Page 21 - Fujifilm Exposure_20 Bend It Like Beckham_ok

Be Different
Be Different
An interview with Ian Wilson BSC
behind the camera
Daring To
Daring To
E ven after the merest influences Papas’s 1967 “Initially I found the whole thing
glance at his diverse movie credits, it becomes abundantly clear that Ian Wilson is determined not to be typecast. Beginning his career in documen-
taries, he went on to light, among many others, such films as Up Pompeii, The House In Nightmare Park, Wish You Were Here, Edward II, The Crying Game, Backbeat and Emma... each distinct and quite different.
“I once lost a job because of that,” Wilson chuckles. “The director wanted me to do it but the head honcho from NBC said they didn’t want me because they’d seen my films and they all looked different. I was very cross dri- ving back from Pinewood but after- wards, I realised that it was a compli- ment really.”
One of the first graduates from the London Film School, Wilson was also a former art school student keen to make his name in the vibrant film and TV industry of the 1960s. “I freelanced in documentaries when I started,” he recalls, “and did a lot of World In Action.”
A keen movie fan he cites the work of Stanley Cortez and Gregg Toland as
upon him, as
well as that of
Jack Cardiff. At
a time when
the domestic
film industry
was beginning
to explore
everyday sub-
jects with a
gritty sense of realism, Wilson was also hugely impressed by the epic efforts of British filmmakers on major Hollywood movies.
“I remember thinking Lawrence Of Arabia was amazing,” he adds. “I’d just graduated from film school when I first saw it. And it excited me but I also understood that in order to get something like that you needed tremendous resources. What it taught me was that the whole thing about cinema was showing audiences things they don’t see in everyday life.
“When I get offered films that are set in the kitchen or the bedsitting room, I don’t want to do them. That’s not what cinema’s about, that’s television.”
Moving into features as a fully fledged DP, starting with Michael
film, Private Right, Wilson found him- self relying upon the experience he developed in documen- taries. But although he
worked continuously he admits that the late 60s and early 70s was a peri- od of disillusionment when the indus- try seemed to be trapped in a rut of tedious sex comedies and grimly unappealing parochial fare.
He turned to commercials instead eventually returning to features in 1982 with Privates On Parade. It wasn’t until five years after that, when David Leland invited him to shoot Wish You Were Here, that Wilson began to feel really enthused about British movies again.
The Leland association continued through the America-shot Checking Out and the tough Scottish drama The Big Man. In between, Wilson lit Dream Demon, Erik The Viking and his own personal favourite, Edward II, for Derek Jarman.
rather frightening,” he says. “Derek Jarman was terrific to work with, but when we started there were no sets, just walls. In the end that proved quite liberating because I was able to look at the text and light for that. In the end, the lighting illuminated the text rather than illuminating the scene.”
After filming Dakota Road for Nick Ward, Wilson came on to Neil Jordan’s Oscar-winning The Crying Game at short notice, and found himself involved in one of the biggest hits of his career.
The film, about a conflicted IRA man who falls for a strangely alluring young woman, contained one of the most star- tling scenes of the year; the revelation to the audience – and Stephen Rea’s bemused character – that his girl (Jaye Davidson) is really a boy.
“We had quite a few goes at that scene,” Wilson recalls. “In the end, we did a tilt down. The speed down was quite critical, too quick and you’d have missed it, too slow and it would have been prurient. Jaye didn’t know that he was going to be filmed like that when he arrived. It was a surprise for him on the day but he didn’t mind.”
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EXPOSURE • 19