"We were at a dinner party at Terry Semel's house in Los Angeles, which is like Blenheim Palace. Semel was running Warner Bros, and I think he still does. We were sitting there and clearly audiences were going with The Killing Fields, and Jake Eberts was saying to me 'What are you going to do next, Bruce? I said, 'It looks like I'm going to write this atomic bomb film for Warners, but what I'd really like to do' - and I wasn't talking about me as a director - 'is get my little film made.' He said, 'What is your little film?' - i.e. 'Bring it to us' - and I said, 'It's about two out-of-work actors in London in the sixties.' He said [American accent], 'Fuck! I gotta tell you this, I just had this script over my desk about two out-of-work actors in London in the sixties.' And he proceeds to tell me about Withnail. 'It's the most godawful unfunny thing I ever read. I don't know what yours is about, but let me tell you if it hadn't been recommended I'd never have got through it. It's just shit.' I finally said, 'Yeah, that's my story.' So there you go.
Pages
- Home
- Ian Walker's New Society Articles
- 2024 Read
- 2024 ReRead
- 2023 Read
- 2023 ReRead
- 2023 Audiobook
- 2022 Read
- 2022 ReRead
- 2021 Read
- 2021 ReRead
- 2020 Read
- 2020 ReRead
- 2019 Read
- 2019 ReRead
- 2018 Read
- 2018 ReRead
- 2017 Read
- 2017 ReRead
- 2016 Read
- 2016 ReRead
- 2015 Read
- 2015 ReRead
- 2014 Read
- 2014 ReRead
- 2013 Read
- 2013 ReRead
- 2012 Read
- 2012 ReRead
- 2011 Read
- 2011 ReRead
- 2010 Read
- 2010 ReRead
- 2009 Read
- 2009 ReRead
- 2008 Read
- 2008 ReRead
- 2007 Read
Monday, November 08, 2004
'No Zizek quotes, will Robinson do?'
Currently re-reading the very funny 'Smoking In Bed: Conversations with Bruce Robinson': a series of interviews with Bruce Robinson edited by Alistair Owen, that takes him through his childhood in Kent; through his years as an actor where he acknowledges that he was little more than a pretty face made good in the movies 'cos Zeffirelli fancied him and cast him Benvolio in his 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet; up to his years as a novelist and screenwriter of such excellent works as 'The Killing Fields'; 'Withnail and I' and the 'The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman'.
The following quote from the book caught my eye 'cos it captures so well the combination of Robinson's gallows humour and his jaundiced view of the capriciousness of the Film Industry:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Even better is the frankly tragic story of Withnail's first test screening, which for some bizarre and unaccountable reason was conducted in front of an audience of German exchange students, who of course didn't understand a word of it and duly pronounced it a disaster.
Robinson says, and he's absolutely right, that you have to be a native English speaker to find it funny - I put this to the test by running the immortal line "We've gone on holiday by mistake" to two friends of mine who hadn't seen it. The English one got it immediately and laughed, the Italian looked baffled, and no amount of explanation would change her mind.
Post a Comment