Martin Radich Interview (Published in Film & Festivals Magazine, 2010)
Currently one of the UK’s most exciting filmmakers, Martin Radich treads an uncompromising path through the British film industry. Cutting his teeth on numerous shorts, including the surreal and quite brilliant Dogs Mercury, Radich has marked himself out as director unafraid to take risks and one prepared to push the boundaries of cinema. After a receiving it’s premiere at the 2008 Edinburgh International Film Festival, his feature film debut Crack Willow –a dark yet breathtaking portrait of one man's struggle with death and loneliness – will screen as part of the ICA’s ‘New British Cinema’ season from June 16th.
Q. What kind of film and filmmakers – and indeed artists of other kinds - have influenced you in the past?
Martin Radich: I have often cited the likes of Werner Herzog, Lindsay Anderson, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Monte Hellman, Ulrich Seidl, Gualtiero Jacopetti…. (the list is endless) as filmmaking inspirations, but in other fields Flannery O’Conner, Harry Crews, Jim Thirlwell…. (this too could be endless). Each of these artists distinctively treads his or her own path. They have independent voices. Too many folks regurgitate the same tired old themes and techniques. I ain’t interested in those voices. They play it safe. I’ll expand upon Herzog’s military analogy; I consider myself a foot soldier on the front line. Directors like Joe Wright are the generals; they sit on their horses high on the hilltops three miles back. They take the plaudits, the awards and the money. But they are not the ones making the ground. It’s the canon fodder in the trenches who move the medium forward. It’s about time there was a goddamn revolution.
Q. How did you start out in the film business and how did you early projects inform your later work?
MR: It took me sometime before I knew what it was I wanted to do. More accurately my position back then outlined an alternative future. I worked five years on the night shift in a biscuit factory. My Career’s Officer was an unimaginative and uninspiring mothball. Having said that I really didn’t provide him with many possibilities. I didn’t attend much school. Eventually a colleague of mine at the factory encouraged me to enrol on a Foundation Course and I ended up at Edinburgh College of Art. It was whilst shooting my graduation film, In Memory Of Dorothy Bennett that I began to discover an alternative approach to filmmaking. It was simply discovering the value of spontaneity.
Q. After garnering some success with your short Wake Up you had a –relatively – large success with Dogs Mercury. How did this surreal tale of the disparate people living in a coastal town come about?
MR: I’d had a period, the barren years, where I was struggling to get finance. Folks don’t like to give you money when there is no script, which I can understand, to a degree. So I decided I needed to start writing scripts. I’m still fighting the urge not to do this. I almost consider it time wasted. But if you want to tackle a big subject then some planning is without question necessary and advisable. Your methods need to be dictated by the story you want to tell, basically. I quite like the structure of intertwining narratives so I wrote a script that was a microcosm of a moribund community, lots of characters colliding with one another each with an obstacle to overcome.
Q. And like Dogs Mercury, tell us a little about how Crack Willow came about.
MR: I was very fortunate. There were a couple of funders who were prepared to give us the cash to make a film simply from a one-sentence synopsis. Plus a ten-minute sequence I’d shot accompanied by a document detailing how and why and that this is the future. I had total freedom. It was perfect. It was the perfect way to make a film.
Q. How much do you prepare in your movies and how much is improvised?
MR: I try not to rehearse and I’m quite happy to bin the scene if it doesn’t work and invent something on the spot. I’d say 40% of Dog’s Mercury was not in the script. This could prove problematic when presenting to the Execs, you just make sure that what’s captured is better than what was written. Contrivance is a filmmaker’s fear, if it appears best to smash it in the face and start again. That’s my feeling. Some folks keep wrestling with it; I’m too bone idle to do that.
Q. Crack Willow seems to have divided those audiences who have seen it – people either love it or hate. Were you expecting the reaction that the film has got so far. Has it given you a certain expectation for the ICA screenings?
MR: One can only do what one can. I mean; this is what I do. I can’t do it any other way. I know that some people won’t appreciate it but fortunately there are those out there that can connect with it, we might be the minority but minor we ain’t. Cinema should be complex and challenging. If I need to watch a film twice to fully understand it then I’ll watch it twice. I don’t demand that stories should be told on the surface. If the filmmaker chooses symbolism and abstraction to make his point then I believe that when the point hits home it strikes deeper. That’s my intention, to make a film that sticks with you. For good or for bad depends on the individual. But I’m not afraid to fuck it up. I’d rather attempt something unique than to replicate what’s gone before me. I ain’t, nor never will be, a general, my boots aren’t in the stirrups, my boots are covered in blood and dirt.
