Transcript of the
"Listening" Q&A session with Kenneth Branagh (Director
and Writer) and Simon Mosely (Executive Producer) for Bristol
Silents
Tuesday 16 September 2003, introduced
by Chris Daniels
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CD: Both (Frances Barber
and Paul McGann) send their apologies for not being to attend
this evening due to unforeseeable work commitments. But we are
very pleased to welcome Simon Moseley who is the executive producer
on Listening and is also someone who has worked with Kenneth
Branagh over some years, I think, since his work on Frankenstein,
and he'll be joining Ken on stage later. Which brings me to
the second thing that's special about this evening, which is
when we asked Kenneth Branagh if he would attend this screening
and introduce the film for us, he said he would not only come
and introduce it briefly, but he would stay and take questions
from the audience afterwards. So Ken and Simon will stay and
take questions after the screening. So I'm thrilled to welcome
here tonight, to introduce his latest short film, Listening,
would you please welcome Kenneth Branagh?
KB: Thank you, thank you very much. I'm Ken,
this is Simon and it's a short film, so this is a short introduction
which is really just to say thank you very much for coming.
We're very very pleased to be asked to be here. You make a short
film and there are a limited number of places where it can have
an audience, and this is one of them, and we're very very pleased
to be here. We shot it about a year ago, shot it on 35mm, shot
it in England, and as Chris was saying, Frances Barber, Paul
McGann, local Bristol resident - I won't say too much about
it because hopefully the film will speak for itself and you're
obviously fantastically intelligent - I can see all of these
faces shining with questions, so we'll be very very happy to,
if we can, answer anything you may have to say afterwards, and
if you have nothing to say, that's perfectly fine too, and we
can all have a drink much sooner. But anyway, thanks very much
for coming. We're very glad
you'd like to see the film and I hope you enjoy it. This is
Listening.
A: First of all, I did enjoy it immensely.
Really really nice idea, very simple idea, I didn't know quite
who to feel sorry for actually, him or her, but anyway. I just
want to know where the initial idea came from, for you to make
the film, whose idea was it, where did it come from.
KB: Thank you. I'm glad you liked the film. The idea came from
reading lots and lots of short stories, stories of Thomas Hardy,
Chekhov, D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy particularly where the
sort of circumstantial quirks of fate, these moments where through
a sort of missed opportunity, what in the sort of grand scheme
of human nature is a blip, but in the lives of these two people
is sort of catastrophic, occurs, if only she had known he was
deaf, if only he had known she was at the door, the sense of
lives passing each other, missing each other in a way through
on one level miscommunication and yet at the same time because
they haven't had words to use, I wanted to see if you could
tell a story of a relationship forming perhaps even more intensely
through not using words, through the circumstances of this retreat,
and in terms of my work, the films that I've made have been
full of people talking away, usually me, and so I wanted to
see if I could tell that story in a compressed way, yet see
if you could come up with something that had some mystery to
it, some surprise, so that there were layers of meaning and
sort of mystery that would make people think and see if you
could come up with something where, although
compressed, the actual very very small idea of whether two people
could fall in love quickly and not use words could leave you
with something, some kind of aftertaste, some kind of what I
would call, what you would hope for, what I aspire to as a kind
of what I call a beautiful melancholy. With some sense of it
being open-ended, maybe they did contact each other, so it came
from wanting to try and tell a short story with as few words
as possible.
A: I thought it was lovely. As an actor, I
was just wondering whether, where necessary, did you find it
to easier to either motivate or restrain the actors without
dialogue, than it would be if you had a framework of dialogue
to hang options around?
