fitted: 3.3%.
Requiem fora beat disciple
At one stage it looked like it would never get made. Perseverance paid off and YOUNG ADAM has found a Chorus of approval. Words: Richard Mowe
ith its angst-ridden characters. an air of Celtic doom and gloom. gritty sex. and neglected sottrce material by Scotland‘s self-styled Beat writer. Alexander Trocchi. it was perhaps etnbarrassingly inevitable
that film financiers didn‘t rush to support to the makers of
Young Adam.
It has taken all of eight years and dollops of patience and persistence for novice director David Mackenzie to see his idea come to fruition on screen. He was helped hugely in his endeavours by the commitment of Ewart McGregor. who plays the introverted and libidinous bargematt. Joe.
He used his star status and industry clout to convince investors to participate when the going became tough and there was a blip in the £4m budget.
McGregor and Mackenzie saw the wider potential of
Trocchi‘s novel. which only acquired a proper reputation posthumously — the writer died penniless from pneumonia in London in 1984. having been a registered heroin addict. Vilified by the British literary establishment of the 50s. Trocchi moved to Paris and then New York where he continued writing while playing out with his peers and fools.
among them William Burroughs. Allen Ginsberg and of
course. Jack Kerouac. Always frank about the fact that much of his inspiration came from his heroin addiction and his habit of imbibing narcotic cocktails. he turned his life into his art. He was forced to leave New York after he became a target for the authorities. His friend. i ‘onnan Mailer. provided him with false papers and money for his return to these shores.
For Mackenzie — a former contributor to The List — the appeal was that McGregor's Joe is very much a man on the outside of society. ‘lt‘s in the same way that Trocchi. who at one point lived on a barge like the characters in Hume Adam.
44 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 7—1-1 Aug 2033
was very much an outsider as a heroin addict.‘ he says. ‘I felt that the story had an international horizon. but was also distinctively Scottish.‘
McGregor. unfamiliar with Trocchi's debut work. read the script. then the book. and found that Mackenzie's adaptation was incredibly faithful to the page. 'That was one of the most courageous things about it.‘ says McGregor. ‘lt was written in the 50s when he was 2-1 as a rebellion against all that post- war Scottish (‘alvinism in the same way that James Joyce wrote about Ireland. Trocchi is terribly depressing. Pltis. he was a hopeless addict. Some of the things he did in his life did not impress me very much. He was incredibly sellish to
the point of destroying other people's lives. He got loads of
girls addicted to lteroin.‘
When the film lost 40‘? of its backing on the eve of filming. it was McGregor who helped do the rounds of
potential investors. ‘lt was so frustrating because this is the type of film we should be making in Britain.‘ he says. ‘\\'e had a beautiful script and actors attached but for a while no one seemed interested. If it had been a lightweight comedy there would have been no problem. We got the cash together in the end but it was touch and go.‘
Before shooting began. Mackenzie spent two weeks with his main cast: McGregor. Tilda Swinton. limin Mortimer and Peter Mullan. rehearsing all the scenes in the style of a play 'lt was more to understand the characters than how it was going to be shot.‘ says McGregor. '.-\nd to Davids credit. he was discovering it along with Us. despite the fact he had written it. By playing each scene. it informed the next and the next. until we reached the point where it all came clearer while the ambiguities remained.’
Mortimer. also a stranger to the novel. found a romantic
McGregor and Mortimer: ‘You have this weird guy on a desperate quest to
find meaning’