Q. The films you’re making are very unique in the British film industry at this moment. What is your feeling about the current state of the industry and your position in it?
MR: It’s tough. I think attitudes need to change. I say spread the wealth. Why does a film need to cost fifty million quid? It’s obscene.
Q. And what can we look forward from you in the future?
MR: My main priority is a project called Lancaster Rose; the fantastical adventures of a philanthropic transsexual. It would be magical! I’ve also written a small book called The Conundrum which will be available from my website. It is the thoughts and opinions of David Yohannes Reeves.
For more information about Martin Radich go to www.martinradich.com. For more information about the ICA New British Cinema go to www.ica.org.uk/film
Q. What kind of film and filmmakers – and indeed artists of other kinds - have influenced you in the past?
Martin Radich: I have often cited the likes of Werner Herzog, Lindsay Anderson, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Monte Hellman, Ulrich Seidl, Gualtiero Jacopetti…. (the list is endless) as filmmaking inspirations, but in other fields Flannery O’Conner, Harry Crews, Jim Thirlwell…. (this too could be endless). Each of these artists distinctively treads his or her own path. They have independent voices. Too many folks regurgitate the same tired old themes and techniques. I ain’t interested in those voices. They play it safe. I’ll expand upon Herzog’s military analogy; I consider myself a foot soldier on the front line. Directors like Joe Wright are the generals; they sit on their horses high on the hilltops three miles back. They take the plaudits, the awards and the money. But they are not the ones making the ground. It’s the canon fodder in the trenches who move the medium forward. It’s about time there was a goddamn revolution.
Q. How did you start out in the film business and how did you early projects inform your later work?
MR: It took me sometime before I knew what it was I wanted to do. More accurately my position back then outlined an alternative future. I worked five years on the night shift in a biscuit factory. My Career’s Officer was an unimaginative and uninspiring mothball. Having said that I really didn’t provide him with many possibilities. I didn’t attend much school. Eventually a colleague of mine at the factory encouraged me to enrol on a Foundation Course and I ended up at Edinburgh College of Art. It was whilst shooting my graduation film, In Memory Of Dorothy Bennett that I began to discover an alternative approach to filmmaking. It was simply discovering the value of spontaneity.
Q. After garnering some success with your short Wake Up you had a –relatively – large success with Dogs Mercury. How did this surreal tale of the disparate people living in a coastal town come about?
MR: I’d had a period, the barren years, where I was struggling to get finance. Folks don’t like to give you money when there is no script, which I can understand, to a degree. So I decided I needed to start writing scripts. I’m still fighting the urge not to do this. I almost consider it time wasted. But if you want to tackle a big subject then some planning is without question necessary and advisable. Your methods need to be dictated by the story you want to tell, basically. I quite like the structure of intertwining narratives so I wrote a script that was a microcosm of a moribund community, lots of characters colliding with one another each with an obstacle to overcome.
Q. And like Dogs Mercury, tell us a little about how Crack Willow came about.
MR: I was very fortunate. There were a couple of funders who were prepared to give us the cash to make a film simply from a one-sentence synopsis. Plus a ten-minute sequence I’d shot accompanied by a document detailing how and why and that this is the future. I had total freedom. It was perfect. It was the perfect way to make a film.
Q. How much do you prepare in your movies and how much is improvised?
MR: I try not to rehearse and I’m quite happy to bin the scene if it doesn’t work and invent something on the spot. I’d say 40% of Dog’s Mercury was not in the script. This could prove problematic when presenting to the Execs, you just make sure that what’s captured is better than what was written. Contrivance is a filmmaker’s fear, if it appears best to smash it in the face and start again. That’s my feeling. Some folks keep wrestling with it; I’m too bone idle to do that.
Q. Crack Willow seems to have divided those audiences who have seen it – people either love it or hate. Were you expecting the reaction that the film has got so far. Has it given you a certain expectation for the ICA screenings?
MR: One can only do what one can. I mean; this is what I do. I can’t do it any other way. I know that some people won’t appreciate it but fortunately there are those out there that can connect with it, we might be the minority but minor we ain’t. Cinema should be complex and challenging. If I need to watch a film twice to fully understand it then I’ll watch it twice. I don’t demand that stories should be told on the surface. If the filmmaker chooses symbolism and abstraction to make his point then I believe that when the point hits home it strikes deeper. That’s my intention, to make a film that sticks with you. For good or for bad depends on the individual. But I’m not afraid to fuck it up. I’d rather attempt something unique than to replicate what’s gone before me. I ain’t, nor never will be, a general, my boots aren’t in the stirrups, my boots are covered in blood and dirt.
