Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Bucking the Film MarketAuthor(s): John O'Farrell and Grainne FarrenSource: Fortnight, No. 316 (Apr., 1993), pp. 44-45Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25553966 .

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S - " *1 a-.

Bucking the

film market

During last month's Dublin Film Festival,

JOHN O'FARRELL took John Sayles aside to

talk about the financing of film-making. Right?

GRAINNE FARREN

stayed strictly in front of the screen.

Jtlow do movies get made?

Here's an example, from the independent US

director John Sayles. His mentor, Roger Corman,

had hired Boris Karloff for 15 days worth of shooting for a schlock horror job called The Howling. The

film finished under schedule and $200,000 under

budget, and Karloff was only used (and paid) for 13

days work. Karloff s agent demanded the agreed two

further days money, so Corman said to Peter Bog

dan ovich: "Write me a movie this weekend that will

cost $200,000 maximum and that can use Karloff for

two days." Bogdanovich arrived in on Monday with

the script and the movie was made?Karloff

and all. Targets (1968) is now considered a

classic B-movie.

Currently, the average price of a Hollywood

movie is $30 million. With stars like Nicholson

and Schwarzenegger demanding $6 million a

time, it is tempting to dismiss the pleas of

impoverishment from film-makers as the un

necessary demands of spoilt children.

Yet Sayles' first film, The Return of the

Secaucus Seven (1980), was written for and

made with two cameras, seven free actor friends

and $40,000 Sayles had earned from writing

disaster movie scripts for Corman. His latest,

the charming and evocative Passion Fish, still

had a budget of only $3 million.

Funding came from pre-sales to video dis

tributors, Home Box Office (cable TV) and the

cinematic distributor Miramax. Additional sup

port came from individuals, from dentists to

stockbrokers, who either wanted to learn about movie

making or were interested in the risky business of

investing in films.

A similar thing happened to Stefan Schwarz, the

amiable young director of the amiable Scottish road

movie Soft Top, Hard Shoulder. No money came

from the principal supporters of new British film,

BBC or Channel Four, but a (publicity-shy) backer

put up most of the ?1.2 million budget?so his son

could observe film-making at first hand. Twelve "City

types" donated ?12,000 for pre-production and shoot

ing started with the tax year (last April). Post-produc

tion was looked after by VAT returns.

The only hiccup was when the catering truck blew

up on the third day of shooting. The producer,

FILM

u

Richard Holmes, had to collect the cast and crew's

credit cards to pay for food, bed and breakfasts and

petrol, but the VAT man saved the day and the film

was completed and is doing very nicely, thank you.

In the republic, meanwhile, the debate on film

funding is warming up. On RTE's Questions and

Answers late in February, Peter Sheridan (Jim's

brother) outlined how the scrapping of the Irish

Film Board in 1987, with its important 'start-up'

monies, had virtually killed off indigenous cinema

and how the 'section 35' tax incentive replacement

hadn't worked. His fellow panellist, Brian Lenihan

(tanaiste at the time), replied that he had

never heard before the argument that pro

spective investors in film liked someone else to

risk the initial ?100,000 or so to get the project

off the ground, and he would support "whole

heartedly" the reinstatement of the IFB.

' A week later, in a letter to the Irish Times,

I Muiris Mac Conghail, the former IFB chair,

said the Haughey government of 1987 had

J given no opportunity to discuss the decision.

The board had invested ?1.2 million in ten

i feature films, which in total had cost ?6.1

million, including ?3.3 million attracted in

I foreign investment. One fifth of that ?6 mil

I lion plus had found its way back to the excheq uer in tax, social insurance, VAT and so on.

The performance of the board, Mr Mac

Conghail wrote, thus compared more than

i favourably with the targets then set by the

Industrial Development Authority for itself.

At the opening of Film Base in the Irish Film

Centre in Dublin the previous Wednesday, the arts

minister, Michael D Higgins, announced he would

go straight to legislation on a new film board, with

out a white paper. The following Wednesday, how

ever, Mr Higgins opened the Dublin Film Festival

with an announcement that he would go straight to

"discussions on a white paper" on a new IFB, so that

"our very talented film-makers" should have some

thing to do "by 1996".