KB: Well, it's an interesting question, because
it was one of the things - I'm sorry Paul McGann was due to
be here tonight - apologies, he's filming in London, and the
schedule went over, otherwise he would have been here - it was
one of the truly interesting parts of the experience, and it
happened over a couple of days, that in the end, at least for
some of the takes, Paul for instance liked me to talk all the
way through the take, so, for instance, when we shot his reaction,
writing the note alone in his room at night, he was very keen
that I talk through what I thought the character was feeling
at the time, which I understand is the way that some silent
films were shot, it was part of the directorial style, to be
yelling out the graph of the emotions; and so it was true of
Frances at the door as well . Then sometimes there were definitely,
I sensed that they enjoyed being contained, and doing as it
were off their own bat, and then there were moments, for instance,
when they meet, the first time they meet, we chose very deliberately
not to rehearse that. There was simply an instruction, 'Frances,
you try and find a way to tell Paul that you would like find
where you can eat' and so the particular body language of that
came up as a result. They both, at least in what they said to
me, found it very very
interesting to in such a concentrated way be thinking about
how you convey the truth of character or the truth of a moment,
without dialogue, without leaning on dialogue, without doing
a crazy kind of film-acting when people say it's all in the
eyes and you find actors doing that (pulls a face) because they're
trying to press every inch of emotion out of their eyes - I've
certainly been guilty of that in the past. We did a lot of talking
about it beforehand, and we did rehearse a bit around it. We
talked about the nature of Paul's deafness and we talked about
the various ways that could have occurred and he made his own
decision about that. But then we enjoyed sort of letting it
happen, so there were quite a few surprises as it went. But
they seemed to find it very very challenging and I certainly
did, and it was interesting talking it through and seeing more
- sometimes you'd talk and be very animated and passionate,
telling, for instance, Paul in that moment where he has the
note, expressing very loudly and passionately what you thought
was going on inside his head, and then stopping talking for
a bit and just letting him let that percolate through and then
something quite different would come up, perhaps at the appropriate
size or in the appropriate way for the appropriate size of shot.
In a way, it was another part of the experience which for me
was very interesting because you didn't have, you weren't constantly
holding a script, you were talking about a scene. Any more for
any more?
A: How long did it take to film?
KB: We took six days to shoot it - we were
supposed to take five but we went over by a day. One of the
other things that we wanted to do was take the risk or the experiment,
if you like, that the lack of that additional pressure that
making a feature has. There are all sorts of - I think you
make a film, whatever it is, whether it costs two-pence half-penny
and you shoot for 2 days or it's a huge film, it's all pressurised
because everyone cares about it and it means a lot to you. But
we weren't ever going to have to worry about the opening weekend
grosses or things like that, and so, what I wanted to do was
take the risk over the first two or three minutes of this film
of being very very slow indeed, not for the sake of it, but
I wanted to try and put people in the kind of meditative state
that this character has reached, without being too sort of daft
about it, he's sort of at one with his surroundings and he's
enjoying being in nature - I wanted the film to appreciate,
in this case, the beautiful colours of autumn, the stillness,
the simple act of reading a book in a beautiful place and try
and offer that up as a sensual experience with the film, with
none of the usual worries about 'What's happening? We've got
get them. Something needs to
blow up in the first two minutes. We've got to see the girl,
we've got to get the car to turn over', knowing that we would
come roaring in with the appearance of the girl and her anxiety,
so we went over, partly to answer your question, because we
were looking for the beauty of nature, we shot in the week of
7th October, when everything was just on the turn, it wasn't
it is now, a little dry, things are happening earlier this year
I notice in the garden. So for instance in the shot where he
listens, or indeed, doesn't listen, to the Beethoven being played
on the CD, we shot the wide shot when we jump up three days
later and ran from inside, when suddenly the sun came out and
was in the exactly the same place it had been for the close
shot which we just got before it went in, and it's another part
of trying to catch nature, especially at that end of the year,
because the sun's moving all the time, obviously, and so we
ran around a quite a lot and indeed went over a day, trying
to capture autumn and capture a bit of what I thought would
be the beauty of that place. And indeed one of the nice things
from a few people who've seen the film, who've written to me
and said 'Where can I book into that place? Do they have a website?
The blue hotel?"
SM: It does exist but it's a secret.
A: What are the different challenges in filming
a film of that length in comparison to a film like Hamlet which
is a lot longer?
KB: It is a hell of a lot longer. In some ways,
simply the length of time you spend on it, obviously although
in fact, although we paid everyone, which isn't always the case
with short films, where often you are beg, borrowing and stealing,
and asking for favours, we probably spent two weeks in pre-production,
I mean I'd written it some time before that, but a couple of
weeks in pre-production because we couldn't afford to have many
people on for that amount of time and be paying them, which
is a bit of a challenge for things like the art department,
even though relatively simple, straightforward demands on this.
