July 29th 2010
A fantastic Beethoven concert last night at The Proms - the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremmen with Jarvi conducting - and Hilary Hahn playing the Violin Concerto. I did the interval talk with Tim Blanning who has written a great book called The Triumph of Music. The Royal Albert Hall was absolutely packed as always - what a place it is. It's not always wonderful for listening to music, if I'm honest, but last night, up close to the orchestra, it was great. It really is a tribute to the BBC that, despite all the endless criticisms, it puts on these 76 concerts (and much more besides) every year. These are very troubled, well fluid, times for any broadcaster. I swear it is impossible for a film-maker and producer to keep up with the endless chopping and changing. I too have criticisms of how the BBC works and what they commission but I never lose sight of the fact that, overall, it is extraordinarily good. I'm just back from screening In Search of Beethoven at Peter & Elenore Sokole's excellent music festival in Montalcino, Italy - and trying to see any decent TV there is frankly close to impossible. Mind you, where will we be in this country in a decade's time? Look at what is happening right now? Five - poor old Channel 5 - has been sold off to Desmond, of Express and 'top shelf mags' fame... There was a moment when Five was a beacon - snappy, fun and fresh. Then it all came crashing down. And now? Watch out for the return of Topless darts... More generally, our new coalition government has wasted no time in slashing and burning their way through the fields of public spending. The Film Council got the call on Friday that it was finished, kaput, dead as a Monty Python parrot. I never really supported the fact that they choose to put most of their money in big drama projects and did pretty much nothing for smaller companies like us but still... to kill it off dead seems pretty daft. Does that mean no support for the industry at all? Who would now distribute finds? Who supports the likes of Screen South? What about festivals? What about the collection of box office stats? Etc... More importantly, the Arts Council is going to be hit big time too. Obviously, in my view, art & culture are the backbone of any civilized state so I don't know where all this is going to lead us...As far as I can see, the UK's Department for Culture, Media and Sport is facing cuts of 25%, the Arts Council has lost £23m and all that is supposed to only be the start. That said, it's the previous government's fault as much as this one's. Anyone with half a brain could see this coming. All in all, then, tough times for independent film-makers. I only get by because we, at Seventh Art, decide what we want to make and just start...It might not be financially very lucrative but at least the films are creative, interesting and, we hope, valuable. That is certainly how I feel about making In Search of Haydn and, after that, In Search of Chopin. Mind you, our big project is not music-related at all but THE BOY MIR. On a personal level, the film on Mir in Afghanistan continues fine but, on a general level, what can you say about the daily and endless news reports coming out of that poor decimated country? Then all this stuff from Wikileaks? It's all so sad. It's hard to believe it will soon be ten years since the 'fall' of the Taliban. I have a very intense autumn of editing ahead to get the film to cinemas next February...and who knows what will happen in the weeks ahead. The one thing we can be sure of is that many more people, on all sides, will be killed or maimed. Hardly the 'brotherhood' that Beethoven yearned for. |
June 23rd 2010
| Sunnyside Documentary market, La Rochelle, France. It's a beautifully sunny day here in the gorgeous port of La Rochelle on France's Atlantic coast. The annual Sunnyside market is in full swing and I can look forward to a day indoors chasing commissioning editors up and down corridors and being as charming as I can to elicit a few thousand Euros here and there to keep our film-making wheels oiled and moving forwards.... Sunnyside is one of the best markets and focuses just on documentaries. It was a bit of a secret a few years back when it was located in Marseilles - and was great for simply bumping into all the 50 or so international commissioning editors that you needed to know and talk to. Now it is huge: hundreds and hundreds of producers with hundreds and hundreds...and hundreds...of film ideas. As one advances on the one hand with good films that do well you retreat on the other hand under the onslaught of so much competition. I really do feel like a swimmer with one hand tied behind my back. But we're still in business and every day remains exciting: especially when filming or editing or screening in cinemas to 300 or 400 people. I also have to say that many of these beleaguered commissioning editors - how do they do their job? - are genuinely extremely nice and very conscientious. It must be tiring to receive yet another idea about Alexander the Great or Mumbai slums but they sift their way through all these proposals and find what they need....Personally, I just about have the energy to stick with it but I'd rather be filming in Afghanistan or on stage with the Orchestra of the 18th Century.... |
May 28th 2010
What a fantastic time to be working in the arts....Now that's a phrase you don't read often. But it's true. The BBC is revitalised and frankly it's impossible to keep up with all their new arts shows - for example, a new opera season that Jan Younghusband has overseen. SkyArts continues to strive forward with some great shows. And now Channel 4 has voiced its energetic return to the arts programming market, appointing Tabitha Jackson as the new Head of Arts and doubling the budget from £2m to £4m. Even ITV are planning new arts shows; the sense that post South Bank Show the arts were dead on commercial TV could not have been more wrong. All this despite a country wildly in deficit - and the announcement only yesterday of a 4% cut to the Arts Council. Based in Brighton as I am and also having visited London, Edinburgh and Bristol this week I can't even read all the announcements for what's on never mind see very much of it. And from what I do see, the quality & the relevance of the works is great. All very exciting really. At Seventh Art we're working hard on our Tim Marlow shows - doing Picasso at Tate Liverpool at the moment. Our show Marlow Meets (series 2) kicks off on Sky in a few weeks - the first episode with Terry Jones is great. More good news: our DVD Making WarHorse will be on sale on Broadway when WarHorse opens there next year. And I've started working on IN SEARCH OF HAYDN and IN SEARCH OF CHOPIN which is wonderful - if only we could raise the funds to make them! But we'll manage somehow... The Beethoven film was recently nominated for a Royal Philharmonic Society award - and also won Best Direction in a festival in the USA...so it's getting out there. The next push is to see if we can somehow get a short version of IN SEARCH OF MOZART and IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN into schools...we'll see. Maybe our new MP - Britain's first Green MP, Caroline Lucas - will lend a hand.... So, while the pressures of finance are always there, these are busy and exciting times. Not least, we have the greatest art form soon to be upon us: the World Cup. My guess: England v Spain final. I know....living in hope. |
April 19th 2010
More great news, In Search of Beethoven has been awarded the Gold Plaque for Direction at the 2010 Hugo Television Awards. Making War Horse also picked up a Silver Plaque in the Documentary:Arts/Humanities category. |
April 9th 2010
| Good news for IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN today we were nominated for the extremely prestigious Royal Philharmonic Awards I am absolutely delighted to have the film recognised in this way by the very organisation that commissioned Beethoven to write the 9th Symphony. What a wonderful link! These types of films - fuelled by passion and enthusiasm on our side and the open hearts & doors of musicians, orchestras, conductors and historians - are a struggle to make and thus to know that we have found support from such esteemed colleagues is great. We should have some more awards news coming next week... |
March 24th 2010
Seoul, Korea. First time to Korea and very excited to be screening In Search of Beethoven & In Search of Mozart. All screenings are sold out already so that's a nice feeling too. It's clear there's a real love for classical music in Asia and slowly all these trips are starting to pay off. Off to Tokyo and Singapore next week. Also starting to generate interest in the next two films: In Search of Chopin and In Search of Haydn - people are genuinely delighted to hear these are being made and that's very motivating - especially when we've started once again with no cash! Apart from the absolutely insane traffic, I really like Seoul - and find it a relief to the really very claustrophobic Hong Kong (which feels like a set from Blade Runner). Nice people though. And talking of nice people, a really silly balls-up between the driver who met me at Seoul and I meant that the very Mac pro laptop I'm writing this on was left on the trolly. I didn't spot that until I got to the hotel - DISASTER of the first degree. In London I wouldn't even have bothered checking if it had been handed in. My kids left two DSs on a BA flight once and they'd been nicked within the hour never to be seen again. Well, would you believe it? A rather wonderful porter handed my laptop in! What a relief. There's a THE BOY MIR edit on there, as well as loads of other stuff. Phew. Lots of meetings with Korean TV and DVD folk and now in the hotel doing emails for hours while the world outside my window is going mad on Friday night - still no complaints. Tomorrow I'll have time to visit the old town and see Leif Ove Andsnes who by chance is playing in Seoul. Be nice to say hello - and he is certainly one of the best pianists in the world. And talking of the world's best: our film of the extraordinary Special Chopin Birthday concert I filmed last month in Warsaw goes out on French TV today. hope it does well - it should: the music and the performances were, everyone agreed, five-star. Right, back to the emails.... |
January 28th 2010
While I edit the film about Mir in Afghanistan a major conference is taking place in London. 60 countries are attending and it seems the big plan is to try and buy off the rank & file of the Taliban. Good luck with that. It will certainly swell the numbers of those who claim to be Taliban, that's for sure. It reminds me of how, a few years ago, the numbers of farmers growing poppies went up after the British offered cash to those who grew poppies to change to other crops. What a mess: and don't imagine I have any better ideas. I take that liberal wishy-washy idea that you invest billions in the country as a whole, you resist corruption and discrimination, you build roads, schools, clinics. You don't imprison kids who download articles on womens' rights, etc. And yes you build up an military force that can fight against those that are willing to murder innocent civilians and, in my opinion, innocent soldiers in the pursuit of wholly selfish ambitions. But I am no politician - the realpolitik of Afghan governance must be extraordinarily complex. Meanwhile a little kid grows up in a remote village in the north, just wanting to play soccer and one day see an asphalted road. Back at Seventh Art...we're also busy on more Tim Marlow shows. Van Gogh and his letters is a great exhibition that we're filming this week. Last week I had the great pleasure of filming Tim interviewing Terry Jones at National Gallery. I've made six films with Terry Jones (Ancient Inventions, the Hidden History of Rome, ..of Egypt, ..of Sex & Love) and I think he is wonderful man and a fascinating presenter, author, and of course one of the best directors in the biz. His choice of six paintings for our Marlow Meets series was really fascinating - and, as always, just filming in a gallery after it has closed, feels so privileged. Oh, and our series Tim Marlow at the Courtauld starts on SkyArts on the 7th February. |
January 8th 2010
| Apologies for such a long gap in the blog, it has been a busy time at Seventh Art and spare moments to write have been scarce. In Search of Beethoven continues in the cinemas in Australia - fantastic: that's 12 weeks now and it is currently no. 90 in the all-time top 100 documentaries ever released in Australia - take away the IMAX and we're top 50. Super! Thank you all of you who have been to see it - especially those who have been more than once! The film continues its stately rounds of the USA too - Portland, Boston and more at the moment. Check the website for info. My biggest job recently though has been producing our Tim Marlow shows - we've a fascinating 3-parter (directed & edited by Ben Harding) called Tim Marlow at The Courtauld that starts on 7 February at 19.30 on Sky Arts 2 (and Sky Arts 2 HD). Plus we have some more Tim Marlow on... & Marlow Meets in the pipeline. We just filmed Tim with Ian Rankin and that's going to be a great show. I'm also delighted to say the edit of THE BOY MIR has begun - deep breath and off we go. I feel like someone at the top of a very steep & twisting water slide; once you start you can't stop even when you're tipping up and down, feeling your back being scratched to bits, choking on the water spray and really having no idea when it will all end...yep, that's how Day 1 feels....But, let's face it, there are few more important and moving stories right now than Afghanistan so I feel a real responsibility to do this right. One final point: thank you to all those who have emailed to say how much they enjoyed MAKING WAR HORSE on More4. It's a great book & show so I'm glad the film (now DVD) hasn't let anyone down. Anyway, snowed in as we are at the moment, I need to get my snow boots on and find some supplies to get us through the next few days. à bientôt.... PS: last night I watched The Damned United and The Hurt Locker - both are wonderful films. |