Q. The films you’re making are very unique in the British film industry at this moment. What is your feeling about the current state of the industry and your position in it?
MR: It’s tough. I think attitudes need to change. I say spread the wealth. Why does a film need to cost fifty million quid? It’s obscene.
Q. And what can we look forward from you in the future?
MR: My main priority is a project called Lancaster Rose; the fantastical adventures of a philanthropic transsexual. It would be magical! I’ve also written a small book called The Conundrum which will be available from my website. It is the thoughts and opinions of David Yohannes Reeves.
For more information about Martin Radich go to www.martinradich.com. For more information about the ICA New British Cinema go to www.ica.org.uk/film
Complete and utter Clooney - An Interview with George Clooney and Sam Rockwell (The Leeds Guide, 04/ 2003)
It’s Valentine’s Day and George Clooney is apparently in love. Whilst facing a throng of assembled press, he admits there is someone in his life that is having a profound influence: “I took this thing called ‘Night Nurse’. I got up at 7 in the morning, walked into a closet and took a leak. It’s insane this stuff. I had a head cold and I’m like, now, a heroin addict. Night Nurse. She came to me last night. And won’t leave”. However, despite being dosed on flu medicine, Clooney - sitting alongside lead actor Sam Rockwell - manages to come across as both enthusiastic and excited to be talking about his directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
His film is the fantastical - indeed, unbelievable - story of Chuck Barris, the man responsible for huge seventies US TV hits such as ‘The Gong Show’ and ‘The Dating Game’ (better known here as ‘Blind Date’). In his biography Barris claims, that in-between entertaining the US nation, he was also protecting them by working as a CIA killer. Well, I suppose you have to do something during the summer layoff.
Considering Barris’ fame in America, and the amazing nature of the story, it’s surprising that it took so long for Confessions of a Dangerous Mind to make it to the screen. But, as Clooney recalls “It was a Warner Bros studio script and the problem was that it was a great screenplay but fell right into that ‘not cheap enough for a real independent studio to make and not expensive enough for Warner Bros to make’. It ended up getting about 5 million dollars in pre-production costs and there were a bunch of directors attached - Curtis Hanson, David Fincher, PJ Hogan, Bryan Singer - and I was attached just as an actor. It had gotten into that thing where it had been put into turnaround and wouldn’t get made and I thought ‘If I can grab it and do it for scale, and get everyone else to do it for scale, then we can get the film done for way under the budget”.
With this pitch Clooney garnered the support of Miramax head honcho Harvey Weinstein, and the film was finally given the green light. Now all that remained was to actually make the thing. “The funny thing is that all things that every director goes through, I thought I could sort of short cut a few of them,” remembers Clooney with a smile “But there was no getting around some of the issues. I have a golf club stuck in my wall at the office over at Warner Bros when, after two months of screen testing, I still wasn’t able to get Sam. I slammed it into a wall, put a date on it and left it hanging there. There’s a lot of difficulty, when people invest the kind of money that it takes to make a film. I understand that but it’s frustrating you know. But we got it made. It was worth the fight and Sam was the right guy to get”
Clooney’s faith in Rockwell was well placed. Appearing in every scene in the movie, he gives a powerful and bravura performance as Barris, a man who defines the term ‘larger than life’. In preparing, Rockwell made sure to do his research: “I spent about two and a half months with Chuck. We hung out a lot, went to dinner. He was really generous with himself; and was really sweet about hanging out.” Adds Clooney “It’s not just a phenomenal performance by Sam, he’s a dead ringer (for Barris). We had shots in the film - that showed a TV screen - that we used were you couldn’t tell the difference between Chuck and Sam. And I got him cheap.” he says with a laugh
The performance also required both actor and director to confront, how shall we say, some of the more intimate moments in life. For a man whose bare behind became the focal point for the recently released Solaris, Clooney is well versed - if not totally comfortable - with situations such as those: “There were really awkward moments. There’s a scene we cut out where Sam’s masturbating in the shower. Chuck was on the set that day and he’s sitting behind me. And Sam’s in the shower and we’re shooting and he’s doing everything, it’s a weird shot and we’re all feeling kind of uncomfortable. Then there’s a tap on my shoulder in the middle of the shot and Chuck’s going ‘Faster!’ Way too much information.” Rockwell remains quiet, a small grin across his face. One wonders what else was left of the cutting room floor…
Still, difficulties with masturbation in a shower cubicle aside, the film shows that Clooney has been taking notes from the directors that he’s worked with - The Coen Brothers and Stephen Soderbergh amongst them - over the past few years: “Stephen is sort of famous for bringing back the kind of non-linear storytelling that Nic Roeg and people before him did” Clooney notes. “So I felt like, since this is a non-linear story, I had a clear understanding (of what to do) because of guys like Stephen and what Quentin did with Pulp Fiction. But who I was really ripping off, and who I sent letters of apology to, were directors Mike Nichols and Sidney Lumet. The guys who I grew up loving.”
