Mercedes Driver

Mercedes Gleitze. Not a new model of German automobile. You’ve probably never heard the name. She (she’s a she, not an it) was the first British woman to swim the English Channel and an all-round remarkable person.

The same can be said of Elliott Hasler. Last night saw (at the fabulous [and at risk] Curzon Mayfair) the premiere of his debut feature film, the unusually titled ‘Vindication Swim’, which he wrote at the age of 18 after reading a newspaper article about Mercedes, who was born in Brighton, as was Elliott.

It took him over three years to shoot the film which is highly ambitious being a period drama (set in the 20s) and involving extensive shooting on the open sea. Whenever the Channel off Brighton was reasonably calm and the weather OK he had to scramble his cast and crew, including his lead actress Kirsten Callaghan (making a knock-out debut), old-school character actor John Locke (who recently appeared in the brilliant ’Poor Things’) and Victoria Summer (‘Saving Mr Banks’ as Julie Andrews). Kirsten, as totally committed as all the cast and crew, did all the sea swimming herself. They come across as a family engendered by Elliott.

Elliott called in no end of favours. Period vehicles and horse-drawn carts for the street scenes. Background artists from local am-dram groups from Rottingdean to Worthing. Huge attention to detail, extending to making this one of the lowest carbon footprint feature films of all time.

Through sheer dint of will this low-budget independent British movie is now getting a good release of over 300 UK showings and Elliott and his team are setting off on a month of post-screening Q&As all round the country. Picnik Entertainment have come in firmly behind the now 23-year-old’s stand-out calling card, amplifying the huge talent of ‘Vindication Swim’ ‘s prime mover.

The cherry on the cake of last night’s premiere was the presence of Ronnie Wood. No moss will gather on this young rolling stone – Elliott is now working on his follow-up feature, also South coast based (with Graham Greene’s ‘Brighton Rock’ at its heart).

Mercedes Gleitze (who was finally honoured in 2022 with a blue plaque in her native city) attempted the cross-Channel swim seven times before finally securing that swimming first on 7th October 1927. Persistence, resilience, vision, inspiration from a committed parent (in Mercedes’ case her German-born father, in Elliott’s his accountant father as producer who no doubt stretched the sub-£400K budget to its limit – Simon, Elliott & I first met in Brighton in January 2023 and they made an immediately charming duo), boldness, humility, winning the loyalty of a rock-solid team – the maker of this remarkable film and its subject share many outstanding qualities. Mercedes’ name is now becoming more known. Elliott’s, without a shadow of a doubt, will soon be.

Photo: Stewart Weir

Premiere at Curzon Mayfair 28/2/24

Elliott Hasler, Kirsten Callaghan, Victoria Summer, John Locke

124 Freshfield Road, Brighton

Let’s Hear It for Audio

With the announcement of the BAFTA Best Film nominations last Thursday as always there was a notable omission. Jonathan Glazer’s ‘The Zone of Interest‘ is by a country mile the best movie of the year, in what is a pretty strong year. It carries a credit to my late Film4 colleague Sue Bruce-Smith, who sadly passed away way too young early in 2020, indicating how long it’s been in the making (Glazer optioned the not-yet-published, eponymous Martin Amis source novel in 2014). That decade of development resulted in a highly original, brilliantly crafted, important film.

I’m currently working on an Auschwitz documentary with journalist Martin Bright with a not dissimilar story so was intrigued to see how Glazer dealt with the two spaces – the Commandant’s house and the concentration camp next door. What is most striking about the film is how it puts so much emphasis on the audio of this premium audio-visual medium and portrays the death camp primarily through sound, enabling the director to convey both spaces simultaneously.

From the moment at the start of the film when Commandant Höss returns from a bucolic picnic to his family home adjacent to the camp a low rumbling subtly enters the soundtrack, the sound of the furnaces on the other side of the wall efficiently burning up bodies round the clock. As the film goes on, life on the domestic side of the wall with its pretty flower garden and idyllic countryside is punctuated by gun shots, ferocious barking, occasional screams and every so often a steam train pulling in (loaded with we know what). Gradually these hellish sounds render the inhabitants of the domestic space soul-sick, from the young son to the Commandant himself, who pukes on the stairs he eventually descends into the blackness of eternal damnation.

Before any pictures, the movie opens with a (long) couple of minutes of music over a dark grey screen – or rather ‘music’ as it is more like composed noises, deeply disturbing. The film ends in similar style, with distorted choral voices cutting through diabolical noises. The music composition and sound design are defining and brilliant, indicating why the picture picked up both the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and the Soundtrack Award.

