ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

12 years, 1 month ago - Claudette FLINT

Love his article. I've always been thinking the same. If a super director like him is despised by the British industrials of the cinema, it left little hope for us, writer candidates.

It is the same for novels. It looks as if three quarter of the female writters write like Joanna Troloppe or Anita Brookner. Creative writing courses love them. They may be brilliant writers but I am sick of their kitsch n sink kind of stories

I think that Figgis is too original for the cinema. Originality is a terrible risk. The professional of the cinema and the organisers of script competitions are crying out for Breaking Ground films. I wish they gave a definition of breaking ground. Avant Garde? Politically incorrect? Technically closed to the impossible? Never seen before?

Please Shooting People, can you remind me/us of Mike Figgis's talk on 6th July I think?

12 years, 1 month ago - Claudette FLINT

I remember seeing Ken Loach on the French news. He was in Cannes and he was bitterly complaining that Margaret Thatcher would not finance his films and that he had to rely on François Mitterrand's goverment to get money!!! Did he wonder why??
I believe Peter Greenaway was also financed by "la gauche intellectuelle".

12 years ago - Ben Blaine

Hallo lovely discursive people. Apologies for being late to this but sometimes real life gets in the way of online debates... shocking but true.

Anyway, here's the first part of my response to Mike Figgis... would love to know your thoughts...

https://shootingpeople.org/blog/2013/07/poison/

much love
bB

12 years, 1 month ago - Vasco de Sousa

Excellent little piece. I'm not always into the same genres and Mike Figgis, but I've read his digital filmmaking and use a Fig Rig. He can be inspirational, in a good way. (Yes, I'm creating a movie that makes fun of life coaches, but anyway.)

He has that can-do attitude that ironically is loved in The City and other parts of British culture that pull the money strings.

However, the conclusion is depressing. If you don't like it, leave? Well, there are more options than leaving the country and getting BFI money. Just as Musicians don't have to show on Britain's Got Talent, you don't have to belong to "the club."

London Film Festival too much of a "club"? I think I might enter my film anyway. Hey, they have to screen somebody's film, right?

I think the creativity that makes movies can think up new distribution models without leaving (and perhaps creating the economical, social and political willpower necessary to make it work.)

Edison and the Lumiere brothers didn't despair that they were away from the opportunities of the London stage.

12 years, 1 month ago - Stephanie Walton

He's speaking at The East End Film Festival on Weds 3rd as part of their 'EMERGE' day. http://www.eastendfilmfestival.com/programme/emerge

12 years, 1 month ago - Joe Conneely

Classic Figgis and as ever more "cantankerous" than "grumpy" I would suggest and even in title looks like something he and Ken Loach would have dreamt up? Once he has got his list of personal grievances on how life has badly treated him out of the way (over a third of the article?) he goes on to list a series of moans as to how hard he and other "famous" UK directors are finding it to raise finance for their films (with a very old style Labour party rant along the way). While long on emotion I conclude he is pretty short on potential solutions.

THe innate problem here is that nobody is entitled to an open wallet (whatever Figgis may think of his talents and humility has never been a problem for him). The core problem is the film financing model in the UK has been for too long lacking in creativity and initiative and risk taking. The hatred of the Eady Levy by the Tory Party (and one suspects New Labour) and what alternatives could now be developed is sadly absent from Figgis's musings (UK cinema audiences are on the increase over the last decade I would remind you). This is not a new issue as some great British films like "If" and "Get Carter" only got made with US studio money. The role of UK TV Channels in film finance while not a panacea has over subsequent decades I feel kept a lot of domestic film making going. There is actually a wider debate to be had in a country where "media" in its widest definitions is now 10% of our GDP which I suspect must put us second to USA in revenues generated? You would struggle to know it from the line taken in Figgis's article.

I went to a salutary talk recently by Alan Parker (sorry "Sir" A.P.) which he subsequently did as an interview to the press, where he made a similar complaint that the screen treatment he and Willy Russell had done for "Blood Brothers" has lain on the shelf for lack of finance for a number of years! Given that is a tested musical based on West End run to be done by a director well known for film musicals, one assumes there is an audience awaiting the film but the producers have no idea of how to raise the finance?

I have no silver bullet but would proffer more innovative financing models with some tax incentives (not the old model of film scheme rip offs prior tax schemes have suffered from) and an emphasis on making available funds for micro features in financing new talent (the NZ model springs to mind) may be possible components. One only has to look at the French and German (plus some other smaller European countries) models to realise that doing something about this aspect is a key first step - talent has never been the issue, money has!

12 years ago - Daniel Cormack

His argument doesn't really stand up because on the one hand he's arguing that there are clubs of people who have the influence to dictate what is fashionable, but then he complains that he and Nic Roeg can't get their films screened at LFF anymore. What he's essentially saying is that he has his own club which isn't quite as clubbable as it used to be. The sense of entitlement does not advance the points he is trying to make. Good filmmakers can and often do make bad films.