You can’t help feeling that, despite his deference to some legendary directors, the very fact that Clooney is chiefly an actor gives the movie an added edge. Dealing as it does with the nature of fame, and notions of what or isn’t real, it must have been a subject closer to Clooney’s heart than one may initially believe. Clooney admits: “I grew up on game show sets. My dad had a game show called ‘The Money Maze’. So I knew what they looked and felt like and I certainly had an understanding of fame, of those trappings, and waking up and having other people’s perceptions of you being much different to your own perception. So, the reason I felt I could direct (the movie was because) I felt like this was a screenplay that I knew how to tell the story of.”
At the heart of it though must come this question: are we really expected to believe that Barris was actually a killer for the CIA? “We sort of had to act as (Chuck’s) defence attorney,” says Rockwell. “We didn’t want to know too much about the CIA stuff. We wanted to tell his story and not be biased.” Clooney elaborates on the point, by referring to the idea that Barris was the man responsible for the dumbing down of US TV and gave rise to the Jerry Springer’s of the world: “When I read the script for the first time, I had the same reaction everyone has ‘This is insane, this is ridiculous’. Then, as time goes on, you start to realise that there’s a good possibility that his assassinations that he writes about are actually the American audience and, ultimately, society. But I thought how interesting that, if it’s all made up, why somebody as wealthy and successful as Chuck Barris is would have to do that. I thought that that was an interesting person to explore and that’s what we wanted to do with the film, explore that guy and why it was important (for him) to write that story. But officially we didn’t want to ask him. I also love the idea of comparing the CIA to bad television. That made me laugh from the minute we started.”
Clooney has certainly come a long way from the time when, before ‘ER’ was a glint in a TV executive’s eye, bad TV was his living (“I’ve killed a few audience members myself” he states, half jokingly). With a direction credit under his belt and a fame that transcends the need to find work as a CIA killer (I hope), Clooney clearly has things going his way. Including Ocean’s Twelve, the surprisingly titled (ahem) sequel to Ocean’s Eleven, due to be filmed next year. “I can’t tell you the storyline because that’s cheating” states Clooney. But then, perhaps because of the magical of effect of Night Nurse, he adds with a laugh “But everyone dies at the end. I haven’t ruined it have I?”
Just like Chuck Barris, it’s hard to tell if he’s lying or not.
His film is the fantastical - indeed, unbelievable - story of Chuck Barris, the man responsible for huge seventies US TV hits such as ‘The Gong Show’ and ‘The Dating Game’ (better known here as ‘Blind Date’). In his biography Barris claims, that in-between entertaining the US nation, he was also protecting them by working as a CIA killer. Well, I suppose you have to do something during the summer layoff.
Considering Barris’ fame in America, and the amazing nature of the story, it’s surprising that it took so long for Confessions of a Dangerous Mind to make it to the screen. But, as Clooney recalls “It was a Warner Bros studio script and the problem was that it was a great screenplay but fell right into that ‘not cheap enough for a real independent studio to make and not expensive enough for Warner Bros to make’. It ended up getting about 5 million dollars in pre-production costs and there were a bunch of directors attached - Curtis Hanson, David Fincher, PJ Hogan, Bryan Singer - and I was attached just as an actor. It had gotten into that thing where it had been put into turnaround and wouldn’t get made and I thought ‘If I can grab it and do it for scale, and get everyone else to do it for scale, then we can get the film done for way under the budget”.