Audio is often overlooked or underused in film, TV and audio-visual media. When we made ‘MindGym‘, winner of the first ever BAFTA for Interactive Entertainment, “brilliant sound” was one of the key principles we kept on a sticky note on the office wall throughout production. In ‘Screen International’ Glazer described the movie’s audio as “the other film” – “arguably, the film”.

Johnnie Burn and Audio Mixer Tarn Willers have been nominated for the Best Sound BAFTA. A remarkable Sound Designer, Burn compiled an extensive list of pertinent events at the death camp alongside witness testimonies, from which to draw realistic sounds for an authentic sound library deployed on the film. They used a detailed map of Auschwitz to calculate the distance and reverberation of the sounds.

‘The Zone of Interest’ is in some cinemas now but is officially released in the UK on 2nd February (and on 9th February in Poland where it was shot, primarily at Auschwitz). Not to be missed.

Sandra Hüller (Hedwig Höss) – Jonathan Glazer (Director) – Christian Friedel (Rudolf Höss) at Cannes

Live Hard

Christmas starts here as we move into December. Last night ‘Die Hard’ (1988) played at the fabulous art deco Rex Cinema (1938) in Berkhamsted (Hertfordshire, England). 

The best line is the incongruous…

“Hi Honey”

said by a bloodied, battered John McClane (Bruce Willis) as he sees his hostage wife towards the climax of the film. Comic, ironic understatement at its best.

And yes, it is a Christmas film.

Coincidences No.s 238 & 239 – Retirement

Photo: David Parry

Coincidence No. 238

27.8.22

I am driving to Herne Hill past the Oval and wonder why the rugby mural on a cricket ground. Then I wonder who Shaunagh Brown is, as I don’t follow women’s rugby.

28.8.22

I hear on the radio news that Shaunagh Brown played her final match at The Stoop yesterday, the day I passed the mural, more or less at the exact time of kick-off.

Coincidence No. 239

27.8.22

Enfant Terrible No. 1 is chucking out a large green flask and asks me if I can make use of it or if anyone might want it. We can’t figure out why anyone would want such a big flask. I politely decline.

28.8.22

I am watching ‘A Man Called Otto’ for BAFTA Film judging and I notice Otto/Tom Hanks has the same large green flask when he goes to visit his wife’s grave.

VE Day 75 – The Walk

Beginning of my VE day walk – a lone hint of celebration on our street – East Finchley, London N2

Coronavirus has stopped normal access to the commonwealth war graves in St Pancras & Islington cemetery

The commonwealth war graves in St Pancras & Islington cemetery earlier in the lockdown (before they closed the cemeteries)

I’m sitting just beneath Emile Guillaume’s La Délivrance known locally as The Naked Lady – it’s a WW1 memorial but it is opposite the flat where my great-uncle Bruno lived, a concentration camp survivor & refugee from Leipzig Germany, so its WW2 victory for me

Flowers for children VE Day 75, Henly’s Corner

The clock tower memorial to WW1 & WW2 at Golders Green with its distinctive blue

WW2 poetry Keith Douglas in flower garden at Golders Hill – wisteria no hysteria, stiff upper lip

Comment: unicornsalmost

‪This Sunday, on @bbcradio3 : Unicorns, Almost – a play about the life and poetry of Keith Douglas https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j2bn‬

Hampstead war memorial to both world wars – a few hundred yards from where I was born, overlooking all of London

Film location of ‘Allied’ movie with Brad Pitt & Marion Cotillard set during WW2

Film location of ‘Allied’

I met a family sitting out on their front steps down the road from here, told them what I was doing and they pointed me to…

Nicholas Winton saved 669 Jewish children from the Nazis when based in this house in Hampstead

Liam Gallagher‘s RAF roundel window at his old place in Hampstead

Photographer Lee Miller‘s house Hampstead – she photographed WW2 for Vogue magazine including the liberation of Dachau & Hitler’s bathtub in Munich

My dad remembered vividly a doodlebug V1 exploding in the corner of this pond near his childhood home – I never walk by without thinking of him Hampstead Heath, VE day 75

George Orwell‘s house – his wife Eileen O’Shaughnessy worked at the Ministry of Information during WW2 (in the censorship department) in Senate House, University of London & he famously used it as the model for the Ministry of Truth in 1984 – Orwell was in the Home Guard & broadcast for the BBC

That’s the VE day 75 walk done – 9 hours, 24,600 steps, good fun

4 reasons to go see Joker

(No spoilers)

This is my first BAFTA viewing of the 2019-20 season and frankly it’s likely to be all downhill from here. This is a flawless performance in a pretty much flawless film (in contrast to Dark Knight which is a flawless performance in a slightly flawed, overlong film). It’s got an unusual pacing as it is, as the director Todd Phillips said in his intro at an Imax screen on Leicester Square, a “slow-burn”. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a slow-burn that doesn’t really work (much though I enjoyed the movie) – but this one you just have to go with and it winds itself out to a more than satisfying last third where the pace takes off. It’s a detailed character study in how Arthur Fleck became Joker. Once he fully transitions to the warped clown nemesis of Batman it’s a fabulous run for home. I can’t wait to go back and watch it again. I’m not too keen on comic book movies (much though I love the comics themselves) but this is, perhaps the first, maybe second, true classic in that genre.