November 2nd 2009
| DAY 35 MONDAY 26th OCTOBER, FLYING TO HONG KONG Well, it’s farewell Australia… I am glad to be one stage nearer home but I will certainly be eager to get back to Australia – it’s a wonderful place with wonderful people. And another excellent flight on Qantas (no they are not sponsors, sadly..)took me to the next and final stop…Hong Kong. I arrived in the dark but nevertheless it’s an impressive sight. It’s always one thing to see a place with your own eyes. Certainly I had not realised how many skyscrapers there were..talk about cramming millions of people into a small space! First of all, though, I have to say that it should be compulsory for all employees of British and American airports to visit Hong Kong and see how it should be done. Now that is what I call efficient! Arrival, passport, bags, free buses to hotels – all as smooth and quick as you could hope for. Mind you, the area I am staying in – Kowloon – is an absolute jungle – a chaotic symphony if you will – of neon, wires, underpasses, overpasses, tunnels, junctions, and lord knows what. I have arrived in the world of the film Blade Runner… I actually felt too overwhelmed to wander the streets which is what I usually do in new places. I used the excuse of dozens of emails to stay safely indoors – in another (comfortable) prison cell where you cant open a window and cant see the sky… And the normal hour or two wasted getting the right room, the internet to work, correcting the mistakes in the billing, etc, etc… DAY 36 TUESDAY 27th OCTOBER, HONG KONG Ventured out…went for a run down by the ferries… What a truly wild, weird and wonderful place.. Where to start? Even though it was only about 7am, there was a sea of people out rushing to get to work. Red cabs everywhere..building work…hawkers…dim sum bars…joggers…great views across to Hong Kong island.. After a radio interview to promote Thursday’s preview screening, I’d set up three appointments which simultaneously would give me a good look around. I really don’t know if I can describe the city – it is so easy to get lost in the bowels of buildings – pavements, streets, walkways all pass through the ground floors of buildings and you are endlessly walking past fancy, well-lit shops (expensive too – where do people get their money?!). But the people are extremely polite and friendly, everything is spotless, the public transport puts the London tube to absolute shame and, I discover at the one meeting a bit out of the centre, this crammed, crushed state of affairs is the middle but, thanks to legislation preventing endless building, the countryside is close by and from the little I saw it looks stunning. DAY 37 WEDNESDAY 28th OCTOBER, HONG KONG  Woke up feeling a bit rough. Really need to go outside for some fresh as opposed to recycled air. Had a little walk about but spent most of the day on the computer and starting to read up about Haydn. Caught the ferry from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island just as the sun was going down as I had appointment with the host of tomorrow’s screening. Walking through the overpasses, tunnels and shopping malls is a bewildering experience – you really do feel like a white blood cell coursing through the veins of some mighty beast. At random, I dropped into a clothes shop – picked up a suit and asked the price. £5000! Yes, that’s right…£5000. Apparently their target market is rich Chinese businessmen who come to HK with suitcases full of money…only they can afford this stuff. I laughed and left. Everyone has earphones for music or their telephones – so strange: I mean virtually everyone has these little black wires coming out of their ears…Like one big security company… Had stunning dinner and thoroughly nice time with Professor Daniel Chua who is something of a Beethoven expert himself but is also hosting the screening at the Hong Kong University. I really am finding people here are tremendously nice. Glad to return to the relative quiet and solitude of my hotel room though – you could get lost in the bowels of these huge department stores and never emerge.. DAY 38 THURSDAY 29th OCTOBER, HONG KONG I can’t sleep in these rooms – with the air con on it’s too noisy and off it’s too hot… So up early and a quick visit to the gym. Emails till 11 when I do an hour-long phone interview. I then head off to meet lovely man Ben Cruft at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts. Fantastic facilities…and a very interesting man. Bit of an Haydn expert too – which may well come in handy.. More reviews coming in from Australia and rumours are it’s doing extremely well in the cinemas in which it’s playing. Not going to be any kind of smash hit but may do respectably well. After Ben, I hopped in a cab to the Hong Kong University… 260 people turned up and they thoroughly enjoyed the film – I really will redouble efforts to get more screenings here. DAY 39 FRIDAY 30th OCTOBER, HONG KONG Feeling very achy – I hope my body is not going to rebel now the 40 days is up. Spent the day packing, tying up loose ends and buying my son a camera for his birthday. It might just have been the shops in Kowloon but I didn’t notice it being any cheaper than the UK. Good camera though – ideal for him. You can take a picture and then electronically draw over it or add patterns, symbols, etc…extraordinary what our kids have access to. And then to the airport…one last wait for the plane (taken up, as so often, by writing this blog…). Here, then, are some summary reviews from the past few weeks: ‘IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN’ A Phil Grabsky film “Superb…The film will give those who already know about Beethoven enormous pleasure, and provide any receptive 12-year-old with an ideal introduction to the man and his music” The Telegraph (UK) ‘beautifully lensed and intelligently crafted’ Variety (USA) “TEN OUT OF TEN! The best film I’ve seen about a composer!” The Sun Herald, (Australia) “A hit...so terrific I wept” Mail on Sunday (UK) “Gripping” Wall Street Journal (Europe) “Expertise and passion combined......high-class” New York Times (USA) ‘Sensitive & meticulous’ THE AUSTRALIAN “One of the finest movies about a great musician I've ever seen” The Observer (UK) ‘splendid ..a revelation to the uninitiated and a joy to music lovers’ The LA Times (USA) ‘an extraordinary collection of musicians, conductors and musicologists” Time Out London “impressive” Village Voice, New York (USA) “An endearingly human biography….every bit as wonderful as In Search of Mozart.” Chicago Tribune (USA) “Captivating” Minnesota Public Radio (USA) “The musical examples are exemplary – including a brilliant 9th Symphony” Herald Sun (Australia) “One of the best films I’ve seen about a musician – it gets close to the mystery that is creativity” Financial Review (Australia) Let’s hope it gets ‘bums on seats’ otherwise it remains just as hard as ever, maybe even harder, to make another one – and I really do want to make IN SEARCH OF HAYDN now.  DAY 40 SATURDAY 31ST OCTOBER, HOME… After 40 days, what a relief to be home. Now, what to do with that three-foot high pile in my in-tray… You know, I think it can wait a day or two.. END. |
October 28th 2009
| DAY 31 THURSDAY 22ND OCTOBER, ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA Just one radio interview today – nice community radio station, run by volunteers. Then bit of time to myself – so no blogging! Here’s three reviews from today instead: Reviewed by Paul Byrnes The Sydney Morning Herald - Paul Byrnes Grabsky's elegant film reveals that Beethoven shares many characteristics with some of our own doomed musical geniuses. Rating stars-4 HE MAY search, but does he find? The British arts documentary veteran Phil Grabsky made the much-admired In Search of Mozart in 2006. Here he goes in search of another genius – arguably one more difficult to pin down. Ludwig van Beethoven was so many things at once: deaf, drunk, dishevelled, a braggart, moralist, meddler and, at times, dishonest. He was also generous, romantic, lovelorn and some say companionable. He seems to have inspired great friendship and devotion among a select few closest to him. We get a sense of all these things from Grabsky's intriguing film, but there is still a gap. Where did a man so flawed and troubled by life, love and illness find the spiritual depth to write music that was so moving and even joyous? Where does the hope come from? That is the problem with the biopic, whether fictionalised and Hollywooded or factualised and scholarly, like this one. The genius cannot be cracked open. It remains at the core, sealed and mysterious, so the biographer must circle and ponder, accumulating mere detail, but never really knowing. Grabsky uses the only solution there is: talk to the people who have tried to know Beethoven by playing his notes, and see what they have found. The language is music, so he speaks to those who speak it. Thus, he visited some of the modern world's greatest musicians, filming them at home and at work, or in breaks from rehearsal. The style is informal, and often intimate. The Dutch pianist Ronald Brautigam (with wild Ludwigian hair) demonstrates the kind of music the boy would have grown up hearing from his court musician father in Bonn in the 1770s. The American pianist Emanuel Ax says he must have had large hands, because his fingering is so difficult to play. Ax believes some of it was his little joke, to annoy imitators. Grabsky also films some great orchestras and ensembles across Europe and North America: the Salzburg Camerata with Sir Roger Norrington, the Vienna Symphony with Fabio Luisi, the Endellion String Quartet, Claudio Abbado conducting the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in a production of Fidelio. These interviews and performances are often intriguing in themselves. I could watch the French pianist Helene Grimaud talk for hours about Beethoven – or the weather. Some of them are quite poetic: talking about a passage in the 4th Symphony, the Italian conductor Gianandrea Noseda says the allegro is like "the opening of a bottle of champagne". Beethoven's problems with women punctuate the story. It's clear that the frustrated romances, the dashed hopes of marrying "up", the stifling Viennese rules about social intercourse, all had a big impact on his well-being and music. They seem to bring out his best and worst – the haunting beauty of the Moonlight Sonata and Fuer Elise, written for his objects of desire, versus the four years in which he fought his brother's widow for custody of her son, Karl. She was a slut, according to Ludwig. And yet, for the arrogant moralist he arguably became, he did not shy away from pursuit of married ladies. The man badly needed a wife. The illnesses remain intriguing. Was it tinnitus, lead-poisoning, syphilis or typhus that damaged his hearing? Or all of the above? Did alcohol drag him down, as it did his father? "On the all-time list of composer drinkers, [Ludwig] would be near the top," says the musicologist Giovanni Bietti. In later life he so rarely changed his clothes that his friends used to replace them while he slept – that certainly sounds like the habits of a major drunk. What becomes clear in Grabsky's elegant film is that Beethoven shares many characteristics with some of our own doomed and recently departed musical geniuses. We know he contemplated suicide, but decided he had too much music to get written. That shows a great degree of courage, as well as hubris. As good as the film is, Beethoven remains mysterious. He refuses to roll over, so to speak. From THE AGE: IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN (G) ★★★ (139 minutes) Nova Reviewer Philippa Hawker FILMMAKER Phil Grabsky (The Boy who Played on the Buddhas of Bamiyan) has already made an intensive study of Mozart, and he structures his portrait of Beethoven in a similar fashion. It's a combination of austerity and riches. Grabsky traces a chronology, shuns dramatised reconstructions and keeps his supporting images - of locations where the composer lived and worked - relatively simple. The vividness comes from a host of interviews with leading scholars, conductors and performers, supplemented by performances, brief, but exhilarating, of more than 50 pieces of music. We hear vivid turns of phrase. Conductor Roger Norrington compares Mozart and Beethoven, saying they had one thing in common: they both wrote very fast. "But Mozart was writing for Saturday. Beethoven was writing for eternity." And there are concrete demonstrations, as when pianist Emanuel Ax takes to the