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in focus
Barry Ackroyd bsc reflects on two very different new projects – Eroica for TV and Ae Fond Kiss for cinema
Photos main: Ian Hart as Beethoven in Simon Cellan Jones’ Eroica; above left: DP Barry Ackroyd BSC; right: Eva Birthistle as Roisin in Ken Loach’s Ae Fond Kiss; far right l-r: a scene from Ae Fond Kiss and scenes from Eroica
T hey could have been the 18th century’s answer to
Lennon & McCartney, but, sadly, Ludwig van Beethoven and Robert Burns never actually met. Yet the inspirational com-
poser and the revered Scottish poet produced work that lives on long after their deaths, artistic accomplishments that are given a fresh twist in a brace of upcoming projects.
Barry Ackroyd is the man who links both the BBC film, Eroica – screened on BBC2 back in the autumn – which follows Beethoven’s writing of his Third Symphony, and the latterday Romeo & Juliet story, Ae Fond Kiss.
With the title taken from one of Burns’ romantic poems – “Ae fond kiss and then we sever/Ae farewell, and then forever!” – this Ken Loach-direct- ed drama completes his Glaswegian trilogy that began with My Name Is Joe and Sweet Sixteen.
Set in the more genteel community of Pollockshields, the Paul Laverty screenplay casts Scottish Muslim Casim (Atta Yaqub) and Roisin (Eva Birthistle) as the star cross’d lovers, and is an
altogether more sweet natured affair than Loach and Ackroyd’s last forays north of the border.
“It is a much gentler film,” Ackroyd confirms, “and intentionally so. It’s a love story and the tension is built within social structures rather than political ones.
“It’s about morals and society more than anything else. And the loca- tions have been very different too. Anyone who’s lived or spent any time there knows that Glasgow is a very beautiful city, one of the most beauti- ful in Britain, but as with any city all manner of life lives there.
“We’ve shown a couple of sides of life in Glasgow in those other films, and this is another one again. People might be quite surprised by this, the Pakistani community who live in Pollockshields.
“I used to live in that area myself, and I liked it because it’s such a mixed area socially, more like where I come from in London. I think a lot of people may not be aware that it exists in Glasgow, because most of the time people see a very Scottish view of the city. But this brings another side of Glasgow to the fore.”
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WORDS & MUSIC