A stairs scene to rival Battleship Potemkin and Rocky

1. A trip back to Hollywood’s golden age in the 70s

The movie has its roots and inspiration in 70s classics, movies I truly love. There’s Taxi Driver here, and King of Comedy, the anger and madness of Network and the crazy of Cuckoo’s Nest. And making the link is a superb performance from Robert DeNiro as a TV show host.

2. The Stairs scene

I just loved the scene on the stairs above – the music, the movement, the costumes. Joker is a character with music and elegance deep in him. But he has been beat to fuck by society and his horrendous background, crippled.

3. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance

Joaquin Phoenix & Todd Phillips at London screening 25th September 2019

He’s in pretty much every scene. He’s somehow simultaneously hideous and handsome. Todd Phillips referred to him as the actor of his generation which is certainly arguable. Once he’s donned his red suit, yellow waistcoat and green hair-matching shirt he is frankly irresistible.

4. The music and soundtrack

At the beginning of the stairs sequence we hear Rock and Roll Part 2 by Gary Glitter. A pretty controversial choice for sure – but appropriate to the context. And for all the shame of Paul Gadd/Gary Glitter it’s a helluva song. A bit later we get White Room by the great Cream. Another spot-on, dark choice.

I’ll wait in this place where the sun never shines
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves

The newly composed soundtrack by Hildur Gudnadottir (Sicario, The Revenant, Chernobyl), a classically trained cellist from Iceland, is highly original and effective/affective. She composed to the script rather than the cut film so some of the key scenes were shot performed to her music rather than the (usual) other way round.

The cat that got Cream (why so serious?)

Coincidences No.s 210 & 211 – Radio radio

22.iii.18

It is 4.30 in the morning. I hear the cat out on the landing. I come out of the bedroom and it seems a bit frantic. I shoo it downstairs and as I follow it to lock it in the kitchen I notice movement in the downstairs hall. A mouse. I chase the mouse into the kitchen, close the door, open the back door and shoo it out with a brush.

I go back to bed and turn on the radio to lull me back to sleep. The programme on BBC World Service that comes on is talking about getting rid of mice and how do you know that you’ve got rid of them all.

24.iii.18

Nick Kegan / Jeff Bridges 1979

I decide to watch a slightly obscure 70s movie on Saturday night – ‘Winter Kills’. It is about the aftermath of the assassination of a popular young US president and the conspiracy theories which follow his shooting. The main character, Nick Kegan, bears more than a passing resemblance to Robert Kennedy.

I stop the movie to go into the kitchen to turn off the dinner. On the radio, which has been left on, is Robert Kennedy in an archive programme on BBC Radio 4 about the killings of both Kennedy (RFK) and Martin Luther King (MLK).

Robert Kennedy 1961

 

All the Money in the World

Micro Movie Review:  would be improved by replacing all the performances – as well as the script – to make something less cold & simplistic

Kevin Spacey (L) replaced by Christopher Plummer (R) as J. Paul Getty

Chairwoman update

Just back from the Aesthetica Short Film Festival in York where I had my first official Sell Out as far as I can recall.

I was doing a Masterclass on factual/unscripted short form video. In the Green Room after I met Dr Melanie Williams of UEA where she is Head of Film, Television and Media Studies. She specialises in post-war cinema and has written a monograph on David Lean (very appropriate in that I’m writing this in BAFTA which Lean founded and which Aesthetica feeds into via the Short Film category in the Film Awards). As we chatted the subject of Christine Keeler’s 60s movie came up – see Chairman of the Board below. Well it turns out one of her colleagues at the University of East Anglia has a particular interest in ‘The Keeler Affair’ movie (1963) and in fact (contrary to what I had read) it was made but was never granted a BBFC certificate in the UK, so it only played abroad. Lewis Morley, the photographer who photographed Keeler in That Chair, refers slightly erroneously to: “an intended film which never saw the light of day”.

It also seems to have another title, ‘The Christine Keeler Story‘, and it turns out that Keeler doesn’t exclusively play herself despite posing for the publicity photos – Yvonne Buckingham plays her although Keeler is also listed as “Herself”. Same for Mandy-Rice Davies who both plays herself and is played by Alicia Brandet.  I’ve yet to find out how Buckingham & Keeler and Brandet & Rice Davies squared that circle though there are some clues in the clip I found below.