keyboard to make a point about the composer's virtuosity as a performer. When it comes to the personal life, there are no startling revelations or glib speculations, but there are telling details - some light-hearted, some distressing. Beethoven's creative life, with all its achievements, cannot easily be reconciled with the image of a difficult, solitary figure, shadowed by depression. Grabsky, to his credit, doesn't try to make one life fit the other, but he manages to illuminate both. DAY 32 FRIDAY 23rd OCTOBER, PERTH, AUSTRALIA A travel day really. A morning of packing and emails and then a midday flight from Adelaide to Perth. I checked in to the hotel then went over the cinema which is going to play Beethoven. It’s called the Paradiso and is pretty much downtown, near to the train station. The Duty Manager Rebecca could not have been nicer or more enthusiastic about the film and she thinks we’ll do ok in tomorrow’s preview screening. It is going into a 160-seater and she hopes it will be pretty full. I did an interview with William from the West Australian who certainly knew the subject well and I enjoyed talking to him for an hour. I’m always aware that I probably talk too much but I enjoy talking about Beethoven and the film. Just as well! Pottered about in the hotel – had a great dinner of snacks in front of the TV.. DAY 33 SATURDAY 24th OCTOBER, PERTH, AUSTRALIA   Three reviews I picked up today and read over my cup of tea: THE AUSTRALIAN – EVAN WILLIAMS 24 OCTOBER 2009 Beethoven’s Unfinished Symphony In Search of Beethoven (G) 3 stars Limited national release IT can only be coincidence, but two of the films I reviewed recently in these pages both contained excerpts from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. And very different films they were: Departures, that deeply moving idyll of love and death from Japan, and the Hollywood sci-fi thriller Surrogates, whose credits refer to a Beethoven "song" (though I must have missed it at the time). But is it such a coincidence? I've seen a list of more than 200 films with Beethoven on the soundtrack. There are the famous ones: Disney's Fantasia, Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (the Ninth again), and Copying Beethoven, Agnieszka Holland's partly fictionalised account of the composer's last years. According to my reliable internet source, Beethoven also popped up briefly on the soundtracks of Sex in the City, Hellboy II: The Golden Army and The Assassination of Richard Nixon, and can be heard, would you believe, in Drag Me to Hell, a horror film on current release. What the great man would have made of all this is anyone's guess, but he would have relished the royalties. Biopics of the great composers used to be standard Hollywood fare: Cornel Wilde doing his consumptive Chopin bit in A Song to Remember (that splash of blood on the keyboard after some crashing chords), Brahms (in the person of Robert Walker) eyeing Clara Schumann in Song of Love, Dirk Bogarde doing his best Lizst impersonation in Song Without End, playing the piano in a way that reminded one wag at the time of someone washing his socks. The last big-name actor to play Chopin was Hugh Grant in the 1991 Impromptu. And the last to play Beethoven in a major biopic was the inscrutable Gary Oldman, in Immortal Beloved (1994). To this growing filmography we can now add Phil Grabsky's documentary In Search of Beethoven, a brave attempt to come to grips with the composer's anguished life. It is a meticulous work: ambitious, lucid, sensitive, visually handsome and supported by a host of interviews with musical authorities. And, it shouldn't surprise us, it never quite gets the measure of its subject. What film could? But nor, I fear, does it live up to the large claims made for it. According to the producers, In Search of Beethoven "delves beyond the familiar image of the tortured, cantankerous, unhinged personality to reveal a surprising and completely creative genius". Really? We all know Beethoven was a surprising and creative genius, so I'm not exactly sure what is being revealed. The popular notion of Beethoven as a "heroic, tormented figure battling to overcome his tragic fate" is described in the film's production notes as a "romantic myth". If so, it is exactly the romantic myth that the film perpetuates. It is true that we are given glimpses of another side of Beethoven, but they hardly amount to an alternative theory of personality. Experts line up to tell us that he was jealous of Haydn and Mozart, determined, in a seemingly egotistical way, to overshadow them. He was also a man of some personal vanity - fond of good food and wine, fastidious in his dress - not qualities we associate with distracted genius. According to Grabsky, he liked to cut a fashionable figure in Viennese social circles. An amusing story is told that soon after moving into rented quarters in Vienna, he took a stonemason to his room upstairs and, without consulting his outraged landlord, smashed a hole through the outer wall to improve the view. He would have been at home in Sydney's real estate market. Grabsky made that splendid documentary In Search of Mozart in 2006, and it was a model of its kind, with well-chosen musical excerpts and readings from Mozart's letters. We are asked to believe that his Beethoven film is challenging accepted wisdom, but nothing in it disturbs our impression of a tragic figure cruelly used by fate. The suicidal outpourings in the so-called Heiligenstadt Testament, written in 1802, when Beethoven's deafness was well advanced, are movingly recounted. "In my profession it is a terrible hardship," Beethoven wrote of his deafness a year earlier, in what seems now like a masterpiece of understatement. Today his deafness would almost certainly be curable, and I have always thought of it as the worst and most bitterly ironic affliction ever visited on a human being. But perhaps it was a necessary spur to that sublime creativity. Suffering drove Beethoven to despair, and nastiness. And if anything he was a nastier man than the film would have us believe. I have a much-loved copy of Alexander Thayer's monumental biography of the composer, published in 1866 (and in Henry Krehbiel's English edition, in 1921). The three volumes were the gift of a dear friend, and there is nothing of consequence in Grabsky's film that they hadn't already told me. In Thayer's estimation, Beethoven was a self-hater. When his mother died, his father took to drink; and even before his deafness he was plagued by recurring illness. So a good deal of ill-tempered bitterness would have been natural in him. Thayer despised other traits: Beethoven's snobbery, his meanness in money matters. But what can account for the insane fury he showed towards his family? Yet he gave the world those great, unalterable sounds, those imperishable insights into a world of suffering, beauty and spirituality to be found, I think, in no other music. Genius is all too often flawed (don't mention Wagner), and the greater our admiration for the genius the greater our reluctance to acknowledge the flaws. In Search of Beethoven is at heart a cautious film, despite its pretensions. It prefers the genius to the monster, and so do we all. But what might have been a great documentary turns out to be merely a good and serviceable one. It lacks fire, daring, and originality. There are too many snippets of music, too many talking heads, too little to define that great arc of the composer's life and spiritual development. But no one who cares about the man and his music will miss it. For that I give credit to its subject. The search goes on. THE HERALD SUN – 24 OCTOBER 2009 In Search of Beethoven (G) Director: Phil Grabsky (In Search of Mozart) Starring: Juliet Stephenson (narrator), Roger Norrington, Helene Grimaud, Emmanuel Ax, Jonathan Biss. Rating: **** Found behind a wall of sound Anyone who looked at the title above and immediately envisaged the hunt for a slobbering St. Bernard can go and stand in the corner for the rest of the review. No, the stately chase promised by this polished documentary tracks the life and legacy of the late German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. As he did with Mozart a while back, British filmmaker Phil Grabsky is playing detective with classical music history here. Dispensing with all the clichéd claptrap and generalisations that inevitably plague movies like this, Grabsky successfully reassesses and revitalises the imposing reputation of his subject. Simply by staying sensible, and sticking to the facts. The prim narration of actor Juliet Stephenson draws liberally from the composer’s own correspondence. Elsewhere, the film throws open the doors and invites in a wide diversity of opinions and reflections from a cavalcade of experts, boffins and plonkers. They all know their stuff, and better still, they all know how to express themselves in a way that allows the music of Beethoven to come alive in a whole new way. As the film proceeds, novice viewers will also get a fascinating overview of how Beethoven’s unusual blend of gut instinct and unorthodox work techniques set him apart from his strait-laced contemporaries. The musical performances through the film are exemplary, concluding with a brilliant rendition of the timeless Ninth Symphony by conductor Franz Bruggen and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW 25/10/09 BY Peter Crayford Two good actors have played him before. Gary Oldman in Immortal Beloved and Ed Harris in Copying Beethoven. Neither captured the man or entirely rescued him from numerous black and white melodramas. But Phil Grabsky’s documentary IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN is one of the best films about a musician I have seen. He interviews a select group of erudite and articulate musicians, critics and musicologists and each has something interesting, unpretentious and memorable to say. Musical performances illustrate the interviews. Thankfully free of period dramatisations, it lets the music do most of the speaking through formidable recordings. This documentary gets somewhere close to the mystery that is creativity So….did I find anything or not? Well, I think you have to be pretty confident in your knowledge of Beethoven to suggest the film offers nothing new..but each to their own. That slightly mixed review in the Australian was still on a whole page and with a photo – all the other films barely got a paragraph. So that is fantastic! When I turned up at the cinema, they are in a bit of a fuss: so many people have turned up that they have to swap from the 160- to the 260-seater! The place is crammed. Young and old. What a great way to finish the Australian tour. The cinema has a glitch transferring the film from the hard-drive of one cinema to the other – so ironically I do a 20-minute stand-up about the film, explaining why you could not have made this film without modern technology…while, meanwhile, the cinema struggled to get their modern technology to work! They did, however, and we had a really good screening and Q&A to follow. 3 rounds of applause: 2 more and they’d have called the police! (You need to watch the film to understand that joke…). DAY 34 SUNDAY 25th OCTOBER, PERTH, AUSTRALIA Nice review to read in the coffee bar at 7am at a local golf course : Sunday Times (Western Australia) by Gavin Bond October 25, 2009 Dedicated director and historian Phil Grabsky (In Search of Mozart) has now turned his attention to chronicling the life and times of arguably history’s most revered composer, Ludwig van Beethoven, with this meticulously crafted documentary. Grabsky combines a series of interviews with numerous accomplished classical musicians (who gush eloquently about Beethoven’s intricate compositions) with informative narration by British thesp Juliet Stevenson. This combination of fact and opinion is most successful in delivering a comprehensive historical portrait of the man and his considerable musical achievements. Like his previous film, Grabsky chronologically documents his subject’s legacy by first recounting the musical prodigy’s first performance at the age of seven. The precocious pianist then penned his first concerto while still in his teens before establishing himself as a pre-eminent and amazingly dexterous musician who performed for the Venetian aristocracy of the day. The film then dissects his remarkable output as a composer of a series of progressively inventive, emotive and stirring concertos and symphonies, an opera and, his self-proclaimed proudest achievement, a religious mass. Music lovers will also be pleased to note that a renowned bevy of cellists, violinists and string quartets perform more than 50 live performances of Beethoven’s best known works, culminating in a rousing rendition of Ode to Joy. Through the use of excerpts from his personal diary, this doco also explores Beethoven’s rather tragic and troubled personal life, including his dysfunctional childhood and ongoing ill health. Grabsky also delves into the cantankerous composer’s turbulent romantic life and his eventual mental breakdown and premature demise in 1827 at the age of 56. But what this film does best is illuminate the many inexplicable paradoxes of the man himself. The fact that Beethoven was a misanthrope who created such optimistic music, that he was an incurable romantic who remained unmarried and that his instinct for melody failed to be thwarted by his inability to hear prove to be most enlightening, even to authorities on the subject. Despite its excessive length, this reverential doco will enthuse fans, historians and even those, like yours truly, whose familiarity with Beethoven is limited to the opening strains of his 5th Symphony. The day was spent golfing, working, reading & listening to Haydn… |
