Page 16 - Fujifilm Exposure_4 Samantha Janus_ok

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Emperor.
“Here I was, an English-speaking producer
who in the early 70s and 80s was very internation- al in outlook. I had just made Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence in the East with Oshima. I’d kept it inde- pendent and was promoting it all over the place when Bernardo called me and asked if we could meet in London. I’d admired him since I was young and when he told me about the project I was flat- tered he believed I could do it. Then I suddenly realised what a monumental task lay ahead.”
It took four years and five international banks to raise the $24 million required for the massive enterprise which, come hell or high water, had to be shot in and around Beijing. “It was not easy,” Thomas recalls, “to raise the money. Bernardo hadn’t made a successful film for some time. I had some sort of reputation but not for a film of this size.” The result was, happily, a critical and box- office sensation which kick-started the Italian director’s flagging career and gave the rising British producer invaluable clout and kudos in an ever mercurial climate.
During his early years as a distinctly advan- taged industry “brat” running about with, first, an 8mm then a 16mm Bolex camera, the studios were virtually his playground in school holidays. He wasn’t a particularly good student but then edu- cation didn’t seem too important to a youngster who had already decided that all he really wanted to do was make movies.
It was after a solid further education in the cutting rooms that eventually, in his mid-20s, he paired up with Aussie director Philippe Mora on their first feature, Mad Dog Morgan, starring Dennis Hopper in a rambunctious Australian west- ern shot in the Outback.
If this producing debut already seemed far removed from the cosier domesticity of an earlier Thomas generation, it wasn’t deliberately planned that way. “I am intensely proud of my father and he directed some fantastic films many of which were very ambitious. He could turn his hand to so many different sorts of films, from dramas to comedy.
“The films that I’ve been drawn to have tend- ed to be fairly intense. The only common factor between the films I’ve done is that I have chosen to do them myself so I can’t hide behind anyone. The fact that I’ve wanted to make larger and more ambitious films means that, with the vagaries of international financing, I’ve generally been forced to make them outside Britain, though very often with British people, happily.”
So, for the most part, Thomas’s progress since has been a kind of combination of budgeting and Baedeker (the foreign travel guide) with his subsequent career path marked out like some map of the world: Eureka (the Caribbean), Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence (Polynesia), The Hit (Spain), Ever ybody Wins and Blood And Wine (the States), Naked Lunch and Crash (Canada). After
The Last Emperor, there was to be North Africa (The Shelt ering Sky), The Himalayas (Lit t le Buddha) and Tuscany (Stealing Beauty) in the con- tinuing Thomas-Bertolucci global odyssey.
Anyone who has to set off regularly in search of large wads of film-making cash has almost by definition to be an optimist. Thomas certainly remains that despite a couple of tough recent moments. The first was failing, with his partners in an enterprise called Indigo, to land one of the Lottery-funded franchises; the other was weather- ing the “sex ‘n’ wrecks” storm whipped up in some sections of the media around the release of Crash - his second film with the controversial Canadian director David Cronenberg.
His optimism also extends to the future of the British Film Institute, that cultural quango with an infamous reputation for internal politicking. Just succeeded by director Alan Parker, Thomas was amazed ever to be invited to take on the chair- manship (after Lord Attenborough). He says, “Initially, I was not in the mood for such a commit- ment because I’m not in any way a public figure nor have I any real ability for political manipula-
tion. But then the offer got the better of me and I accepted the chair of a place I’d been using and enjoying since I was 16.”
“I leave it at a significant moment of change. The place is less reliant now on central aid and much more able to look after itself. Its outreach is wider than ever before, millions of feet of film are restored every year and it generally remains a magnificent part of the British heritage. I never managed to get the library properly sorted out and organised nor was I able to get the BFI better loved by the world at large.
“My advice to Alan is to make people under- stand better what the place is all about and make it more appreciated. I also generally hope that the whole South Bank set-up becomes more user- friendly.” Will Parker find the job very frustrating? “Yes certainly. It’s like an ocean liner which reacts slowly when you move the rudder. Please God, it’ll still be there in a 100 years.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
All The Little Animals was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative.
Photos top: with Bernardo Bertolucci and main right: a cough and a drag in Naked Lunch, below: The Hit; Bad Timing; The Sheltering Sky; Stealing Beauty; and the Insignificance poster.
EXPOSURE • 16 & 17