But actually the post-production on this took forever, because
that's when we were looking to (a) enjoy the process of trying
to work out how to cut it and how it should be - it did change,
but I think I've said this before, there are three films - there's
the film you plan, the film you shoot, and the film you edit,
and in ideal world,
they sort of organically move from one to the other but at least
in my experience, and if you have the indulgence of having written
it, then you're looking for both the shooting and the post-production
to be in effect more drafts of the script, more drafts of the
screenplay. So I chose to take the time to adjust and change
some things that way, plus practically, we were at the back
of the queue for certain things - here's a dissolve in here,
so you have to go an optical house to order that. We didn't
want to pay very much because we were on a low budget, so you
wait for several weeks whilst everybody else gets their dissolves
done and it gets fitted in, so that took a long time. But in
terms of the actual commitment, Simon was my first assistant
director on the last three or four films we made: In the Bleak
Midwinter, a little black and white comedy that we made over
here, in 21 days, and we also worked together on Hamlet which
took twelve weeks to shoot and a long time to plan and a long
time to post, but in terms of one's energies and your commitment,
it doesn't really change. It still for that while necessarily
takes over and you become, whether you like it or not, quite
obsessive about it and whether it's low budget, small budget,
the panic sort of extends to fill the vacuum.
SM: The main difference is that you don't have
the studio breathing down your neck, obviously. We were funding
it with Blackfriars, a property development company. They gave
us an amount of money, but on the whole financially, we looked
after it ourselves. We did the deals with people ourselves,
obviously we paid people very small amounts of money and begged
a lot of favours from people, so obviously that's a huge difference
between that and having Castle Rock saying "Well, okay,
when are you going to deliver this film and is it going to come
in on budget and on time?"
KB: That pressure removed is a huge thing,
SM: It's a huge thing to take away.
KB: Is very nice. But the pressures that remain
are the pressures of time and the pressures of budget.
A: Are you seeing a difference in the way audiences
in different countries respond?
KB: I haven't unfortunately, because of work,
been able to travel to some of the festivals it's played at,
so I couldn't really answer that question, except to say that
there's been some feedback from people who've seen it and different
kinds of questions. But I don't know whether there's a significant
difference. What's your view on that?
A: There could be, in as far as some cultures
are more silent than others.
SM: Curiously, actually, the place that's received
it best so far is in America, which to my mind is the opposite
of what you would expect.
KB: Mind you, I suppose, I don't know what
people here feel - has anyone here been on a retreat? A few
people here. It seems to me that the idea of retreats is an
idea more familiar or more prevalent in America, I'm not sure,
or in other cultures. I've not been on a retreat, but obviously
I was much intrigued by the idea and much intrigued by the idea
of where you go to
do what I think for some people can be the very difficult thing
of being on your own and being quiet, at least be quiet except
for the noise in your own head. And so, when I started to, for
the want of a better word, research it a bit, I was surprised
and intrigued by the numbers of different kinds of retreats
from completely silent retreats and fasting retreats plus the
whole kind of Disneyland package of instant wellness retreats
as well. It turned out in the end to be much bigger -it was
one of the things that encouraged me to continue with doing
it was to discover that there was clearly there's an appetite,
if that's the word, for choices about going out and being away
from the noise of the world we live in.
A: I came tonight not really knowing what to
expect - I'm pleased I came. Are there any more?
KB: Well, we've talked about, without trying
to be too neat about it, about making four other short films
about the other senses. Partly to (a) because I feel as though
there are a few stories brewing and because you know, if you
think about the other senses and the challenges they provide
cinematically, if you're going to do a film about touch, how
you place people in that sense if that is part of what you're
trying to achieve, and the idea of Listening in this world was
very important to me. That, or smell, you imagine trying to
do it, maybe you could do it with a kind of scratchcard, I don't
know. Wasn't there a film, something like The Swamp or something,
where they had a scratchcard.
A: John Waters did that.
KB: Scary. But we had an idea for a story about
a perfumier who loses his sense of smell, which would be a significant
event in the life of somebody who did that, I suppose. But we're
not sure, actually. But it's one of those things where you think
if that's to happen, it would be nice
not to rush them. There was something about, there was an organic
way that this film emerged - it got made because it felt like
it should be made. It didn't really have any end beyond wanting
to tell this particular story and allow oneself to experiment
a bit as you went. And in that sense, it was very purely enjoyable
and had a particular character. The only thing I'd resist is
if we suddenly think "Ooh, we're going to make a feature
now with four short films and it turned into something else",
so maybe it might be one of those things where, if it does happen,
it happens over a period of years.
A: Do you think it would have made a difference
if you had cast a deaf actor in the film?
KB: It's a good question and it's one I considered.
I saw a very very good deaf actor, actually in this town, play
the Fool in King Lear and talked to him about this project.