With this pitch Clooney garnered the support of Miramax head honcho Harvey Weinstein, and the film was finally given the green light. Now all that remained was to actually make the thing. “The funny thing is that all things that every director goes through, I thought I could sort of short cut a few of them,” remembers Clooney with a smile “But there was no getting around some of the issues. I have a golf club stuck in my wall at the office over at Warner Bros when, after two months of screen testing, I still wasn’t able to get Sam. I slammed it into a wall, put a date on it and left it hanging there. There’s a lot of difficulty, when people invest the kind of money that it takes to make a film. I understand that but it’s frustrating you know. But we got it made. It was worth the fight and Sam was the right guy to get”
Clooney’s faith in Rockwell was well placed. Appearing in every scene in the movie, he gives a powerful and bravura performance as Barris, a man who defines the term ‘larger than life’. In preparing, Rockwell made sure to do his research: “I spent about two and a half months with Chuck. We hung out a lot, went to dinner. He was really generous with himself; and was really sweet about hanging out.” Adds Clooney “It’s not just a phenomenal performance by Sam, he’s a dead ringer (for Barris). We had shots in the film - that showed a TV screen - that we used were you couldn’t tell the difference between Chuck and Sam. And I got him cheap.” he says with a laugh
The performance also required both actor and director to confront, how shall we say, some of the more intimate moments in life. For a man whose bare behind became the focal point for the recently released Solaris, Clooney is well versed - if not totally comfortable - with situations such as those: “There were really awkward moments. There’s a scene we cut out where Sam’s masturbating in the shower. Chuck was on the set that day and he’s sitting behind me. And Sam’s in the shower and we’re shooting and he’s doing everything, it’s a weird shot and we’re all feeling kind of uncomfortable. Then there’s a tap on my shoulder in the middle of the shot and Chuck’s going ‘Faster!’ Way too much information.” Rockwell remains quiet, a small grin across his face. One wonders what else was left of the cutting room floor…
Still, difficulties with masturbation in a shower cubicle aside, the film shows that Clooney has been taking notes from the directors that he’s worked with - The Coen Brothers and Stephen Soderbergh amongst them - over the past few years: “Stephen is sort of famous for bringing back the kind of non-linear storytelling that Nic Roeg and people before him did” Clooney notes. “So I felt like, since this is a non-linear story, I had a clear understanding (of what to do) because of guys like Stephen and what Quentin did with Pulp Fiction. But who I was really ripping off, and who I sent letters of apology to, were directors Mike Nichols and Sidney Lumet. The guys who I grew up loving.”
You can’t help feeling that, despite his deference to some legendary directors, the very fact that Clooney is chiefly an actor gives the movie an added edge. Dealing as it does with the nature of fame, and notions of what or isn’t real, it must have been a subject closer to Clooney’s heart than one may initially believe. Clooney admits: “I grew up on game show sets. My dad had a game show called ‘The Money Maze’. So I knew what they looked and felt like and I certainly had an understanding of fame, of those trappings, and waking up and having other people’s perceptions of you being much different to your own perception. So, the reason I felt I could direct (the movie was because) I felt like this was a screenplay that I knew how to tell the story of.”
At the heart of it though must come this question: are we really expected to believe that Barris was actually a killer for the CIA? “We sort of had to act as (Chuck’s) defence attorney,” says Rockwell. “We didn’t want to know too much about the CIA stuff. We wanted to tell his story and not be biased.” Clooney elaborates on the point, by referring to the idea that Barris was the man responsible for the dumbing down of US TV and gave rise to the Jerry Springer’s of the world: “When I read the script for the first time, I had the same reaction everyone has ‘This is insane, this is ridiculous’. Then, as time goes on, you start to realise that there’s a good possibility that his assassinations that he writes about are actually the American audience and, ultimately, society. But I thought how interesting that, if it’s all made up, why somebody as wealthy and successful as Chuck Barris is would have to do that. I thought that that was an interesting person to explore and that’s what we wanted to do with the film, explore that guy and why it was important (for him) to write that story. But officially we didn’t want to ask him. I also love the idea of comparing the CIA to bad television. That made me laugh from the minute we started.”
Clooney has certainly come a long way from the time when, before ‘ER’ was a glint in a TV executive’s eye, bad TV was his living (“I’ve killed a few audience members myself” he states, half jokingly). With a direction credit under his belt and a fame that transcends the need to find work as a CIA killer (I hope), Clooney clearly has things going his way. Including Ocean’s Twelve, the surprisingly titled (ahem) sequel to Ocean’s Eleven, due to be filmed next year. “I can’t tell you the storyline because that’s cheating” states Clooney. But then, perhaps because of the magical of effect of Night Nurse, he adds with a laugh “But everyone dies at the end. I haven’t ruined it have I?”
Just like Chuck Barris, it’s hard to tell if he’s lying or not.