October 27th 2009
| DAY 27 SUNDAY 18TH OCTOBER, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA Up at 7am and went for nice run down to the river. There were hundreds of cyclists already there about to go on a sponsored bike raid – and what a lovely ride that must be. I don’t run that far as I need to prepare for the day before going to the cinema to watch a couple of films before my own screening. First up was a thoroughly decent film called Seraphine and the second was the excellent National Theatre performance (filmed and sent to Australia on tape) of All’s Well that Ends Well. Then it was Beethoven time. Pretty well sold out though only a 130 seater. The film went well – and one thing I am starting to notice is that members of the audience seem to have a more profound connection to Beethoven and his music, I have had quite a few on this trip telling me that Beethoven’s music helped them ‘out of a hole’ or through some life crisis or other. More people are certainly moved through the film too – again, more than one has been so emotional after the film that they have found it hard to talk to me. Maybe there is something deeper about Beethoven. I have my views on this but I’m still reserving judgement a little until I have had more screenings. After this one, I went for quick snack with Carol – from the local radio station, who hosted the Q&A, Trent who works for the distributor and the lovely Teri who was publicist on Mozart and now works for a group of lawyers attempting to bring the world closer to being nuclear weapon-free. Good luck on that one, teri! DAY 28 MONDAY 19TH OCTOBER, HOBART, AUSTRALIA   Took an early morning flight through an absolutely packed Melbourne airport. I’m hanging in there with all these flights but it’s a shame I lost my lounge access card as the peace and quiet (and the free snacks) of a lounge do hope ease the pain of travel. Once on board, I pulled my coat down over my head and slept the whole way there. I have never been to Tasmania before and from the air it is stunning. I didn’t connect with the person picking me up at first until I heard someone on the phone saying ‘yes, but I don’t know what he flipping-well looks like’ – that had to be for me. It was. John the owner of the one and only Hobart arthouse cinema had found me… He’s another one of these extremely hard-working folk who keep these wonderful cinemas going. He has even dug down into the ground under his cinema to create extra screens… He and his partner Jan seem to work their socks off to keep the cinema going and I hope the locals realise what a treasure it is. Apparently they do as some make long journeys to visit – and some, apparently, have even moved to Hobart from elsewhere in Tasmania just to be near the cinema. Hobart is a rather lovely place too – only 500,000 folk and a real sense of the past which has managed not to have been knocked down and replaced by bland skyscrapers. The evening was great – a complete sell out and, for the very first time, a standing ovation! Now I can only remember standing to applaud a film once (and that was quite recently in Prague for a great film called Anvil) and frankly I didn’t know where to look when the good folk of Hobart offered me the same honour… As always, the proof will be in the pudding and how long it justifies John keeping it in the cinema. It would be great to have a good run… The local radio and press really liked the film so that will help. DAY 29 TUESDAY 20TH OCTOBER, ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA Woke up in Hobart 2 flights, one game of golf, one blog, 25 emails, one dinner and went to bed in Adelaide. That was Day 29 DAY 30 WEDNESDAY 21ST OCTOBER, ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA  Up early for quick trip to the gym. Beautiful day. Pick up the national newspaper: The Australian. 4 new releases reviewed & thankfully one is ours. That’s almost more important than what they actually say. The review is a bit lukewarm but still very useful – and the opening line would sit nicely on any future press release or DVD cover: A sensitive and meticulous documentary by Phil Grabsky about the life and work of the composer, with a moving emphasis on his encroaching deafness. Despite copious musical excerpts and a host of interviews with musical authorities (not all of them well known) the final effect is unenlightening, never quite matching the success of Grabsky’s 2006 documentary IN SEARCH OF MOZART. Evan Williams ‘sensitive and meticulous’ The Australian. Thank you – that will do nicely. And thanks for the Mozart plug – that will help DVD sales…. Head spinning with trying to keep up to date with the blog, notes, reviews, radio, press, publicity, cinema managers, and all the many emails for other stuff that I get daily – plus trying to start reading up about Haydn…Plus expenses, laundry, hotel bookings, photos for the blog, banking, trying to eat healthy and sneaking off to nearest golf courses… What day is this? I had to check: 30. A month. Right, enough – got to go for first radio i/v of the day. |
October 22nd 2009
DAY 24 THURSDAY 15th OCTOBER, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA  A sunny day in Sydney – such a great city. I dashed around doing radio interviews – I don’t have any trouble keeping enthusiastic about the film or Beethoven; indeed I enjoy the challenge of being articulate, funny, and a good salesperson. The one question that always trips me up though is ‘So, Phil, who is better? Mozart or Beethoven?’ So, which are your two kids do you prefer? Do you like your left leg more than your right one? No time to enjoy Sydney though – too many emails to keep on top of forthcoming screenings. I did manage to meet a local author called Agnes Selby who wrote a great book on Constanze Mozart. She and he husband Theo invited me for pancakes. And thoroughly nice they were too. Though I am always amazed at the short-sighted stinginess of some restaurants. The pancakes were advertised to come with fruit. They turn up with two strawberries and an inch of banana. Can I have more banana please? Yes, sir, but we’ll charge. Before I can respond in an appropriately Beethovian way, Theo says that will be fine. The waitress reappears with another inch of banana…. After lunch I had a meeting at ABC Australia – great guy works there called Ian who is keeping them honest. Ultimately it comes down the individuals who work in organisation – hopefully they’ll keep Ian on for a good while yet. Especially as he wants more of my films! Rushed over to AVIS and picked up a hire car and then Linda the publicist and I headed north to a screening at Avoca Beach. It was a two hour drive (through lovely landscapes) and a pretty small cinema but as far as I am concerned Avoca Beach is the absolute model for small, community-based, well-run, fabulously programmed cinemas. Digital had changed everything so one day it’s Beethoven then it’s a live concert from Sydney, a Shakespeare play from London even a Robbie Williams concert. Plus a strong array of films. Good coffee, good cake, a bar, comfy chairs in and out, and cinema owners who know many of their clients by name. And what a great evening we had. A string quartet played on the lawn – with the sea only metres away – and then the film was tremendously well received. Terribly enthusiastic Q&A – lots of laughs too. Linda and I didn’t get to leave until 11pm and then we had to drive back to Sydney. We couldn’t find a cab anywhere for Linda – who is tremendous fun and extremely nice but started to lose her smile by 1am and no way home from the airport (where I was staying). Sorted it in the end. I got to bed in a dingy prison cell of a room – a Formule Un (which can be OK in France) – but a bed’s a bed. I seriously considered not bothering to get undressed as I have to be up in 4 hours.. DAY 25 FRIDAY 16TH OCTOBER, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA Flight at 7am from Sydney to Melbourne. Finally managed to get my baggage down to 23k so no excess baggage at $10/Kilo. Though it did mean my rucksack was stuffed full of books and golf balls… Quick flight to Melbourne and taxi straight to SBS radio for an interview for French folk (done in French) then German folk (done in English). No rest..need coffee…off to ABC radio for national interview. I came here in 2006 but have no memory of the building at all – which is a bit spooky. One struggles to get any radio in the UK but here there’s loads – indeed I did two more and a TV spot until at 3pm I said that’s it – enough’s enough. I suppose I should have had a nap at this point but I dashed off to a nice public golf course instead. Short course and I just managed to finish 18 holes as it got dark. Walked straight to the cinema (where Beethoven showing tomorrow) and went in to see Quentin Tarantino’s latest film – set in WW2. I have never felt the need to rush out of a cinema and go get a shower after watching most of this film. It was so, so disgusting on so many levels – normally I just want to persuade people to watch Beethoven now I want to chain them to their cinema seats and forcing anyone who was thinking of see Tarantino’s film or has had the misfortune to see it – to watch a film that contains hope, optimism, love, genius. Because Tarantino’s is almost sickness, violence, hate. Of course his film will be seen by tens of millions and mine won’t. On that, a 21-hour day came to an end. DAY 26 SATURDAY 17TH OCTOBER, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA Body still hyper I guess. Woke before 7am and was soon tapping away on the computer, trying to get my email in-box back to single figures…No chance… Another packed press day. Dashing around Melbourne to various radio stations. As I said yesterday, it’s extremely impressive how many radio stations there are and how each of them had done their homework on the film and had a full list of questions they wanted to ask. I thought I might have to adjust my responses depending on whether the channel was a classical radio station, indy music station or a gay & lesbian radio station but in fact all asked broadly similar, intelligent questions that in the UK you might get from only one or two stations. It’s another day passed in a car or radio station but I guess that’s why I’m here. I certainly hope it helps… Certainly the interviewers could not have been more enthusiastic about the film and all essentially insisted their audience come see the film! In the evening I had dinner with some wonderful friends of mine who, truth be told, I so wanted to see again after the last trip to Australia (for IN SEARCH OF MOZART) that I never hesitated for second in any plans to set up this press tour. I’m not sure I should embarrass them by describing them too much but what I will say is that John was the first person I met on the Mozart film. He was absolutely Day 1 (of three years) and the fact that I can now stay at his house in Australia or vice versa – he and his fabulous wife Janet – are welcome to stay with us in the UK any time is illustrative of what a wonderful world the classical music world is. Others may have had different experiences but I have made more friends – some of whom are the world’s best musicians – in the course of these two projects than probably all the 100 or 200 films I made previously. Got to be late again – 1am. Alarm is off: I’m sure to sleep in. oh, and a little poem: There once were two mice Called Ella & Billy Known for being, Well, really, quite silly They lived in my pocket And ate all my snacks They really are cheeky And live life to the max! |
October 19th 2009