But in the end I wanted, because on one level, as I hope is
implicit in it, the issue is not about his deafness. I
showed the script to several people I know who are deaf, because
I wanted to make sure they didn't feel, I didn't want people
walking away from the film thinking that somehow his tragedy
is that he's deaf. In my view, that's not anything to do with
it. It circumstantially complicates the relationship - his issue
is to do with his own personality and the way in which he has,
from a certain level of peace and oneness with his surroundings,
happily choosing this sort of level playing field of this silent
retreat, to not have to work perhaps as hard as he might do
in other ways. To focus less on that, it wasn't so much a part
of my focus to convincingly, or in a
different kind of way to what you're suggesting to look at.
And also to be brutally honest, I wanted from the face that
would be so prominent and so silent through the picture to have
what I think Paul has, to my mind, a sort of on occasions a
beatific quality, a sort of otherworldly quality, some quality
of the numinous, some sense of being, as they once referred
to James Cagney, as "a far-away fellow" and there's
something socially about a far-away fellow and I wanted a far-away
fellow. And I wanted a face that could be both neutral and yet
convey, I don't know, sometimes he's my idea of Jesus, in a
way, not that I'm suggesting that he was. There's something
in the face, there's something about the bone structure, there's
something about those great eyes and there's something about
a quality of stillness and a kind of delicacy to his presence
at times that was what I was looking for.
A: I wondered if you would enjoy making a silent
comedy?
KB: I expect that I'd enjoy it, I don't know
if anybody would like it.
SM: Would you pay to go and see it?
A: Yes.
SM: Well, we might make it.
KB: Alright, okay, first ticket. We'll get
your name before we leave.
SM: Sign here please. They're all in this room.
100 tickets.
KB: I think it would be pretty challenging,
myself. Do you know, when I've seen things that evoke the world
of the silent era - a favourite musical of mine is Mack and
Mabel, about Mack Sennett and Mabel Dodge - I saw a production
where, there's a number that starts the show called "Movies
were movies when I ran the show" and he was involved with
all the comedians,
all the great silent comedians, and then they attempted to put
together scenes and physical stunts that evoked this fantastic
world of physical comedy, and it was desperate, it was dire.
It wasn't remotely funny and it reminded me, not because these
people were particularly adept but those who did silent physical
comedy were just brilliant and it feels as though it would be
difficult to find the group who were trained and practised enough
to do that. Although I directed a play recently called The Play
What I Wrote, with two lads who call themselves The Right Size,
who trained partly in the clown tradition and who do have, I
enjoyed and was thrilled to see over the run, brilliant physical
comedy talents. I guess if you felt you could really get that
specialised expertise, but I think it would be very very difficult.
Maybe I'm being very obvious about the way I think about it,
people aren't so crazy about slapstick.
A: Oh no <?>
KB: Well, that's how obviously I'm thinking about it. You should
direct this film about silent comedy.
SM: That was quite a good idea.
A: <?>
KB: Well, for me, it wasn't
so much about the loss of listening as the redefinition of it,
that listening wasn't so much to do with hearing words, but
listening in some more complete sense to what another person
offers you by way of their atmosphere or whatever language of
whatever kind, sign language or emotion. It was about seeing
whether, in a place where words were removed, the necessity
to listen in a different way, to absorb in a different way,
would in some way heighten our sensitivity, or heighten our
senses. And I suppose I wanted to convey with Paul's character
at the beginning that he, in a way, had seemed to have developed
a sort of openness, a sort of organic relationship with the
world that he was in - he watched, looked, felt, was part of
it was alive to it, in a way that this noisy individual who
comes into it wasn't, who then with the fragility she has, and
with the inability to use words, expresses herself in a much
more primal way, in a much more elemental way with all of the
civilities removed and suddenly, very quickly, she's very very
emotional and very naked in front of a complete stranger who
then makes quite a bold and intimate suggestion immediately.
That "if these letters are troubling you, burn the letters",
and cuts across any "oh, it's my boyfriend and it was this
and dah-de-dah" - all gone. It's just "you're upset.
The letters are upsetting you. Burn the letters. Okay."
And trying to see whether that scene, whether one could play
with her shock in dealing with this accelerated intimacy from
not having words, so to that extent, she was at a stroke communicating
much more effectively with him than with the man who wouldn't
pick up the phone. So it seemed to me it was partly exploring
that idea, that you lose words and you're potentially more receptive.