Call Girl – untitled photograph by Tom Blau (1963)

In the synopsis Keeler is referred to as a “teenage prostitute” which seems both harsh and not entirely accurate. I like the term “good-time girl” which is often used to hedge bets in this type of context.

And here’s the bit I found. Quite intriguing. A disco ball in the courtroom… like it.

***

I went from BAFTA in Piccadilly round the corner to the May Fair Hotel for a BAFTA Film Awards screening of ‘American Pastoral’ with leading man and director Ewan McGregor in attendance. It is a striking and original film, directed with amazing aplomb for a first movie (this is McGregor’s directorial debut). It is a thoughtful interpretation of Philip Roth’s novel, not spoonfeeding the audience and concluding with an uncompromisingly enigmatic end. McGregor spoke with great articulacy and clarity about his method as an actor-director. What came across strongly is that this is an actors’ film – the rehearsal and shooting process, as well as the framing and camera movement, were all focused on enabling the actors to do their thing in an imaginative and fresh way.

So far the best of the BAFTA fare. Also very striking is the disturbing poster – the best I’ve seen in a long while – which takes the all-American idealism of Wyeth and Hopper (the first half of the film derives its colour palette from Hopper), takes the all-American idealism of Wyeth and Hopper – and shakes it the fuck up, torching the Dream.

Andrew Wyeth – Christina’s World (1948)

Edward Hopper – House with Dead Trees (1932)

Grant Wood – American Gothic (1930)

4 reasons to go see Grandma

Paul Weitz & Lily Tomlin at BAFTA screening of Grandma in Soho, London 29 Nov 2015

Spent this moist, sunless afternoon watching the brilliant ‘Grandma’, the best awards season movie I have seen to date, a welcome blast of old school American indie cinema. After the screening I had a quick chat with both the lead actress Lily Tomlin (Nashville, All of Me, Short Cuts) and the director/writer Paul Weitz (About a Boy, Antz, American Pie). During the Q&A I asked Paul about the source of the story – was it the issue (abortion)? the characters? or other? He said it started from the notion of a young woman without enough money to pay for the abortion she feels she urgently needs. Its treatment of the theme of abortion is refreshingly less conservative than the likes of the too mannered ‘Juno’.

Elle (with Sage)

1. Lily Tomlin – who gives a feisty performance as Elle, a lesbian grandma who is there when her grand-daughter really needs her. Tomlin (76) has been in a relationship with her female partner, Jane, for over 40 years. Elle’s relationship and grieving for her recently deceased partner, Violet, is a deeply moving absence at the heart of the movie. Tomlin’s face is compelling to watch, unique and very particular.

Sage

2. Julia Garner – plays Sage, the grand-daughter. She is absolutely captivating on screen, with something of the 40s/50s Hollywood studio star about her (a bit of Marilyn Monroe, perhaps a touch of Veronica Lake, that kind of vibe). She is known for The Perks of Being a Wallflower (a favourite of my young nephew Jake who has impeccable film taste) and Martha Marcy May Marlene. The chemistry between her and  Tomlin couldn’t be more perfect.

Paul Weitz – scriptwriter (and director)

3. Paul Weitz – who wrote the excellent screenplay, really nuanced and fresh. ‘Grandma’ makes an interesting contrast to ‘Carol’ – another ‘lesbian movie’ currently doing the rounds – where, despite exemplary acting, the story is unsurprising and strangely linear.

4. The Indie Spirit – Weitz made this outstanding movie for $600,000 and shot it in 19 days. As a result he was under little pressure and the movie has a real lightness of touch and creative economy. He got the cash from a Greek benefactor and then Sony Classics picked up the finished film in the wake of Sundance.

4 things I talked to Lily Tomlin about

1. The joy of being a grand-parent, what a lovely relationship the grand-parent/grand-child one is, how much I’m looking forward to being one (PG, as my grandma would have said)
2. Her grumpy grandpa and inspiring grandma in Kentucky
3. Being born in Detroit, the city-country mix; Detroit: Requiem for a City (which she hasn’t seen yet), Julien Temple, The Sex Pistols
4. That my grandpa, Ian Harris, would have been 100 last week; how special a man he was.

‘Moment by Moment’ (1978)

4 things I talked to Paul Weitz about

1. American indie films
2. Me & Earl & the Dying Girl
3. The abortion clinic shooting this week in the USA, how safe he is talking about Grandma in America, particularly the South
4. Treadmill desks (as featured in the film), the office he shares with his brother, Chris (screenwriter & producer: The Golden Compass, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, American Pie), Chris’s treadmill desk.