| DAY 20 SUNDAY 11th OCTOBER, WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND Blast! It’s a beautiful sunny day – their first in 3 weeks. That won’t help… I spent all morning not in the sun but indoors on emails – that really is a theme of this trip. Anyway, headed out at lunchtime for the cinema and another double-bill. I was still expecting a good audience. After all, this very cinema played In Search of Mozart for 6 – yes, six! – months…. I am extremely disappointed to see only 10 people have turned up in a 450 seat cinema. That is awful. But I can learn from this and there are definitely changes to how this whole thing will be done next time. Too many links in the chain and, as they say, you are only as good as the weakest link. Evening ended a bit better with a snack and quick driving tour of Wellington with a very good local film-maker Jennifer Bush-Daumec. After that, I packed and prepared for tomorrow’s flight to the next country: Australia. DAY 21 MONDAY 12th OCTOBER, WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND to BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA Half-way through the tour now. Energy levels still good. New York seems a long time ago though…I kind of hope that Hong Kong comes a bit faster. Anyway, I took an early flight from Wellington to Sydney, then had a four hour stop-over in Sydney (where I worked on my computer) and then caught a plane to Brisbane. Arrived to a beautiful hot sunny day…the kind of day that really should be a holiday. Met by my distributor Gil Scrine and we headed off to Noosa Heads for tonight’s screening. It’s a couple of hours drive north of Brisbane and, Gil being Gil, first things first on arrival: a swim in the sea. These ozzies can’t help it – they are irresistibly drawn to the sea like bees to honey. I have to agree it was great to play in the waves for 30 minutes or so… Then, drying off in the car park as best I could, it was dressed and off to the local cinema. Lovely multi-screen cinema showing a much broader mix of films than our multiplexes do. Well, that’s illustrated by my presence. Screening went well – back to full crowds which is a relief after NZ. Late night drive back to an apartment hotel in Brisbane. DAY 22 TUESDAY DAY 13th OCTOBER, BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA Ah, the joys of being back in a country that can make coffee. Up bright & breezy and had coffee and a biscuit or two at a local café. Spent the morning with Gil and his colleague Peta and we worked through schedules and what-not. Did a radio interview then picked up a car hire and drove to the wonderful seaside town of Byron Bay – though actually drove a little past it to see a good friend Oren Siedler (and her partner Tony). I met Oren in Toronto back in 2003 when I was raising funds for The Boy who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan. She made a great film – now an excellent book – called Bruce and Me. Thoroughly recommend reading it. Their house is in the rain forest and is fantastic. DAY 23 WEDNESDAY 14th OCTOBER, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA Up at 4.30 to drive to Gold Coast airport and then flew to Sydney. I was met by the film’s Sydney publicist and we started a mad day of press. First there was SBS TV at the hotel then ABC national radio followed by 3 other radio stations. It’s really noticeable how many radio stations they have here – BBC Radio is a national treasure back in England but we don’t have the range of radio stations. Great screening at Cremorne Orpheum (where Mozart did so well) – a truly great cinema run by a very enthusiastic and knowledgeable manager. After a very good Q&A I rushed back to the hotel to watch the important ABC TV movie show. Their review really does have an impact and we got a great one! In Search Of Beethoven Rated G Review by Margaret Pomeranz Phil Grabsky’s examination of some of the world’s great composers continues with his film IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN. His approach, as with IN SEARCH OF MOZART, is to bring some of the world’s experts in various fields to tell Beethoven’s story. But this is not just a history; it’s an exploration of the man and his music. It’s fascinating to discover just how revolutionary Beethoven’s music was, and the film gives great insight into the humanism at its heart. This is really an excellent documentary. For lovers of classical music it will be a must-see but for people who want to learn about Beethoven I don’t think you could get any better introduction than this film. The music is sublime, the experts knowledgeable, the musicians themselves give a real understanding of the playing of his pieces, the music is dissected so cleverly. The film is long, over two and a quarter hours, but there’s depth and intelligence in it. This is not a superficial journey and you end up with enormous gratitude for having taken it. Further comments MARGARET: David? DAVID: I don't think I can add much to what you've said, Margaret, because I completely agree. I mean, one of the things that fascinated me about the film was to learn really what a sad life Beethoven had. The fact that he wasn't able to marry, for one reason or another, and, of course, his increasing deafness and disability and so on, while at the same time creating this sublime music. And also very interesting too is the political background at the time, which the film makes very clear. MARGARET: Yes. DAVID: The Napoleonic wars that were going on and the occupation of Vienna, where he lived, of course, and so on. MARGARET: Yeah. DAVID: I think this... MARGARET: Well, I mean, the Heroica. DAVID: Yeah. Yeah. So, look, I think this is an exemplary film. I'm going to give it four out of five. MARGARET: I think it's sublime, this film. I'm giving it four and a half. This could really help…. |
October 16th 2009
| DAY 12 SATURDAY 3rd OCTOBER, LOS ANGELES, USA Busy day…an interview in the hotel with the biggest radio station in LA and apparently the biggest metropolitan radio station in the USA. I’d have tidied my hotel room if I’d have known that’s where he wanted to conduct the interview… Then rushed off for lunch with a local distributor. Mitchell Block is a stalwart of the documentary world and knows that world inside out. He’s been involved in many Oscar-winning docs but the world is changing, has changed, and it doesn’t get any easier for him. He distributes a series of mine called The Great Commanders, which I made almost 15 years ago, so I hope he continues to find success. I then went straight from lunch to a screening of the film at the George Lucas building at the University of Southern California. A new building that cost millions (did someone say $140m?) at & for the school of cinematic arts. Wow. Mind you I spoke to one student studying animation – her three year course would leave her $200,000 in debt! Anyway, a well-attended screening; half students and half opera-goers who regularly come to the cinema for Live from the Met screenings. Then a quick dash back to West Hollywood to meet a fine critic Jules Brenner. He used to be a camera operator and has some fine stories to tell of the old Hollywood – an Hollywood that is probably long-dead. Barely had time to finish eating before dashing to the cinema. Bit disappointed again that audience stubbornly sits at 50 or 60 – in a 250-seater. I can only hope for word-of-mouth but I’m not sure I have reason to be confident. The last show wasn’t any busier either – though, as always, the audience were extremely enthusiastic for the film. I’d rather that than a full house of slightly bored or disappointed punters. DAY 13 SUNDAY 4th OCTOBER, VANCOUVER, CANADA Up at 4.30am to get to the airport for a flight to Vancouver. I love Canada and I love Vancouver so I’m really looking forward to this leg of the trip. I have been to Canada many times and have never had anything but the most fantastic times. And when IN SEARCH OF MOZART showed at the Vancouver Film Festival 2 years ago it was a big success. Showing Beethoven at the Film Festival should be fun. Mind you, the journey wasn’t much fun to start with..on arrival at the airport I was gruffly informed that the flight was cancelled. I’m sorry but US airports can be rough old places and I guess the staff there has developed a defense mechanism which entails that they don’t look at you, smile or seem to care much. Obstinacy comes in useful at times like this…and though they offered me a flight 4 hours later I refused and demanded an earlier flight on a different airline. This was agreed and I had only a couple of hours wait for a United flight which was actually pretty good. Especially as they made a mistake (which I kind of encouraged) and put me in business! A delight to arrive in Vancouver – such a beautiful spot. Sad not to be arriving with my family though. Arrived about midday at the festival hotel – and it’s a lovely hotel, the Sutton Place. It really does help on these trips to be in a nice hotel and this one fits the bill. I check in with the festival – they have some great films and I hope I get the chance to see a few. There are about 2000 festivals I believe and one has to choose very carefully which ones you enter and why. Some are useful for seeking distributors, some for press, some to reach an audience, some to enter competition and maybe win an award, some just because the location is nice and you’ve been invited. Vancouver is a good one because of location, the range of films you can see (lots of Asian ones because of Vancouver’s relation with Asia), and a very enthusiastic audience – some watching 5 films a day! I wish we filmmakers could take a share of the box office but festivals struggle like everyone else. I guess every year they have to rely on sponsors – and in this day and age there is nothing guaranteed about them. Anyway, I managed to see a film in the afternoon about the pianist Glenn Gould. Nicely made by people who clearly thought he was a great pianist though I’d liked to have heard from musicians telling me why he was – or indeed was not – so ‘great’. Great archive – that’s often the key to films. I do daydream about a film about Mozart or Beethoven using imaginary DV archive – can you imagine if someone had some home video of Mozart playing billiards or Beethoven joking around in a local bar… DAY 14 MONDAY 5th OCTOBER, VANCOUVER, CANADA My brother has come up by bus from Seattle. I don’t see him enough so any chance to hook up is great. And I’ll need his help at the screenings today and tomorrow. We spent some time together today which was great – actually we rushed off for a game of golf. It was gorgeous – with a backdrop of mountains. The standard of our golf wasn’t quite as attractive… Rushed back to downtown Vancouver for a very nerve-wracking moment: an interview with Radio Canada……..in French! Somehow I managed to get through it but I’m not telling you the link to any recording…. I have to say though that I am chuffed to bits to have done it. 6pm and a festival screening of Beethoven. One never knows how many will come so I’m delighted to see an almost full house of 300+. Apart from a problem with their screen, the projection and audio are great and, although I had intended to rush back to the hotel to do emails, once I started watching the film I couldn’t leave. I think it’s the best I’ve seen it – and I really enjoyed it. So did the audience – they had a great time, laughing and some crying at all the right moments. A very warm round of applause at the end and a good Q&A. All a bit hectic afterwards with lots of people wanting to ask questions. After all this mayhem – and meeting some really nice folk (some of whom remembered me from the Mozart screening two years ago) – my brother and I went to dinner with Marc Destrube and his wife Anna. He is one of the musicians from the Orchestra of the 18th Century who feature so prominently in both films. He is in fact often the Concert Master or First Violinist. He – like all the musicians in that wonderful orchestra – is extremely nice and the fact that I have become friends with a good number of the musicians and conductors that I interviewed is a huge bonus and joy to me. I have actually been skiing with Marc and I remember being terrified that he’d fall over and hurt his hands! I had to apologise to Marc after the film – most of the time in the film we only see his fingers…. DAY 15 TUESDAY 6th OCTOBER, VANCOUVER, CANADA A typical film festival day for me. Loads of emails, and sending packages, posters, flyers and postcards around. Great that my brother here to help me. We both then went for a run in the beautiful Stanley Park before heading over for a screening of a film we wanted to see about Laos. A first time feature by a nice Irish woman. Well shot and interesting. She had to tough it out with no real funding until the Irish Film Board stepped in at the end with completion funds. This was her first international screening and I wish her well. She’s the type of film-maker broadcasters should support…. My film was on at 3pm and went very well again. After that my bro and I headed for dinner and then another film about Tibet. I lasted two minutes before falling asleep. Went back to the hotel to go to sleep. I woke when my brother came in and we worked & talked until 2am. Then I really did need to go to bed…. DAY 16 WEDNESDAY 7th OCTOBER, VANCOUVER, CANADA Up at 7am for a quick trip to the gym with my brother – then a quick breakfast before he headed off. It took me a while to answer emails and pack and then I headed off to see a film about a young boy in India. I expect it was very good but the standard of the audio was poor and, to be honest, hurt my ears and I left. Then I went to see a film that a friend of mine, Christina Daniels, had a lot to do with – ONLY WHEN I DANCE. I had been asked to work with a new producer called Giorgia and an experienced producer called Paul Webster. They wanted to make a film in Brazil with me – and I brought Christina into the mix. After a few months I felt it best I withdraw – I just wasn’t sure there was a need or desire for another favela in Rio film. Well, good luck to them all – they persevered and persevered and have made an absolutely wonderful film about two young dancers. Beadie Finzie is the director and I have to say she did better job that I would have. She – they – absolutely nailed the story and the emotional roller coaster you want to take your audience on. People around me were clapping and groaning at key moments. I am particularly pleased for Christina who, like so many, has worked so hard for so little but she has not given up. She worked with me in Brazil and Angola and I look forward to working with her again – though she may be hard to book now. Mind you, she still owes me for lending her my camera for free for months in