David Puttnam on Hollywood
The British film producer on the dominance of American cinema. Words: Teddy Jamieson
Having worked in the film industry on both sides of the Atlantic, including an ill-fated spell as head of Columbia Pictures in the United States, there can be few people better qualified to speak about the business end of the movie business than David Puttnam.
The producer of such notable British films as Chariots Of Fire, The Killing Fields and Local Hero, currently shooting World of Moss in the north of Scotland, Puttnam is the only European ever to have run a modern Hollywood studio. He brings that unique insight to The Undeclared War, a new book charting cinema's commercial ebb and flow in its 100-year history.
Written in collaboration with film researcher Neil Watson, it is an account of the battle between Europe and America for the hearts, minds and money of a global audience.
The picture that emerges is one of almost unrelieved gloom for Europhiles. Cinema may have been invented on this side of the pond, but almost from the start the Americans have comprehensively outgunned the European industries.
Puttnam's argument is devastating. Hamstrung by concentrating on the risky area of production rather than the lucrative distribution side of the business, European cinema has also suffered from lack of investment, short-termism and a crippling cultural elitism towards the making of films that leaves us embarrassed by success.
‘The American industry has never been schismatic,’ Puttnam points out. 'lt’s still able to celebrate the half dozen wonderful films it produces every year and, at the same time, doesn't denigrate Independence Day.
’It's always understood that these two things are
French frolics: Bertrand Blier directs Mon Homme
Bertrand Blier
am interested in moral rssues
affix ‘9 David Puttnam: fighting Hollywoods dominance
mutually indivisible. We never developed a critical mass of success. We never ever celebrated success.’
Reading The Undeclared War could leave the reader believing the game is up for the British industry, but the writer evidently disagrees. There is World of Moss, a project 'not dissimilar to Local Hero' for a start. And he believes that the burgeoning multi-media industry offers a fresh beginning and a perfect opportunity to learn from the mistakes in cinema over the last century.
In this light, The Undeclared War is, he argues, more of a call to arms than anything else. ‘I think there's a very good wind blowing at the moment. One of the reasons I wrote the book is because I don’t want us missing the boat again.’
I The Undeclared War rs published by HarperCo/lins at
E 78 Davrd Puttnam wr/l at a screening of Local Hero at the Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh, Thurs 29 May for questions and a book signing.
somethrng new,’ he says ’I am trying to show that for some women -~ I‘m sure there are very few - prostitution can act as a form of rndependence and bring its own happrness But you have to realrse that I see the hurirour in what I’m dorng, that I’m makrng a Joke ' Desprte the hard-to-lrke formalrsatron of his frlms and the ottasronal acCus‘atron of misogyny, Blrer has kept hrmself at the forefront of radrtal Fr'ent h frlmmakrng since hrs 1974 debut Les Va/seuses, whrch brought wrth rt a barely known actor called Gerard Depardreu. 'When I make a frlm, I make II in a total way I write rt rn great
I thrnk detarl, then I frlm and edit rt, and so I've
Director of Mon Homme
'I'm the bad boy of French filmmakrng,' says Bertrand Blrer, 'but fortunately I’m still allowed rn the playground ' The writer-director of such scandal- provokrng fables as Trop Bel/e Pour Toi, Merci La Vie and Tenue De Sorree may resemble an amiable university professor, but his capaCrty for grappling with tricky, ambrgumrs material hasn't altered. ’l’rn aggressive both politically and artistrcally,' he elaborates, ‘and I
you have to wrrng their necks before you get anythrng out of them '
Blrer's by now established tattrt rs to home rn on a srmple, trnrversal srtuatron — an office affarr or a bar-room seduction -- and then methoditally drag it into untapped areas of the bizarre Mon Homme follows thrs route, wrth Anouk Gr'rnberg's prostrtute the vehicle for Blrer's rdrosyncratrc per‘spet trve.
‘I wanted to struggle agarnst the clrche of the melodrama and rnrsery of prostitution —‘ Wlll(ll I’m sure is the
worked wrth extraordrnary freedom} Now nearing 60, wrth twelve features under hrs belt and several novels and plays to hrs credrt, Blrer (an afford to put hrs feet up 'As you get further along, you realrse that you’ve sard the bulk of what you had to say Thankfully, the freedom I enjoyed means I have been able to put most of my rdeas across ’ (Andrew Pulver) I Edinburgh Cameo from Fri 23 May Glasgow Film Theatre from Frr 30 May See review
general case -- but I wanted to try '
preview FILM
Tilda Swinton . Star of Female Perversions
As an actress, Tilda Swinton has carved a career out of the oblique, the obscure and the challenging. Sometimes all three descriptions can apply to the same role, such as her bravura performance in Orlando, or her star-making, one-woman role in Man To Man at Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre. It’s most certainly true of her latest film, the powerful feminist drama Female Perversr‘ons.
Like much of Swinton's best work — with Derek Jarman and the like — it’s hard to get into, but the film has moments of dazzling clarity, thanks in part to her committed lead performance as Eve, an American attorney on the verge of a major career move just her life starts falling apart. Above all, it poses a number of challenges for this strong actress who always shows a lack of vanity on screen and rs seemingly prepared to leave herself exposed, both physically and metaphorically.
’If we’re talking about the explicit sexual shenanigans in Female Perversions,’ she smiles, ’they are not constructed in a way to hide anything. They’re not constructed to give any impression of anythrng other than an anrmal fact, and as a result I have to say I feel very safe wrth that, because that’s the truth of rt. I feel rnvulnerable as the character rn a frlm lrke this.’
Swrnton not an actress who will go off into a corner and Cry to build up emotron for a scene. ’The only life the character has rs rn thrs story, and only then when the camera’s rolling,’ she says. 'There’s no spillover. One uses one's experrence and one’s imagination to flesh out all these ideas, and that's what I draw on.
'Obvrously there are reverberations in terms of one's own life, but it’s still a very speCrfrc portrait of somebody else. The way in whrch the camera turns on then turns off, the time scale and so on, everythrng's contained within that trme, Space or box, When the camera has stopped then you’re safe — I don't personally ever feel that the vulnerabrlrty sprlls over because ultrmately rt’s not mine, rt’s a portrait of vulnerabrlrty that I’m deprctrng/ (Anwar Brett)
I Edinburgh Fr/mhouse from Fri 23 May. See review
Looks deceive: Tilda Swinton in Female Perversions
Iii-~29 May 1997 THE LIST 23