the same time it is also essential to protect language from being debased to a point where it becomes less effective as magical tool for expression.

So I'd like to take two examples that have come to mind recently, one is specific, the other more general.

About four weeks ago I had Sunday breakfast in a favourite café in London. I bought 2 newspapers and settled in for a trashy read. In the Sunday Times I came across an article which had as its subject, pretentious books that you want to hurl across the room after 10 minutes. I scanned the list compiled by various writers and celebs and was shocked to find included therein Tolstoy and Anthony Powell. The person so incensed by Powell was a journalist called Rod Liddle. Having Googled Liddle I see he is a successful journalist who used to host the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4. As it happens I am re-reading Powell's 12 novel epic A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME. I first read it 25 years ago and found it stimulating and interesting. The novels chart the life of a central character from his childhood at the time of WW1 and it finishes with the character as an older man (I think in the 70's but I haven't got there yet). What struck me as fascinating was the idea that a writer could take such a long time to tell the story of a life, with all of its subtleties and nuances. It mattered not a jot to me that the character was upper middle class and educated at Eton etc. Normally I have little time for 'Brideshead' drama. But with this work it clearly was not the point.

I am now on volume 9 and enjoying the read even more than I did many years ago. It is entirely character based and the plot is secondary. Well not entirely...the plot accumulates as a result of character. Powell is a brilliant observer of character and a master of understatement. (In my opinion, of course) What shocked me about Liddle's comments was the idea that he thought it entertaining to open his mouth and trash. Actually what crossed my mind was how odd it was for a journalist to admit to being such a literary yob. In music the parallel would be for someone to say they didn't understand the late Beethoven Quartets and therefore they must be rubbish. It struck me as sad.

A few months back I watched an episode of MAD MEN, the American TV series that is based around the advertising industry in NY in the 60's. I was quite taken by the episode I watched, it seemed to demonstrate my feeling that the best filmmaking and writing in mainstream cinema right now is coming out of US TV. I've guest directed one episode of THE SOPRANOS and the standard of writing is high. Also HBO has a reputation for less interference than studios and networks. I also shot a TV pilot last year for a network (SONY / FOX) and found it to be (for me) unworkable. SO my girlfriend bought the 1st series of MAD MEN boxset and we sat down to watch the episodes in sequence. It's well made and interestingly cast...but there is something about the writing that I find almost surreal, and not intentional. It is character based (like Powell) but the characters do not seem at all real. It feels to me like the 60's are being observed through glass. More of a period piece than restoration comedy. Because smoking is a big deal (advertising themes) everyone smokes all the time. At first this is interesting but by episode 6 it is more like a Python sketch. So it doesn't seem modern, which is a shame because the 60's were very modern. Balzac is modern, his dialogue and characters are modern. I will ponder on this as I continue to watch. I can sense that it is post-Soprano, but I also felt that towards the end THE SOPRANOS began to lose its way because the characters began to get unglued from the frame that had been established.

Comment And Interact »

comment 

I've been thinking a lot about writing. When I first began expressing myself back in the late 60's I was with a performance art group called the People Show and the work was almost a reaction to the written word. We felt a revulsion for the over written world of post war English culture, particularly the theatre with its narcissistic love of the sound of its own voice. That therefore became a period of exploration of the visual image and also the sound image. Gradually I have become lured back into the world of language with the understanding that the more evolved and sophisticated a language becomes the greater the possibility of the culture evolving. Language describes emotion and feeling in a useful way. But the danger with language now, as in the 60's, is that it becomes merely a device for demonstrating ones knowledge or cultural superiority over lesser educated individuals. Something I observe often in British intellectual circles. So it seems to me that it is necessary to be careful with language never to use it as a weapon. But at the same time it is also essential to protect language from being debased to a point where it becomes less effective as magical tool for expression.

So I'd like to take two examples that have come to mind recently, one is specific, the other more general.

About four weeks ago I had Sunday breakfast in a favourite café in London. I bought 2 newspapers and settled in for a trashy read. In the Sunday Times I came across an article which had as its subject, pretentious books that you want to hurl across the room after 10 minutes. I scanned the list compiled by various writers and celebs and was shocked to find included therein Tolstoy and Anthony Powell. The person so incensed by Powell was a journalist called Rod Liddle. Having Googled Liddle I see he is a successful journalist who used to host the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4. As it happens I am re-reading Powell's 12 novel epic A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME. I first read it 25 years ago and found it stimulating and interesting. The novels chart the life of a central character from his childhood at the time of WW1 and it finishes with the character as an older man (I think in the 70's but I haven't got there yet). What struck me as fascinating was the idea that a writer could take such a long time to tell the story of a life, with all of its subtleties and nuances. It mattered not a jot to me that the character was upper middle class and educated at Eton etc. Normally I have little time for 'Brideshead' drama. But with this work it clearly was not the point.

I am now on volume 9 and enjoying the read even more than I did many years ago. It is entirely character based and the plot is secondary. Well not entirely...the plot accumulates as a result of character. Powell is a brilliant observer of character and a master of understatement. (In my opinion, of course) What shocked me about Liddle's comments was the idea that he thought it entertaining to open his mouth and trash. Actually what crossed my mind was how odd it was for a journalist to admit to being such a literary yob. In music the parallel would be for someone to say they didn't understand the late Beethoven Quartets and therefore they must be rubbish. It struck me as sad.

A few months back I watched an episode of MAD MEN, the American TV series that is based around the advertising industry in NY in the 60's. I was quite taken by the episode I watched, it seemed to demonstrate my feeling that the best filmmaking and writing in mainstream cinema right now is coming out of US TV. I've guest directed one episode of THE SOPRANOS and the standard of writing is high. Also HBO has a reputation for less interference than studios and networks. I also shot a TV pilot last year for a network (SONY / FOX) and found it to be (for me) unworkable. SO my girlfriend bought the 1st series of MAD MEN boxset and we sat down to watch the episodes in sequence. It's well made and interestingly cast...but there is something about the writing that I find almost surreal, and not intentional. It is character based (like Powell) but the characters do not seem at all real. It feels to me like the 60's are being observed through glass. More of a period piece than restoration comedy. Because smoking is a big deal (advertising themes) everyone smokes all the time. At first this is interesting but by episode 6 it is more like a Python sketch. So it doesn't seem modern, which is a shame because the 60's were very modern. Balzac is modern, his dialogue and characters are modern. I will ponder on this as I continue to watch. I can sense that it is post-Soprano, but I also felt that towards the end THE SOPRANOS began to lose its way because the characters began to get unglued from the frame that had been established.

Comment And Interact »

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