Brazil…. After that, it was off to the airport and a flight to LAX (they’re still grumpy) and then onto Qantas for a midnight flight to the next continent, the next country: New Zealand. DAY 17 THURSDAY 8th OCTOBER, somewhere over the Pacific... This day never existed….or did it? Or was it just very short? Flying west and crossing the date line just confuses me…. DAY 18 FRIDAY 9th OCTOBER, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND I have to say that the Qantas flight was great. Love to fly with them again. I also had a funny experience of the guy next to me putting on the in-flight entertainment and choosing one of my films! Meanwhile I watched one of the worst films I have ever seen: Angels & Demons. It was so awful on so many levels…I couldn’t stop watching it it was so bad…So maybe that was the idea. I arrived in Auckland at 0830am and checked into a crummy hotel in a pretty dismal part of Auckland. My mood wasn’t helped by my arrival at the cinema at 10.30 for the start of a special double bill of Mozart & Beethoven. It seems that there has been a real paucity of advertising – the cinema is only half, maybe a third, full. Considering how well IN SEARCH OF MOZART did in Auckland, I am very disappointed. My mood was improved only by the positive reaction of those who did come, a very nice cinema manager who said she’d love to show more of my films, and a very nice dinner with a local distributor (mainly DVD these days) and his wife & friends. DAY 19 SATURDAY 10th OCTOBER, AUCKLAND & WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND Woke early and went for a jog up the road to a nice park called The Domain. Should of and could of run further but soon seemed to find myself in a café bar buying a spot of breakfast. Looking forward to Australia and some nice runs in the sun. I spent the majority of the day with the distributor friend from last night who took me to some gorgeous spots on the coast west of Auckland. What a stunning country – I will have to come back one day with the family and hire a campervan and explore… In the afternoon, I took a flight to Wellington. $10/kilo for excess baggage! The airlines really are squeezing every buck these days… Wellington is grey, wet & cold. My mood not helped by another crummy hotel in the middle of nowhere. I had to dash for a pre-arranged seat at the NZ Opera Company presentation of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Apparently it’s relatively rare to have opera in NZ – maybe twice a year. The place was packed – everyone was very scrubbed and brushed for a night out. I have to say that, fine performance though it was, it wasn’t Beethoven. Hurried back to hotel for a good night’s sleep. Hope it’s wet tomorrow – that will encourage punters to the show. DAY 20 SUNDAY 11th OCTOBER, WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND Blast! It’s a beautiful sunny day – their first in 3 weeks. That won’t help… I spent all morning not in the sun but indoors on emails – that really is a theme of this trip. Anyway, headed out at lunchtime for the cinema and another double-bill. I was still expecting a good audience. After all, this very cinema played In Search of Mozart for 6 – yes, six! – months…. I am extremely disappointed to see only 10 people have turned up in a 450 seat cinema. That is awful. But I can learn from this and there are definitely changes to how this whole thing will be done next time. Too many links in the chain and, as they say, you are only as good as the weakest link. Evening ended a bit better with a snack and quick driving tour of Wellington with a very good local film-maker Jennifer Bush-Daumec. After that, I packed and prepared for tomorrow’s flight to the next country: Australia. |
October 6th 2009
DAY 10 THURSDAY 1st OCTOBER, KANSAS CITY, KANSAS, USA Wow, Day 10 – one quarter through my 40 day trip… Early ride out to Cleveland airport (it’s way too far to drive to Kansas) and a quick flight into Kansas City. I am met by an expert in the world of music – a guy called John Tibbetts. He has broadcast and written on many of the same musicians that are in the film and it’s nice to have an hour in the car and then a spot of lunch to talk to him. We are met at lunch by the man who runs the arthouse cinema in Kansas and we bemoan the difficulties in getting folk to see films such as mine but more to the point all those wonderful arthouse movies – which, let’s not beat about the bush, are worth a whole lot more than the mainstream run-of-the-mill output that makes up so much of the chains’ product. Jerry, the manager of the cinema, has been fighting this battle for 20-odd years and is clearly such an important element of Kansas City culture – I just hope they appreciate him. Anyway, after lunch I dashed to his cinema to see a Jane Campion film about Keats but I didn’t last the course (well, not all arthouse films keep me gripped!) and I returned to my hotel to catch up. Jerry wasn’t sure how we’d do for numbers but it was pretty well attended and the Q&A went well. He’s showing Beethoven for one week and Mozart for another so hopefully word-of-mouth will keep numbers steady. Good reviews in the local press and a couple of positive radio interviews is about as much as I could do – so, as always, it’s in the hands of luck, fate, and who knows what? Having spent all day emailing and just keeping on top of the needs of the tour I asked Jerry to give me a quick drive around downtown Kansas city. Another city that is very quiet at night – I guess they are so big, so stretched out, that people just don’t wander – they drive from spot to spot, park in the back, walk straight in. I really enjoyed talking to Jerry – he is one of a breed of Americans that sometimes don’t get seen much on TV abroad – we see the brash, the aggressive side more often – clips of Fox News, or the Congressman from so-and-so demanding a pre-emptive strike against Iran or Syria. But Jerry also represents a huge number of Americans who are smart, funny, articulate, extremely hospitable and just downright nice. So, a quick one-day trip to his city but I thoroughly enjoyed it –and I’d never seen the Missouri River before either…. DAY 11 FRIDAY 2nd OCTOBER, LOS ANGELES, USA Flew in to LAX and just had time to drop my bags off at the hotel before heading off for a radio interview at KPFK. Thought it would take 10 minutes but it took 40 and $40 too. Just to get from West Hollywood to North Hollywood…crazy city. Good interview though – except it was a pre-record and might not go out until next week which frankly won’t help keep the film in the one cinema it is playing in LA. Still, the interviewer was extremely keen on the Afghan film I am working on and promised to really get behind that when we release it in 2011. The trick is keeping all these offers of help in store and not to forget them… Organisation, organisation, organisation – you can’t overstate how important it is. After a lovely lunch with an old mate from Brighton, I had a meeting with a top (and I mean top) manager to the stars. I felt like I was in Curb Your Enthusiasm (and if you don’t watch that series you are missing one of the great TV series – again, something the Americans do so, so well – The Wire. Sopranos, American Office, etc… I was just meeting this guy to say hi and leave him some DVDs of work. A friend had set it up and who knows…maybe one day, someone will talk to someone about someone else who wants to make a film about so-and-so and they’ll remember this English guy who passed through town with a film on Beethoven… Extremely pleasant guy that I met – when you think of the battles he must face dealing with top stars, top studios, top distributors, etc, I was impressed by his charm and attention. After that meeting – and with my feet still firmly on the ground – I hurried off to the cinema where Beethoven is premiering in LA tonight. Well, I had a little moment of feeling the loneliness of the long distance runner. The cinema was deathly quiet.  Yes, the film’s name was up in lights outside and there was a poster or two but in a city where no-one walks and an hour before the cinema opens, there was literally no-one around. I had no sense if anyone would come to the first 5pm screening. We’d had a good review though in the LA Times: An ode to joy for Beethoven fans With "In Search of Beethoven," documentarian Phil Grabsky has created a splendid work that will be a revelation to the uninitiated and a joy to music lovers. As with his previous "In Search of Mozart," Grabsky has gathered an array of major musicians and scholars to explore the dynamic relationship between Beethoven's life and art. Excerpts of key Beethoven works are performed by various European orchestras, punctuating the narrative of the composer's tumultuous life, which was expressed so boldly and passionately in his music. Described as being a "rude, forthright, impatient" young man, Beethoven soon concluded that he could be better than reigning composers Mozart, whom he may or may not have met, and Haydn, who became a mentor. Beethoven enjoyed acclaim and even financial security. But by age 30, he had begun to lose his hearing, which would eventually become total. He fought back suicidal despair, crediting his urge to compose for saving his life. His health would fail and he would sink into poverty, yet he continued to compose, no matter what. Every source Grabsky interviews for his film enlarges both the viewer's appreciation of Beethoven's genius -- his soaring originality, complexity and variety -- and how his music so richly reveals his ideas, thoughts and state of mind at the time of its composition. The range and influence of his work were so great it is completely understandable why one of Grabsky's commentators proclaims, "Beethoven is the greatest composer who ever lived." -- Kevin Thomas Don’t come much better but how many people read the LA Times, how many want to go immediately that afternoon to see a film? Bizarrely, people have been saying that LA is not a great movie-going city. Someone even told me that 80% of an arthouse film’s income can sometimes come from New York alone. I instinctively would doubt such a statistic but it suggests something, doesn’t it? 4.30pm – still quiet. I’m nervous: believe me, it took a lot of work to get the film booked here, then $1500 on a small ad in the LA Times, endless expense in other forms of publicity, endless hours by my colleagues in Brighton, and of course the time, effort and expense for me to get here. And, what?, no-one turns up… Horrible. 4.45…no-one. I want to walk off. I’m starting to look forward to Vancouver on Monday where I know I’ll have a large crowd. 4.46..someone arrives. Then an elderly couple…I listen eagerly as they say ‘2 tickets for Beethoven’, then 2 more, 1 more, 2 more, 4 more…We reach 10..ok, it won’t be empty. 15…not a disaster. 20..not too bad..and eventually 30 people. No avalanche, nothing to shake the arthouse world but it’s OK. The Q&A goes well and I really go on the offensive and push hard that people tell their friends. I really could enter politics after all this one-man hustling from the front. If I pushed any hard, I could have them singing and swaying and chanting ‘Ludwig! Ludwig!’…but that might be going a little far! I do love these Q&As though – and I really don’t mind answering the same questions and so forth – such lovely people – and who can be bored meeting, albeit briefly, nice people who are enthusiastic for the same things as you. I finish the Q&A just as the second sitting arrives…5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 – I know it doesn’t read as being too many but it still means a pretty consistent flow of people in..35, 40.. Well, it’s a 250-seater and we reach 50 people. 20% - doesn’t look great, I know but in a city with hundreds of attractions, a Friday night, a cinema not near any freeways so pretty much only attracting the Beverly Hills inhabitants, I’m not ashamed of 50. I would like to crack 100 so we haven’t managed that but let’s see how we do tomorrow. My voice is really rough by the time I do the last Q&A and I’m ready for bed. Then the last person to ask me questions outside the screen turns out to be a journalist who’d like to interview me there and then. I warm to her immediately – she likes to write considered, intelligent criticism of arthouse films (and there isn’t enough of that) so I agree to get a coffee with her, despite it being midnight. We struggle to find a coffee bar or deli where there’s parking but eventually at half past 12 in the morning, I find myself drinking tea and honey (to save my voice) sharing some cheesecake and pronouncing about the difficulties of making documentary films… While we record this interview to tape, all around us are people having a night out – no-one bats an eye at us though. It’s probably entirely normal for LA. Like earlier in the day, you wouldn’t believe how many guys were reading scripts while drinking their coffee at Starbucks – I wondered if it was a set-up for a TV show…. I’m bushed…that’s 23 hours and I promised my wife only today that I’d get enough sleep. I cut the interview short and go back to the hotel. I turn the TV on but I don’t know why; I’m asleep in minutes. |
October 5th 2009
