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From Comic Book
From Comic Book
W hen Alwin Küchler set down his pen and ink and picked up a cam-
era and film, it was indeed the comic book industry’s loss and cinema’s gain. As a young boy in his native Düsseldorf, Küchler - who has been filming the Pathé
Productions’ RatcatcherinGlasgow-wasahuge fan of comic books, most especially the French graphics.
In fact, he was such a buff he decided he want- ed to carve out a career in four colours for himself. As a youngster, Küchler had the talent and the incli- nation to become a comic artist and see his own work in those French books he loved.
And right from the start he set his sights at the very top. “I had read The Godfather by Mario Puzo, and I was very impressed,” recalls Küchler during a break from filming.
“I decided I wanted to turn it into a comic book so I started work on my own adaptation. But I think I gave it up at around page twenty or so.”
Not long afterwards Küchler saw Francis Ford Coppola’s American epic version of Puzo’s book and it was this seminal film - which he allows was con- siderably better than his own abortive attempt - that first kindled his interest in the cinema. He admits that it is rather clichéd in that everyone claims to have been influenced by Coppola, but he says this was the film which really opened his eyes to the potential of cinema.
His path from a blank sheet of cartridge paper to his own cinematic canvas was, however, a cir- cuitous one. He came to London to study and decid- ed to settle in the UK. After a stint at the National Film and Television School, Küchler started to spe- cialise in stills photography especially fashion pho- tography for the advertising industry.
Even though he was making a living and doing good work he remained unsatisfied. There was something wrong and he quickly decided this was not the life for him. “I loved the work from a creative
An interview with Alwin Küchler
point of view but I just couldn’t stand some of the people I was working with,” he says with commend- able candour. “I didn’t really mind constantly having to sell myself to people, but I did have a problem selling myself to people I didn’t like.” Küchler gave up his fashion career and moved into film-making
further down the line.
“Creatively it’s very satisfying, especially the
documentary work,” he continues. “You meet a lot of very interesting people. You get to work with real people, people that sometimes you are very fortu- nate to meet. Nothing like the sort of people you
meet in the fashion industry.” Ratcatcher is a poignant family
drama involving a young boy and girl on a Glasgow housing estate. The film is set against the backdrop of a crippling city- wide rubbish collectors’ strike in the early Seventies which left many parts of Glasgow knee deep in refuse and literally crawling with rats.
This is one of the first slate of three films to be produced by Pathé with their share of the National Lottery production funding. Pathé is committed wherever possible to encouraging young talent. The cast of the film are largely unknown. The biggest name in front of the cameras is scarfaced Tommy Flanagan whose face will certainly be familiar after play- ing thuggish heavies in Hollywood films such as The Saint, Mission:Impossible and The Jackal.
But in young director Lynne Ramsay, Pathé are backing one of the brightest names and hottest talents in the British film industry. This NFTS grad-
uate comes to her feature debut - which is set quite incidentally in the same part of the city where she grew up - on the back of two award-winning short films at the Cannes Film Festival. Small Deaths won in 1996 while Gasman shared the short film prize this year in May.
Küchler, who’s now 32, has known Ramsay since their film school days and has worked with her on three occasions before. After shooting her graduation film he then shot a BFI short for her, as well as filming Gasman. Now their collaboration
when he shot a graduate film for a friend at NFTS. This led to a variety of work on television,
short films, commercials, and pop promos. Along the way he worked on a documentary Who Stole the Soul which won a Royal Television Society award.
“I was involved in a real mixture of things,” he explains. “I did everything from rock videos to tele- vision drama. The variety was my own choice. I deliberately tried to do as many different things as possible because I find that I take something away from everything I shoot and then I use it somewhere
Photos: inset above; Alwin Küchler in repose; facing page top: still from Gasman and inset below, William Eadie in Ratctcher.
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