A: <?>
KB: You are aware of what you think is a character's internal
story, internal life in addition to what they say or what you
have them enact, but one of the things I enjoyed about this
and I think do enjoy generally is when people arrive with perhaps
quite a contradictory or quite unusual
surprising reaction to what you've written or what has been
suggested in the script. I think that was true, definitely true
here. For instance, I had something, again a bit more obvious,
in terms of the dialogue for Frances's arrival for the film
in the car. I can't remember what I had her say, but I had her
say something - she was on the phone, I had her on the phone
and having the snippet of the end of a conversation with the
lover who is spurning her or vice versa, and it was her suggestion
- she seized on this moment as one that she recognised in some
way, this level of pressure, that moment when you feel cast
adrift or lost - she was the one who, immediately
on Day One, said, "Well, shouldn't she just yell, 'Pick
up the phone, pick up the phone'." She said, "I've
done that plenty of times." Just a tiny example of how
that seemed to me to work better and also in something like
this where, at least in my case, I didn't feel remotely precious
about them doing exactly what was written. The process I was
talking about earlier, about the film morphing from one thing
into another starts as soon as the designer arrives, Tim Harvey
who designed the film, suddenly start having questions or comments,
and so, I'd like to think, for me, there's quite an exciting
interchange. If you feel strongly about something, you say so,
but on the whole, in this instance and more or less generally,
when you feel the actors, without completely wrenching it away
from sort of central thing it might, inhabiting it, embracing
it, making it their own, being excited to contribute, if you
feel that they are within the spirit of the thing, then that's
a very exciting thing and I like to encourage that.
A: <?>
KB: In relation to Frances'
character, I did have the idea of somebody who comes into the
film, who is the diammetric opposite, who is fantastically busy,
busy in every sense, someone who brings a busy life. I'm very
aware in my own life that one can, if you're fit and healthy
and I'm lucky enough to be so, you can be busy all the time
in small or large ways and that's sometimes a very functional
way of dealing with the world and sometimes it helps you avoid
the world in some ways, so we talked with her about being someone
who, for what it's worth, you wouldn't get this from the film,
I guess, had a back story probably in the city some way, probably
in the media, someone who's always out, always socialising,
feeling the pressure to wear the right thing, eat the thing,
tremendously concerned with what other people think and needing
the confirmation of other people's voices and other people's
opinions, contact in the way that so many of us do. I don't
know how long it's been since we would say, how did we ever
get on without mobile phones? It's now, you can't be out of
contact with people, people can't not find you. They scream,
"Why didn't you put your phone on?" Or "I left
you a message." "But I was in Guatemala." "But
it doesn't matter, I left a message." We felt that she
was a woman for whom this was a huge thing, but busyness and
concerned with the self, very much concerned with the I, me,
my - my feelings, my hurt, my this, my that, looking inward
rather than outward, and for whom we felt this retreat would
be, which we admired her for, a brave thing to do, which is
to come up against this silence, come up against yourself, on
your own, without these things that confirm you - the mobile
phone, the message, even the distraught message from the man
who might have left you, in this case. Unfortunately, I suppose
what happens is that she transfers that anxiety to a man who
at the beginning was more in balance and then as soon as he
is accelerated into this, burning letters together and being
physically close to someone, all of these wordless interchanges
are suddenly charged and his equilibrium, as hers steadies,
is undermined. If you can undermine an equilibrium.
A: At the top, you mentioned
that there are limited opportunities for the short film. What
do you think is the future for the short film?
KB: I say they're limited, but there are still places to go.
There are limited commercial opportunities. Much harder now
to run shorts with features, but special arrangements always
have to be made, and I don't know really how practical it is
for people, unless perhaps in the context of a cinema like this,
but not necessarily in a multiplex, for shorts to be run or
for people to be made aware of them and it gets down to all
sorts of daft practicalities about advertising and all the rest
of it. But there's a fantastically lively culture about the
short film, there are now a number of organisations in our country:
the Short Film Bureau, and lots and lots of festivals, as a
way of people both experimenting, as a way of people introducing
themselves as talents in the film world, whether in a small
or large way. It's a world that in my limited experience is
a world of great companionship - I've been in two or three short
films and I've directed another short film, about 10 years ago.
I find it an exciting way to watch other people's work. You
do see a fantastic amount of experimentation. You see a great
deal of derivative things as well, but quite a lively interchange.
They do become, as well, calling cards for people, a way of
showing your work and sometimes working on an idea that may
be become a feature or developed in some other way. There's
a tremendous amount of creative energy around the short film,
and now actually, there's a number of places, certainly in America,
that are devoted to short film, exhibition places. So I think
it's always going to be pretty healthy.
