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ALAN PARKER
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“There are those who provide content and those who deliver it, and whenever the twain doesn’t meet, you get the cardboard city we presently inhabit.”
Photos: Alan Parker directing his team of young actors in Angela’s Ashes
Rank and EMI self-destructed by their refusals to embrace the new means of distributing content (at that time, principally TV). In parallel, the companies that evolved from the exploitation of the television franchises, outside of the exemplary Channel 4, had no real interest in the Film Industry except to acquire the rights to films as inexpensively as possible in order to fuel their pro- gramme schedules.
Hence with sinking film com- panies below us, and unwilling partners in the cash rich TV lifeboats above us, we evolved a film production industry floating in the middle with plenty of abili- ty to provide content, but with lit- tle corporate muscle and fiscal clout to inspirit an entire industry. Too often characterised as a “cot- tage industry,” it was, and still is, even less than that. Film talent, like policemen, often go around in pairs. Recently, the successful creative production entities have not been companies, but self- reliant, mostly Los Angeles financed, teams of people - Jordan and Woolley, Boyle and MacDonald, Winterbottom and Eaton, Kenworthy and Curtis, etc.
Until this Government’s first budget, tax incentives were very slight in encouraging investment in film, hence three decades of abandonment from any sub- stantial investment from the City. The Chancellor’s early incentives have been extended beyond their orig- inal trial period, but the reality is that they are margin- al at least, in order to effect real change.
Sometimes with the U.K. Film Industry it’s hard to know if we’re waving or drowning. Often the easy polit- ical sales rhetoric is hollow compared to the real world. Ephemeral success (as in, “Cool Britannia” and “yet another British Oscar”) is often confused with real accomplishment (as in, “yet another British film fails to get distributed”).
The basic truth is that, at the dawn of this brave, new world, without Government support (direct aid) and public (Lottery) funding, the Film Industry in the
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U.K. would most certainly collapse. The present level of funding that the Film Council will administer is approximately £50m a year. The £150m we are com- monly assumed to receive (sexy headline) is actually spread over three years, one year of which will have already passed by the time the Film Council is proper- ly up and running this April.
As a Government body, obviously we cannot cre- ate a Film Industry, but we can aid and encourage an environment where it can develop and, hopefully, flour- ish. There have been many critics of just how public funds have, in the past, been allocated into the pro- duction sector, some of which is justified. The Lottery funds, presently handled by the Arts Council, will in April be directly controlled by the new Film Council and we will soon consult with the industry on propos- als as to how these funds are to be administered. It takes, on average, about three years to develop a film
from concept to first night (some- times much longer) so obviously with regard to any Government support for film we should be looking at a five year cycle before we see any effect.
My personal opinion is that (in our recent frenzy to make more films) we probably made more mediocre films and about the same number of good films as we always did. Also, public funding for films should be judiciously used to develop films to be made that can consequently deserve and encourage private funding for production - hence reversing the present process of passive, bureaucratic box-ticking that has allowed Lottery funds to be a soft touch which lessened an investor’s downside. Also, a clear policy has to be put in place to encourage new talent and the “not so new” talent.
The BFI is currently in very good shape. The NFT is once again the hippest cinema in town - albeit in its shabby and dated building which will hopefully change when the new South Bank Cinema Centre is built. The British Film Commission continues its sturdy,
often unpraised, work encouraging inward investment, namely American productions, to this country. The wonderful and exceptional state of the art, technical support and post production infrastructure that all filmmakers in this country enjoy, exists and flourishes from this continued investment.
I have no doubt that, notwithstanding the usual hand grenades, the Film Council has the goodwill of most of those involved with film in Britain. In wishing John Woodward well this April, I am reminded of a treatment for a script once sent to me about Mario Zacchini, the original circus “human cannonball” who died last year. He wisely said that the blast of the can- non ejecting him into the air at 90mph was nothing compared with the tough part, which was landing in the net at the other end. ■
Angela’s Ashes, is currently on general release in the