| DAY 8 - TUESDAY 28TH SEPTEMBER – CLEVELAND, OHIO, USA First of all, a message to a good friend of mine, Allan in France. He’s a great guy and a big fan of Beethoven and I wish him a speedy recovery. Like Beethoven, Allan will work his fingers to the bone whether he feels well or not. It’s such a burden to be ill; I think all of us who, today, feel hearty and healthy should thank our lucky stars and make the best of it. Anyway, Allan, it is pouring with rain here in Cleveland – the coffee is awful and the pastries worse. I wish I was down at the La Bascule with you having my café & croissant… See you soon I hope. Yes, it is really very wet here and I am definitely stuck on the computer in my room. I can’t go out anyway as I’m waiting for FedEx to come and take some tapes that have to go to LA. This is a much nicer hotel than the one in New York and half the price. Very comfortable room. The front desk is a bit funny though. They answer the phone as follows: ‘Expect the Unexpected. This is the [X] Hotel. This is Melanie. How may I help you or direct your call this morning’ by which time any caller has forgotten why they are calling. And what on earth does ‘Expect the unexpected’ mean? I asked one of the women at the desk and then immediately realised she didn’t know as it would be unexpected… I guess I expected drinkable coffee, fruit with taste, oatmeal that was warm, orange juice that was fresh and eggs that were real…and I received the unexpected by getting none of those. Still, mustn’t grumble, eh? Had so much to do today that it made no difference that it was a grey as slate and pouring with rain. I was shooting off emails like an English archer shooting arrows at Agincourt. Late afternoon, I drove the car across town to the Avis car lot ($280 for 2 days hire including the different city drop-off – I have to sell 100 tickets to cover that). There I was met by John from the Museum of Art / Cinemateque. He and people like him are like gold-dust. They work against all sorts of odds to deliver a rich, valuable programme of films including classics and new discoveries. These guys are underpaid and undervalued – and frankly it shows in our society. No offence bankers but it’s guys like John who deserve the bonuses… It’s so obvious to me that culture is absolutely essential to society – it’s a bedrock of all that is decent and good – and yet I know no cultural sphere that doesn’t struggle for funds. Think of the financial waste in local government and then think of how much someone like John deserves $20,000 here or $30,000 there so at least he could have an assistant and wouldn’t have to do everything from picking the films, doing the deals, pushing the press, taxi-ing filmmakers from the airport, turning on the projector, introducing the guests, etc, etc. I really enjoyed my time with him and couldn’t stop myself from borrowing 5 documentaries that I watched in my room. Of those, one called ‘Mother Courage’ (with Meryl Streep) was excellent. But the highlight of the day was a trip not to the cinema but to the theatre… By the wildest, craziest, whackiest chance there was a play at the nearby Cleveland Playhouse called ‘Beethoven, as I knew him’. Now on a recent trip to Chicago I had been told about this wonderful actor, writer, concert pianist called Hershey Felder who had done one-man shows about Gershwin and also Chopin and was about to do Beethoven. Actually I’m not sure if I was told he was doing Beethoven…anyway, I made a mental note but never thought to try and contact him. Lo and behold, he is here and my friend in Chicago effected an introduction. The wonders of Facebook: I swear that 10 minutes after I had sent a message to the guy in Chicago I receive an email from Hershey which says he absolutely, I mean ABSOLUTELY loved In Search of Mozart (which he bought at Mozart’s house in Vienna) and had watched it 5 or 6 times and would love for me to come to the show and meet him afterwards. How great! So that’s what I did. The show, I am pleased to say, was fabulous! Do see it if you ever get the chance or buy the DVD which might well be out next year. Essentially the theatrical equivalent of my film – extracts of letters and pieces of music (which Hershey plays on a Steinway and plays very well). I’m obviously a bit sniffy about other work on Beethoven – I just don’t rate very highly anything I have watched – but this was great. Then, to my surprise and slight embarrassment, at the end of the play, during a great question and answer that Hershey does with the audience, he showered me with praise and told everyone to go see my film playing tomorrow! Afterwards, we had a drink and all I’ll say is that if half of the suggestions Hershey put forward to help me with the Mozart and Beethoven films come to fruition….well, the trip may have been worth it for that alone. And you know what, sometimes you know someone is either a bit over-excited and suggesting things that actually they can’t secure or they are enjoying making themselves seem important by telling you what they can do for you – but I’m not a bad judge of character and I reckon Hershey was down-the-middle genuine. As a deeply creative soul himself, he really did seem to have been taken by the creativity of the my – and my team’s – films and I think – if time permits him – he really will help. Fabulous: I still can’t quite get over the serendipity of it all… DAY 9 - WEDNESDAY 29TH SEPTEMBER – CLEVELAND, OHIO, USA After the excitement of last night, a new day and back to earth… Emails Ironing Emails Coffee Radio interview with Kansas Emails FEDEX Phone calls Emails Then a radio interview in downtown studio Cleveland. I was interviewed by a wonderful lady by the name of Dee Perry.  What a voice! Check her out on-line on WCPN. We had a nice 20 minute chat and luckily I really do not find it hard to be enthusiastic about Beethoven or the film. These radio stations – especially as the print media is in such decline and financial trouble – are absolutely essential. And as I said yesterday it’s folks like these who should be top of every government officials’ budget list. I am not going to write a long essay on this but those kids beating each other up at school and the struggles of people in the cultural spheres – they are connected. It all starts at home and at school. Those kids in France, Germany, Holland who find it normal to learn an instrument, go to concerts, go to the theatre – they, with a rare exception, are not holding up drug stores with sawn-off shotguns. OK, speech over but in the one local newspaper store I went into there were more gun magazines than cultural ones. After the radio show, John and I hurried off to the first screening. He has never ever scheduled a film at 2pm but did so as I was here. He was worried no one would show- but in fact there was an acceptable 23 people. One of whom had just caught the radio show and rushed across town. The cinema, by the way, is in the university district and pretty much somewhere to drive to. After I had done my introduction I went back to the hotel and finally got the Skype working and spent a lovely 90’ chatting to my family on the webcam. My idea is to have remote dinner with them on Saturday: we all eat in front of the camera and chat as if it were a normal dinner. Weird & wonderful…what a world. Nice Q&A after the film though I can tell I’m losing my voice. Quick intro for next one then back to hotel. Watched another documentary called The End of the Line. I know some of the people involved and had missed it when it had its one day multi cinema screening in the UK. It’s a powerful film which essentially makes a strong case for the disaster we are committing to the seas and the fish within. They had rather ‘over-scored’ it by which I mean the orchestral score was very emotional and really wasn’t needed. The facts were strong enough; I didn’t need the music to tell me how to feel. That apart, a powerful film that should be seen and acted upon. Indeed, all credit to the film-makers: it had a real impact in the UK on its release and shows the power of a film backed up with enormous commitment and sheer hard work. Various outlets and restaurants have, it seems, already changed their policy on which fish they buy and serve. Great: TV & films are such powerful media and should be used for the common good. Oops, watch out..stop myself before another rant begins… My second screening of the day went well too. 40 or 50 people (which doesn’t sound much – and indeed could have been more) but on a wet day wasn’t too shabby. And they were very receptive and the Q&A went well. One gentleman I talked to after the show is writing a book that shows Beethoven (and Haydn too) had black fathers… I do like to engage with folk in the audience but I had to ask what evidence could he possibly have to back this up: apparently Malcolm X had mentioned it in a speech in 1963. Well, TV is always asking me what’s new to say about Beethoven so that would be new…. Feeling pretty weary now; hotel room service was shut and so dinner was (a pretty decent) chicken and fruit salad from a nearby coffee shop. Watched Operation Filmmaker by Nina Davenport. One of those docs that you hear about –and all credit to her for that. I certainly could see she had put the effort & time & money in to get the material – the hard-to-capture actuality of a story. Those real moments. Worth checking out. Despite best efforts, couldn’t clear in-box of emails to under 30…(and don’t even ask about my 'Pending' box and ‘To Read’ box)… Couldn’t sleep – perhaps too much coffee during the day..1am, 2am – and I have to be up at 6 to catch a plane… |
October 1st 2009
| DAY 3 – Thursday 24th September I’d hoped to sleep in but bang on 6am I wake. Can’t tell from looking out of my box window if it’s day or night. Doing emails by 6.01am… UK one way, Australia the other…Truly a global operation! OK, ok, no bread but surely I’m allowed banana pancakes… Go out and it’s blazing hot already which is bad news as I have a day of pounding the pavements from meetings, screenings and also trying to see other documentaries in other cinemas… First of all, of course, I check for new reviews. Time Out & Village Voice are in the shops: Time out: “If we had to pick ten things that are great about humanity, there would probably be several Beethoven works amongst them.” Sparked by that appraisal from an unseen authority, documentarian Phil Grabsky launches into an investigation of the composer’s life, providing insights into an audacious talent who could either delight or baffle his contemporaries. Beethoven’s painful insecurities and petty squabbles are deftly balanced with generous musical examples. Honorifics like the opening quotation liberally punctuate the film, but so do frank, even irreverent observations from scholars and musicians. The results do justice to a complex genius whose impact can scarcely be overstated.—Steve Smith Village Voice In Search of Beethoven plays like a good, if necessarily condensed critical biography. Drawing from archival letters, interviews with contemporary musicians and historians, and a generous selection of live music, Phil Grabsky's film takes us through the life and work of its imposing subject, moving from Beethoven's days as the "piano virtuoso of Vienna" in the 1790s through his establishment as that city's leading composer and his subsequent personal troubles and declining production. What's interesting about the film is not so much its re-creation of the man's life or its presentation of his character—which hew closely to romantic notions of the stubborn, increasingly erratic genius—but its consideration of just how revolutionary his body of music was compared to that of his predecessors. The film's real resource is its impressive array of talking heads, their intimate familiarity with the music, and their ability to impart graspable insight, as when two subjects offer different readings of the Ninth Symphony's seemingly incongruous ending. Only the angry outburst of one expert, who uses Beethoven's genius to deride contemporary art and "video clips" as comparative trash, imparts a sour elitist whiff to the proceedings. Then back to my hotel room to phone in a long interview with WBIA radio – that should help. It’s NY’s public radio station and I’ve found that radio is really important in attracting the classical music audience. I’ve done so many interviews about Mozart and Beethoven now but, because I love the subjects so much, I always feel – and thus sound – truly enthusiastic. Probably I also like sounding off too! After the interview, although I would have loved to walked around Manhattan, I simply had no time to do anything but answer emails. But around midday I headed off north to a meeting at the Museum of Modern Art. I have both filmed there in the past and also shown films there. It’s an extraordinary place and to have anything to do with it is a bit of an honour really. I also love the fact it is always so busy – again illustrating that the audience is there for art and most TV channels just don’t get it. After a good meeting – though my cold is really getting on my nerves; I cannot shift it – I scampered off to a friend’s apartment: she had kindly allowed us to use it as an address to send 300 DVDs….I just about had time to leave them at the hotel before having to walk downtown to the Cinema Village for the first Question and Answer session of the day. Today is really the day a film normally opens and when some of our press said we were opening so I’m keen to see how we do today. Bums on seats… 