SM: Certainly there are
lots of people aspiring to make films out there. And there's
no shortage of places to show them, provided you don't expect
to earn a huge amount of money from them.
KB: Yeah, that's the thing, the exposure.
A: Did you consider making it without any dialogue? <?>
Not since The Ghost and Mrs Muir, which I found really emotional,
still do. I was really welling up, and found (the dialogue)
really jarring.
KB: I think I agree with
you. One of the reasons it took a long time in post-production,
basically there was more dialogue in the film - and some of
it came out when we were shooting. There was more explanation
from the Nanette Newman character, the warden of the retreat
about why and what kind of a retreat and that seemed unnecessary.
And then at the end, Frances had more to say which was more,
a bit too on the nose, in terms of wrapping things up. And I
think we did try without once, but I think in the end, rather
like her arrival, both with the sound, we mixed it so it smashes
in a bit and surprises you, the re-introduction of words and
that grating quality, I suppose I wanted, because it de-romanticised
and in a way makes prosaic, as soon as you start to speak, although
we have say as little as possible, it becomes pedestrian and
mundane, so this rather special moment which words could not
quite describe and where even the complications have been engaging
because of the vulnerabilities that are involved are reduced
as soon as you start to speak, even if it's only to say "Don't
speak. Don't say anything." So I think in the end, I agree
with you, but in the editing, I felt that yes, that's right.
Plus it's also a way back into the real world, where you end
up falteringly saying things that will sound cliched, because
it's very hard to convey what you mean with words without suddenly
becoming meaningful and laboured in everything you ever say
because everything has to be precise and from my heart and truthful.
And they'd found for a moment this way of communicating, by
accident, that was more meaningful and more various, more mysterious,
because you could have a sense of what it meant but part of
the difficulty of that was that for the both of them, nervously
they weren't sure whether it was much, much more. So she dares
to take the trip to his room, and he, in this sort of confusion,
daren't, by the time she's about to leave, feels it's inappropriate
to hand that note over. Because again, it somehow reduces it.
A: <?>
KB: Well, I don't know.
Well, I certainly found it more than just an exercise. It wasn't
just a kind of exercise to do it. I felt that I might make some
discoveries and I felt that in my small way I did, for me as
a filmmaker. I think you could, I just think that, as with all
great simple ideas, which is what that is, as you were talking
about, you have to do them really, really well. I think you
have to earn every moment you have on screen and I think you
have to find some new kind of language and possibly, I wouldn't
be clever enough to do it off the bat, you'd end up shooting
an enormous amount of material, in order to reduce something
to tell the story without words, and in terms of a feature film,
it would be one of those things you'd have to go and do yourself,
finance yourself, because I can't imagine getting that past
anybody, unless it was for a beautiful movie star.
SM: You wouldn't get anyone to fund it.
A: Given your interest in
previous eras, who would be your ideal cast from the past?
KB: Ideal cast from the
past? I would love to have worked with Cagney, Spencer Tracey.
yes, Spencer Tracey, Katharine Hepburn, that would do it for
me.
A: Is your approach to a
film that you're directing and acting in different?
KB: Yes, directing and acting in a film requires much much more
and a different kind of preparation and you have to allot time
or a period of time where you essentially do as much work as
you can on your own performance and with, in my case, sometimes
another person who will help or in some of the Shakespeare films,
I've played the part before on stage and that's been an
enormous help in terms of the preparation. I have found anyway
that you need to make sure you have a system in place, either
with, there was a guy called Hugh Cruttwell, now sadly departed,
who used to particularly watch my work when we were, he was
I suppose you'd call an acting consultant. He was the principal
of the drama school I was at, a great student of acting, very
brutally honest, so he was helpful. But once you get going,
at least I've found, you do it with the other actors. There's
a great sense of camaraderie. I would expect if you were in
a scene, if you're not directing the film, when you've finished
the take, more often than not actors will have something to
say, you'll have some comment about "Did that go well?
Was this quick? Was that slow? Did you believe that?" Some
give or take, so I encourage quite a lot of that when I'm directing.
The main difference is you have more time when you're just directing.
It's sometimes very very irritating when you're directing and
acting to realise that you have to go back into the scene that
you'd really rather like to watch. So I don't know how much
more of it I'll do, actually. Famous last words.