On the other hand, we have Phil Ilson who is creating his own club of filmmakers who he enjoys and promotes through the various festivals he programmes. At one point, I think Phil was programming 5 or 6 major UK festivals. When one individual's taste is so predominant, there's bound to be a backlash against it eventually. The wheel turns and someone else's taste is en vogue. You might as well rage against the fact the sun sets in the evening and rises in the morning.

(Out of curiosity, Phil, once a film has been submitted to you once at one festival, do you even bother watching it again when it's submitted to another festival you programme? It's an obvious point, but is it ever worth someone submitting the same film to more than one festival you programme? My philosophy would generally be to submit it to one of your fests, preferably one free to enter, and then if it isn't to your taste then not bother with any of the others. Unfortunately, you do tend to pop up unexpectedly as a 'guest programmer' so the strategy is not entirely fool-proof, which is a shame as I could have saved myself a fair bit of cash if only festivals were upfront about who makes programming decisions at the point of submission).

I think Ben's blog post misses the point as it seems to be about Ben and Chris going out there and doing it themselves rather than expecting the BFI to fund them. Ok, Figgis does have a moan about the BFI not funding him when he was the New Kid on the Block and not funding him now either, but he's also done exactly what Ben and Chris have: put his money where is mouth is and scraped together the funds to make something.

Ok, so now I've probably offended a Shooting People patron, its resident blogger and Mr UK Short Film Festivals - did I miss anyone?

12 years ago - Simon Pitts

There's good interview with Mike Figgis which you can hear on our show here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01bgw8y - also includes Joshua Oppenheimer talking about how he came to make The Act of Killing

12 years, 1 month ago - Bruce Thomas

The article is really great, but the sub-text says it all. There are millions of people with millions of rejections, that hold aloft the white flag of surrender, and lament sincerely "I tried, honestly I did", but really ... your film only gets made because you refuse to stop when the lights go red. And what inspired me from his article, is his absolute resolve to tell his story. Here's to the kitch-n-stink, tally ho what what. :D

12 years, 1 month ago - philip ilson

I dunno… he sounds a bit ‘grumpy old man’; he says the London Film Festival turned down Nic Roeg’s last film – as great as Nic Roeg was (Man who Fell to Earth, Don’t Look Now, Performance – some of the greatest films ever made), I saw his last film and it was unwatchable. As a programmer on the BFI London Film Festival, i watch all the open submission shorts, and i don't see it as a 'club'; it's about the films. If Figgis, Roeg and Boorman (and Ken Russell before he died), were making as vital ground breaking work as Andrea Arnold, Peter Strickland, Clio Barnard, Paul Wright, Ben Wheatley, Nicholas Abrahams, then I’d agree with him. Those older directors made some masterpieces that still hold up and have survived the test of time, but they’re not making that work now. Actually, I’m being a bit confrontational now – has Mike Figgis ever made a good film? I quite liked that Richard Gere bad cop one, and Leaving Las Vegas had an urgency (but I didn’t really like it). Good work will come through, even if it’s through what he thinks is the stifling atmosphere of the BFI funding boards. And how many British short films has he watched, as here we seem some amazing original creative talent coming through, including those filmmakers I’ve mentioned above who had great critical success with their earlier shorts.

12 years, 1 month ago - SP User

I have sympathies with both sides of this debate. Yes, Figgis is a grumpy old man who really hasn't done badly in the arrid jungle that is the UK film industry but, at the same time, he is absolutley right about the conservatism of the British film and TV industry which is unimaginative, risk-averse and very cliquey.

Despite having a highly respected state-backed TV system we can't seem to approach the innovation and sheer quality of the best of American TV (if course I mean 'The Wire', 'Breaking Bad', 'The Sopranos' etc). Our films, with notable exceptions, fall into to the hackneyed piles of posh or grim that Figgis describes. But this is not just a problem with British film, this is something that seems to be a problem with British society.

Having said that, to be outraged that Nic Roeg was excluded from the London Film Festival can only come from someone who hasn't actually seen 'Puffball'. As for Figgis' own work, for me he peaked with 'Internal Affairs', and that was a very long time ago. To put his career into context, compare him to another Michael - Winterbottom who, in his own way, is just as innovative but many times more successful. The answer to the question 'why? lies in the films.

12 years ago - Ben Blaine

And here's part 2.
https://shootingpeople.org/blog/2013/07/dodging-goldmans-law/

12 years, 1 month ago - janus avivson

Do you remember the scene from the lovely feature about FACEBOOK when the huge and handsome rowing twins come to the big boss of Harvard and complain about Mark the thief. Remember what the guy says? That, as part of the Harvard elite you should not be here moaning and wasting your time but go and make something better than the bloody FACEBOOK.
I remember that in times of the civil war instigated by old and well armed commies against Polish people the Solidarity unions decided to organize a new society based on non-cooperation with the oppressor, a parallel track, and in most of cases it worked.
I do not suggest that Shooting People should elect another Film Council or BFI, cause they are some good people there as well. But each good discussion should include a proposal for improvement. And what are our options? Making good and well received films is definitely a start, discussion and solutions will follow.
Janus Avison, another grumpy old man, but happy filming