flotsam & jetsam

“But the fact is that on another level, because I’m certainly personally not much in the business of creating heroes and things… In a way - I’ve never tried to articulate this, but I suppose the thing of looking at anybody that you may come across, that I may come across in life and society, but looking at them with wide-open eyes so that you do see the flaws and you do see the twitches and all those things, which I believe I’ve probably been saying already this evening. By definition you then focus on those things, and what I hope it’s about is then to make that interesting, to go beyond that and to put it in its context and to make things happen which make you care and make you think about those people. I don’t think I’m saying very much that I haven’t said already this evening, other than that the premise is that it’s our flaws, not their flaws. It’s not them, it’s the same thing that I was saying over here: it’s our flaws that I’m talking about, it’s our vulnerability, it’s our imperfection, it’s us that I think we’re talking about, not them. Does that make sense? You still don’t like the lady next door!”

“People say, “Ah, yes, but audiences just want to escape.” I think, that if people see a film like “Secrets and Lies,” where the stuff that’s going on relates to things that they really care about, then it’s more of an escape. Because you become so engaged in it and enthralled by it that you forget those things. They answer “Well, yes, but then the audience worries about real life things,” but it’s fulfilling, it’s enriching, it’s not like just eating candy for an hour and three quarters. It’s actually really communing with something and feeling like you’ve been through something that comes out making you feel better able to go back and worry about the specific things that are your problems. So I think people are very dumb about escapism and entertainment and all that. They say, “Ah yes, but we’re in the entertainment business.” Excuse me; I am in the entertainment business and I make no bones about it. If my movie ever was not entertaining, it’s a turkey as far as I’m concerned. My aim is to entertain, meaning, literally, what the word means. People forget what that word means. It means to make you stay here, to keep you in your seat. One of the things that drives me mad about watching films in this country is that nobody can sit still for two minutes — everyone’s in and out like bloody monkeys in a cage and eating and talking. The attention span is dreadful because — and I submit that this did not happen in the Golden Age of Hollywood when they made movies that made you sit there and really watch the whole time — it’s boring, basically.”

“My films are full of ideas, lots of different ones — things working on all kinds of different levels. For me, making a film is an exploration into what we feel. I’m not concerned with making films that are conclusive or prescriptive, and certainly not propaganda. I make films where either rationally or emotionally I tend to ask more questions than give answers. I feel that the audience should have something to work with when the film’s over, something to discuss and argue about.”

“I think it would be ridiculous if every single film was a *Naked*. Just like I think it would be ridiculous if all someone ate was steak. You’ve got to have a mixture in your diet. I think films like *Naked* should sit alongside other kinds of films. If a film is not entertaining it’s a disaster; I’ve got no time for a film that’s not entertaining. But when you talk about escaping, that’s a complicated question. When you go beyond the mindless definition of escaping, the Hollywood definition, I would suggest to you that if you go to see *Naked*, you are going to escape for two hours and eleven minutes. Not that you’re going to escape the problems of life; of course you aren’t. But it’s actually rich and fulfilling to concentrate on things that matter to you. That’s also escaping.”

“The problems in making films like I do reaching a wide audience are exclusively problems of distribution and exhibition. The battle is to try and make films like mine be perceived as commercial films. Because I don’t think audiences are stupid. I don’t think audiences are congenital idiots and children who need to be pandered to. I think anyone can get Naked. My assumption about my audience is that they are an infinite sized group of people who are at least as intelligent as I am. I think I make populist entertainment films. But that doesn’t necessarily mean soufflés and trifles.”