A: What projects are you working on now?
KB: Two or three different
things, I don't know what sort of fruition they'll reach. I'm
reading a lot, which I find is a great prompt to writing, across
the mediums really. Simon and I are developing a couple of,
a romantic comedy, from a British novel, that we're developing
- it's just about to be a first draft of a screenplay. Another
novel that's a murder mystery and some other things. I'm actually
doing a lot more active development, as they call it, than I've
done for a while and enjoying that, both writing myself and
working with writers, not necessarily immediate results but
with the idea of enjoying the process of researching, reading,
we seem to be forever having script conferences - we had one
on the way down in the car today.
SM: Personally, I feel rather superstitious about saying too
much about things before they actually happen. Because I always
think if you talk about a job that's coming up, it's bound to
fall through. Things are in very early stages
KB: And it's happened many times.
SM: Things are in very early
stages. But I think it's fair to say that the film indicates
a slight change of tack.
KB: Yeah, I would say so, I would say so. Umm, yeah, I would
say so.
SM: No more.
A: <?> Did you learn anything about film-making, during
that film?
SM: That's a leading question, isn't it? Do you know anything
about film-making, Mr Branagh?
KB: Did you say "at last" at the end of that question?
A: Did anything come up <?>?
KB: I think lots actually
- about different kinds of story-telling and I think, um, I'd
say it may not seem like much of a departure for anyone watching
who's familiar with my work, but actually just to take the time
over the first two or three minutes of this film was important
to me. Because even tonight I was watching it and I haven't
seen it for a while, and I think "Christ! It does take
a while, doesn't it?" And you know, you're aware, you can
kind of hear how an audience reacts and it's not a criticism,
but I could feel a few people thinking "Jesus! If it's
25 minutes of this, I'm out of here! I'm a fan of silent films,
but get a move on!" Umm, but I wanted to do that, and for
me, because I feel terrific pressure, I like sort of strong
openings, like to grab people's attention, and there are lots
of ways to grab people's attention and this is one way as well,
I think and so I was encouraged by that and then things that
I quite like, the sequence where after she's been upset and
he asks her to burn the letters and she becomes upset again,
and then we had a scene and I had written it differently and
I thought, "Well, you can't do it this way - this is too
prosaic in this film about this subject matter to have this
scene, I think I had her coming and making a sort of sign-language
to say 'Let's go and burn these letters', and it was during
the week we were shooting it that I thought, "Well, why
doesn't she write it down, and look, we've got him on that staircase,
and she can put 'em at the hole of that thingy?" Things
like that, I thought were helpful to me, plus as I was talking
to the gentleman earlier on, the whole way of dealing with actors,
about how to talk with them, how to help them, being aware of
that as an actor myself, I think that changed quite a lot. I
think I found myself, encouragingly, to be much more adaptable,
so that there was this balance. You would talk a lot through
a take - quite unusual - and sometimes hear yourself saying
pretty stupid things and then there you wouldn't say anything,
or you just try and find the word that would be helpful, that
would ignite the imagination. And I've sometimes in the past,
in directing, just talked way too much. You see an actor's eyes
glazing as you confuse them, so I think it encouraged me to
be more economic and I was much more aware, I wanted - I don't
think it's achieved, to be perfectly honest - but I did want,
I went out thinking I would like every shot to be beautiful.
I'd like every shot framed and composed in a way that is itself
a pleasure to my eye, anyway. I didn't want in the end a normal
close-up, I wanted compositions that pleased me and compositions
that actually weren't quite, I also I think across some of the
work I've done, I get quite symmetrical, you know, you use doorways,
you put things in the middle of the frame, and I think, although
God knows I do a bit of that here, there was a greater sense
of just being more tailor-made to the moment. I had a bit more
time to think and I didn't have anybody ringing me up at midnight
and going "I've just seen the dailies, this is terrible",
well, nobody from the studio, obviously. Friends did that, but
nobody from the studio.
A: <?>
KB: Well as I was saying earlier, you care about it as much
so that there's this constant desire to do as well as you can,
and that sometimes means that you're quite hard on yourself
and you can erase a bit of the enjoyment, but I would say, definitely
on balance, yes, it was hugely,
hugely enjoyable. There was a sense from everybody - we had
some really fantastic technicians who have worked on enormous
movies - some people who had just come from the Harry Potter
film, you know from the sublime to the ridiculous. They're on
this bloody 12 month, 1500 people on the crew shoot and all
the money in the world to the much more, although this was luxury
short films land to have no doubts about that, but by comparison,
it was different. I think they all, in that situation, it's
much more possible to do what I do enjoy which is just make
sure, encourage, invite everyone to be part of it. I mean, without
being phoney about it, if you're going show up, it's good to
enjoy and love what you do and so I want you to be included
and involved and not just show up for the cash, what little
cash there was. I think we had a very good, it sounds twee,
but a good communal experience, we had a great week working
together.