John Boorman once described making movies as

"turning money into light". It now seems that, with

the ever-tightening government pursestrings hold

ing back Mr Higgins' ebullience, we will just have to

watch this (dark) space. ^

44 Fortnight april 1993

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i^H ARTS

ORLANDO

From the momentwhen Queen Elizabeth I (Quentin

Crisp) tells Orlando "Do not fade. Do not wither. Do

not grow old", his life is never the same again.

Orlando lives for four centuries, first as a young man,

then as a young woman. Waking up female one day

in the 18th century, she is pleased, seeing herself as

exactly the same person?"only the sex has changed".

But the law holds a different view. She is told that she

can no longer own her house because she is legally

dead and because she is a woman, "which amounts to

much the same thing". She discovers what it is like to

wear voluminous dresses and put up with the conde

scending remarks of men.

Tilda Swinton is perfectly cast as the hero/hero

ine, and the film, directed by Sally Potter, is true to

the spirit of Virginia Woolf s engaging fantasy. The

voice-overs and asides, even when not by Woolf,

sound the right note of wit and gentle irony. Instead

of ending in 1928, the story is extended to the

present day, with Orlando riding a motorbike and

dressed, like a natural woman, in trousers.

yonta's BLUE EYES

The story of Yonta's mysterious letter from an un

known admirer is set against a background of post

colonial Guinea Bissau. Cars run on potholed roads,

businesses struggle on despite power-cuts, and a

hero of the war of independence wonders if his

ideals have been forgotten by a generation more

concerned with football and discos. Despite the

shabby poverty of the setting, Flora Gomes' film

highlights the kindliness of the people, their cheer

ful optimism and the way they combine modern

urban living with African traditions.

SALE COMME UN ANGE (Dirty like an Angel)

Catherine Breillat's characters have few, if any, re

deeming features. The men are sexist, manipulative

liars, the women weak and self-deluding. Yet some

how it is not depressing and there are moments of

caustic humour. Claude Brasseur gives a convincing

portrayal of the misogynist middle-aged cop who

seduces his colleague's young wife. In a particularly

chilling scene, he amuses himself by showing a little

boy how to fire a revolver.

THE STORY OF QUI JU

This is directed by Zhang Yimou who made Raise the

Red Lantern, and again features Gong Li in the

leading role. She plays a stubborn peasant who seeks

justice when her husband is attacked by the village

chief?only her idea of justice is different from that

of bureaucrats and lawyers. While not in the same

league as Raise the Red Lantern, it is very enjoyable

and gives a

fascinating glimpse of life in rural China.

FIt~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ARCH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~u

S

I w~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

LA VIE DE BOHEME (Bohemian Life)

This is the Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki's latest

full-length film, derived from the novel by Henri

Munger on which Puccini based his opera. In black

and white and deliberately old-fashioned in style, it

pokes gentle fun at bohemians in Paris who want to

live for their art, undeterred by lack of talent or

boring necessities like paying the rent. The comedy

works, but the attempt at pathos doesn't really.

COMO AGUA PARA CHOCOLATE

(Like Water for Chocolate)

A tyrannical widowed mother, frustrated passion,

rivalry between sisters?if this sounds familiar, for

get it. This is no Lorca tragedy but a humorous and

visually beautiful Mexican film, based on a novel by

Laura Esquivel who also wrote the screenplay. Alfonso

Arau is the director. It goes on a shade too long, but

the theme of food as an expression of emotion is

lovingly sustained. Clumi Cavazos is a delight as the

youngest daughter, Tita, who cooks "con mucho

amor" for the man she is forbidden to marry.

MAD DOG AND GLORY

This was the surprise film, and is itself a surprise?as

what looks at first like a tough thriller turns into an

entertaining romantic comedy. It features Robert de

Niro as a fearful policeman, who has to free the

woman he loves from the clutches of a gangster.

WOMEN AND ANIMATION

This programme consisted of 12 short animation

films, with an amazing variety of styles and subjects.

One of the most memorable was Caroline Leafs

Two Sisters, which in the space of 11 minutes deals

with disfigurement, hiding away, over-protective ness and the need for acceptance. Her use of light

and shade to illustrate her theme is superb.

John Sayles?big screen, small budget

APRIL 1993 F O R T N I G H T 45

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