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A master at dangerous play Thinking inside the box Home Movies "Shakespeare in Love" "A Simple Plan" "Star Trek: Insurrection" "Psycho" |
Safe haven DIRECTOR JOHN BOORMAN TALKS ABOUT THE SEARCH FOR REFUGE AMONG DISCONTENTS, HIS NEW FILM, "THE GENERAL," FAMILY VALUES AND HIS FASCINATION WITH NONCONFORMITY.
BY CHARLES TAYLOR | The news that John Boorman had won the best director prize for "The General" at the Cannes Film Festival this spring was one of the most cheering movie events of the year. One of the world's greatest living filmmakers, Boorman has turned out a series of films in the last 11 years that are the best realizations of his visionary, eccentric gifts. From his first film, "Having a Wild Weekend" (1965) -- a pop romp starring the Dave Clark Five, and the great lost British film of the '60s -- Boorman's central theme has been the search for refuge among the discontents of civilization. "Deliverance" (1972) presented the dark side of that quest. But refuge for Boorman has often come in the form of myth and legend, and in the 1981 "Excalibur," he achieved his long-cherished dream of filming the Arthurian myths that have been his greatest inspirations. Yet it was with 1987's "Hope and Glory" that Boorman began what has been a run of his most beautifully structured and emotionally satisfying films. "Hope and Glory" explored the roots of his fascination with nonconformity, his dissatisfaction with ordinary life and his belief that creation starts in destruction. The film was his reminiscence of growing up during the Blitz. Cutting through the stiff-upper-lip reverence with which that era had usually been depicted in the movies ("Mrs. Miniver" being the most famous example), Boorman portrayed the Blitz as a great national holiday, with Hitler's bombs uncorseting the British. The two films that followed, "Where the Heart Is" (1990), a comedy based on his adult family life written with his daughter Telsche, and "Beyond Rangoon," the story of an American tourist (played by Patricia Arquette) caught up in that country's democracy demonstrations, were both dumped by their studios and, with the exception of a handful of perceptive critics, idiotically reviewed. They remain two of the decade's undiscovered jewels. The central figure of "The General" is Martin Cahill (played by Brendan Gleeson), an Irish career burglar who became something of a folk hero. Boorman, who lives in Ireland, had long been fascinated by Cahill -- particularly since Cahill had broken into the director's home (an incident alluded to in "The General" when Cahill swipes a gold record during a burglary). Raucous, brutal and tender, the film offers a complex and unresolved portrait of Cahill, neither admiring nor judgmental. I spoke to Boorman in September when he was in Boston to present his film at that city's film festival. Watching "The General," I could think of several reasons why Martin Cahill would be a good figure for a John Boorman movie. He's a nonconformist. He sets himself impossible tasks, which you've certainly done in some of the circumstances you've filmed under. But there's a real ambivalence about him as well. Living in Ireland as I do, and have done for the last 30 years, I was very conscious of him. In fact, we have a curiously intimate personal connection. He robbed my house in 1981. At that time, he was really just a cat burglar -- he wasn't doing any of these big things, but he was very audacious then, and provocative. The police recognized his modus vivendi, but also he always wanted to be known when he pulled off these things. He wanted the credit for them. It was also a challenge, you know: "Well, OK now try and prove it. I did that, now prove it." But amongst the things he took was this gold record I had for the music for "Deliverance." So I put that in the movie; that was my revenge. But the character's fascinating because he also allowed me to say a few things I wanted to say about Ireland. There are various ways in which his activities impinge on society and reveal its various hypocrisies and corruptions. But it was also -- here was this man setting himself up against society, and that intrigued me immensely. One of the things I always do when I'm writing a script, preparing a film, I always use the Arthurian legend. It's always a sort of reference point for me, because that myth has everything in it, you see. And I always say, well, where does this fit in, who is this character? We talked 11 years ago when "Hope and Glory" came out, and you told me that the Arthurian myth was the myth that, for you, explained what it meant to you to grow up English, as opposed to the Jesus myth, which you described as a desert myth. Exactly. I felt [the Jesus myth] was so alien to me, olive groves and deserts, whereas I was living with oak trees. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - N E X T+P A G E+| The robber as tribal Celtic chieftain |