A: <?>
KB: All over the place. I like to, these days I've got a dog,
for about three years, so the dog-walking is a good way to do
it, or dog-playing, throwing a stick to the dog - watching the
dog actually is quite a good way to develop films, walking,
it's a very clever dog, and uh, I don't know,
holidays, actually. Even when I have a holiday where I say I'm
not going to think about anything, it takes about 90 minutes
before you know, you're, whatever, whether you're stuck in a
terminal somewhere, whatever, and you go back to things. I don't
why the other day, Sunday, I picked up a copy of Shakespeare's
play The Winter's Tale, for no good reason, I mean absolutely
no good reason, I just went to the bookshelf, took it off, sat
and read that for the afternoon. I have no agenda to making
a production of it or whatever, I just wanted to read the play
again. You find you think both about that and you think about
other things. There's a kind of an ongoing
sort of, whatever you call it, marinating thing that happens,
but it has no pattern. I'm not very disciplined when writing,
I'm not a natural writer at all and so, I don't have that discipline.
I usually have to be in a different place every time I write,
rather than start at 7, 8, 9 o'clock of
the morning. I have to be in a different room at a different
time of the day or be outside or go somewhere else or work through
the night or whatever. I seem to have to avoid routine actually,
is what I need to do.
SM: Last question - it's going to be the killer, isn't it?
A: <?>
KB: Well, I'd understand where that instinct comes from. As
I say, obviously I've done lots of work where there's lots and
lots of dialogue. I mean if it's great writing, I've had the
privilege of being involved with great writing, it's a pleasure
to do, although many would argue that in a
form like cinema, too much dialogue is anti the centre of the
art which is about image. But I can understand why, if you say
more as an actor, I suppose you're potentially more exposed
in the wrong way. You can end up doing lots and lots of acting,
lots and lots of visible acting, as you try and vary and colour
and whatever. I see, and I speak as one who's been guilty of
it on more than one occasion, but I see it when I watch television
now - and I'm not going to name names, because I'm not trying
to have a go at anybody, because as I say, I've definitely been
guilty of this, you see when you watch some television drama
of certain kinds, and yes, they speak.
They speak, but it bears absolutely no relation to the way people
are in life, but it has the illusion of being so. I suppose
this is true of many forms. I sometimes see films that have
so-called method performances where I find it just as mannered,
just as lifeless as if it were a more obvious kind of, affected
kind of performance. And there's a sort of very clever illusion
in certain kinds of drama, particularly on television, I think
it's true of film and I've certainly found myself doing it where
you're almost being completely lifelike and truthful, but in
fact if you listen to it
closely, it's completely and utterly phoney. A lot of times
that is related to literally how much you say, and the kind
of things you say. So I can understand the instinct to say less,
because obviously on film, one of the things this intended to
do, was to with a couple of interesting faces, to say the very
least but really, to my mind, tremendously interesting and charismatic
people, in the form of these two actors that within a story
that was inviting you to think beyond what was there, to have
an impact on you that you might feel bogus, with so little said,
quite a lot can go on in the imagination of the audience, and
if as much potential for that is conveyed by actors who really
are saying a great deal through not speaking, then that's very
interesting. I mean, some people would argue it's all a bit
of bluff anyway. I'm doing a play at the moment at the National
Theatre by David Mamet who is, I think, one of those people
who really does believe that if the actor happens to be thinking
about what they did at the supermarket that day, but it enlivens
the eyes, then audience member can think, "Ah, all the
pain of human existence going through those features",
or you know, the sort of classic film school lesson of woman
at window, goes to window, cut to view of man cutting something,
back to her, face is distraught. Recut the same sequence, woman
at window looks out, people are playing and running about, cut
back and there's a twinkly compassionate look in her eyes. It's
exactly the same shots counterpointed through a different kind
of intercutting and if you follow that route, you think it really
doesn't matter what the actor, it's what the director does.
But I understand the instinct for no dialogue and I reckon I'm
probably in some way intrigued and headed that way. |
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