1.45am..well, four Q&As later…I’m Phil Grabsky and this is my film… I have to say it went extremely well. The numbers were average – 20, 30 people per screening (although the other 2 films in the cinema had 2 or 3 people only) but those 20 or 30 absolutely loved the film and were very animated about it and very enthusiastic to go tell their friends. Some people were genuinely moved; others stunned by so much music from so many top musicians. Many were highly critical that you wouldn’t see something like this on US television. Questions tended to be on the hows and wherefores of making something like this. Not one comment about me missing something out. And no comments about the Immortal Beloved which often gets people very heated. Not that it matters really who she was. A really busy day as I managed to squeeze in a very important meeting with a Commissioning Editor of documentaries of a leading channel, and also managed to see Michael Moore’s latest film: Capitalism: A Love Story. Now, despite the fact that on Rotten Tomatoes my film is scoring 92% (!) and his only 70%, I do consider him a deity of the film-making world. No documentary film-maker can deny how significant he has been to opening up the cinemas to docs. Nor do I for a moment deny that it is so wonderful to have an alternate voice poking at the otherwise hidden wounds of modern society…but, frankly, as a film, this one was a bit weak. It makes some shocking ‘needs to be said’ points about Wall Street but it’s too polemical, too ham-fisted at times, to score points with anyone but an already converted audience. That said, I hope it is watched by millions of people around the world. OK…almost 2am and I’m calling time on today. DAY 4: Friday 25th September It must be the air conditioning (which is a nightmare in hotels like this) but I am awake at 5.20am. Decide to email for an hour than try sleeping again. Colleagues are shooting Tim Marlow on the Turner Exhibition in a few days and I have a few notes to send them. SkyArts saved that show when Channel Five bailed out of the arts and I am so pleased they did – they are such nice and also valuable shows. Why is it so hard to find space on UK TV for 24 minutes about, in this case, one of Britain’s greatest ever artists. If I wanted to make 100 hours entitled ‘Pets Falling Over’ I’d be commissioned in a shot – now what does that say about us? So all credit to SkyArts – I know it’s all about selling set-top boxes but if the most commercial channel there is sees there is an audience why don’t the terrestrials? Anyways, that’s how it is, 8am and I’m at the Printing & Copying store Kinkos picking up 5000 flyers that I spent half of yesterday designing and ordering. I have decided that audiences at Cinema Village are simply not good enough. We have had across-the-board excellent reviews but have people seen them? And it is my belief that you need to hit peoples’ consciousness five or six times before it sinks in…so 5000 flyers in two heavy boxes. At 9.30 outside the Lincoln centre, the two guys I have hired from the Cinema and I start handing our flyers to passers-by and also folk going in to an early morning Brahms concert. Amazingly everyone takes one as soon as we say the magic word ‘Beethoven’…you can see that they would otherwise have walked by. I feel like Mozart and Beethoven actually – having to employ people to hand out flyers for my ‘concerts’….Nothing’s changed really has it in 20 years. The trouble with New York is that there is SO much choice, that getting anyone into your cinema is a task, an art, a miracle! I left the two guys at it (one of them had last handed out flyers for Barack Obama and he said it was nice to be handing out flyers and not be told it was a disgraceful hippy… or worse). I rushed off to the Marriot (where I left some flyers of course) to pick up a suitcase of another 150 Mozart DVDs that my brother had brought into the country last week on a business trip. I have to sell these things – like some itinerant vacuum cleaner salesmen or encyclopaedia salesmen of past – to pay for the trip first and hopefully even start to pay back our investment (which was sizeable) in the film itself. So there I am, blazing heat, wheeling my heavy suitcase of wares through Manhattan. I dropped them off at the hotel and then ran for a 12.30 with another top doc exec – trying to persuade them that my forthcoming film about ten years in the life of a boy in Afghanistan is one they should invest in. She wasn’t disinterested…we’ll see. To me, I cannot imagine a more important film. After the meeting, I made my way by train to Long Island where I was having a special one-off screening a delightful cinema in Huntington. Cliff Eisen – one of the leading authorities on Mozart and Beethoven – lives close by so we were co-appearing as guests for an after-film Q&A. The film was very well attended and everyone really seemed to enjoy it. It was nice to see a packed cinema after the quarter-full screen at Cinema Village. But also nice to meet so many nice people (and so many musicians) who were simply delighted to see the film. They were all made SVP (Senior Vice President – everyone in business in the US is a SVP) of verbal distribution. Most, when I told them that, simply thought I was strange…and looked at me as though I was speaking Chinese. But anyway a very pleasant night – excellent to spend time with Cliff and his wife Katy – and despite the 1am train ride back to Manhattan and then having to walk my way through the cold night, filled with revellers and police cars screaming around, it was thoroughly worth it. Couldn’t sleep at first – think I drifted off about 2.30. DAY 5 -SATURDAY 26th An absolutely mad day of Q&As and running here and there. The audiences were good and there were four (even the midnight one) lively and positive discussions after each film. Had some more reviews come in too: this one was very erudite: http://boxoffice.com/reviews/2009/09/in-search-of-beethoven.php In Search of Beethoven by Matthew Nestel posted September 25, 2009 8:30 AM A valentine to the rock star of classical music he straight story can be told in many octaves. Many minds, literati and artisan, chime in on music’s titan among titans. Composers, conductors, concert musicians, and historians deliver intimate interpretations of a genius whose muted mortality was no match for his talent—a talent he himself characterized as “heaven’s most precious gift.” In Search of Beethoven is a visual biography that employs scores of live performances reimagining the master’s infinite range—from raging to ethereal. The film, like the Flemish artist’s vast oeuvre, aims to strike an apotheosis by chronologically reciting Ludwig van Beethoven’s remarkable flight and plight. The clever movements should entreat a cultured base, like those who still read daily broadsheets and listen to classical records. The MP3 crowd won’t break their Urban Outfitters shopping spree for this affair but may catch glimpses once it jumps from big screen to small. Afflicted with many physical ailments, Beethoven, the classical rock star who followed Mozart and his teacher Haydn’s footsteps to Vienna, was riddled with financial and female woes. He never married despite what appear to be many crushes, his purse was only moderately filled because manuscript royalties were sold as one-offs and he couldn’t tour because he was sick so often. Despite his reputation as a harsh hermit, the letters he penned reveal a wounded heart, and his piano concertos and string quartets exude unadulterated beauty, grace and fragility. These pieces are treated like scriptures for the musicians and aficionados dedicating their lives to cracking them. Concert pianist Emanuel Ax admits some of the virtuosic measure are impossible to play and says Beethoven “was less concerned with human beings in the flesh and more concerned with humanity as an ideal.” It was with this that his work lasted longer than the so-called masters of the Baroque period before him. Roger Norrington, a conductor, believes that Beethoven was thinking on a grander stage when comparing him to Mozart. “Mozart was writing for Saturday. Beethoven was beginning to write for eternity. That was one of the conversations he had with his Creator. He wanted to be a great composer, I think.” The opuses are performed in rich and buttery manners and played as we see paintings, illustrations and composites of the epoch. The narration is quite unobtrusive and touches on elements succinctly, thus letting the thinkers, doers and instruments carry the doc’s tune. Letters are orally recited and in the message you gather that Beethoven was a wounded soul but also determined to make his mark with impunity. To one muse named Josephine he wrote: “You have conquered me. I love you as clearly as you do not love me.” He would write a sonata in her honor (as he did with many women) when smitten. At other times he was wallowing in the depths of despair. “I have dragged on this miserable existence.” But there’s also some sardonic wit from the key master when recounting tension with the help: “My servant has been quite difficult since I threw those books at her head.” The film permits Beethoven’s story to unfold without too much tinkering. Any stylizing or seasoning would ruin it. And director Phil Grabsky is well aware of this, having made a sister film about Mozart before. The intention, one must believe, is to go deeper into the bowels and cerebellum of this creator who fought deafness and so many other maladies both physical and spiritual, but managed to leave the world an unrivaled legacy. Beethoven’s canon is an eternally living, breathing organism charming and wounding billions and billions in just a couple of strokes. I had to post the whole thing because it’s pretty impressive – I hadn’t realised I was going deep into the bowels and cerebellum of Beethoven – I think I best go wash. Oh, I managed to get a massage today. The masseuse walked all over my back – that was a first and my word I thought I’d had deep tissue massage before (even a Turkish guy in an Istanbul Hammam) but this was so deep she was massaging back and front at the same time… She said my muscles were so tight I needed to come back soon. I nodded politely as I stumbled back onto the Manhattan streets… Walked home in the rain at 1am….watching all the revellers…maybe feeling a bit sorry for myself… DAY 6 – SUNDAY 27TH SEPTEMBER Worked all morning on emails in my hotel – with a brief hurried rush to buy some oatmeal (again) from Starbucks… Went down to the cinema at for the 1pm screening – pretty good crowd. I know I should make more of New York but I just have so much to do (and it’s raining) so I carry on with emails until the first Q&A at 3.20. I really should remember to introduce the films too because, despite posters everywhere saying there will be Q&As, people always seem surprised. Anyway, the crowd were very energetic for a Sunday midday so that was good. I collected a few emails, handed out some flyers, and saw the 3.45 lot going in. Again, pretty busy. Then I headed off for a really nice two hours with three very fine friends from New York. It was actually quite a relief to be talking about something other than Beethoven… Headed back for the 6pm Q&A and then decided to have a bit of exercise so made a run for the Golf Range at Chelsea Piers. When I got there, I choose to do a simulator which I haven’t done before. Pretty amazing machine – you hit an actual ball that crosses two lines and then hits a toughened screen. So the speed is measured by the time taken to cross those lines and the direction is marked by where you hit the screen…. To be honest, it doesn’t match a proper game at all but it was OK. But even that was interrupted by a phone-in radio interview I did. I left it a bit late and literally had to jog back to the cinema so the Q&A was conducted by a very sweaty Brit… Again a terribly nice and enthusiastic audience, all promising to spread the word. We’ll see. I then had to dash off to Avis to pick up a hire car, return to the hotel for my bags and head through the Lincoln Tunnel and towards the 1-80 and Cleveland. I surprised myself by not feeling tired but I had chosen to drive partly to see the country so not much point driving in the dark. Stopped at a motel: dinner was Salsa dip, Carrots and an Orange & grapefruit juice…it was the only stuff in a nearby garage that looked like it was less than a million calories a bite… Watched a bit of ladies golf and feel asleep…. DAY 7 - MONDAY 28TH SEPTEMBER American breakfast coffee is awful. Left my hotel and drove from 8am to 3pm to get to Cleveland. Some observations: 1 - the radio stations have NOT changed in 30 years: Sammy Hagar, Led Zepellin, Free, Bad Company, Van Halen, Bachman Turner Overdrive, yes, they are all there… Great: I loved it…except… 2 – yes, except, you can’t really listen to that music and crawl along the freeway. But cops everywhere (not that I advocate speeding but 65MPH?? Please). Worse are those drivers that send me mad who sit in the overtaking lane doing 55 when the inside lanes are empty. Who taught these people to drive – don’t they have any idea at all? 3 – Pennsylvania is gorgeous 4 – I drove off the freeway to stop at random in a town. I was shocked. A main street that had barely changed since 1880. That in itself isn’t the end of the world but so many shops boarded up. Others selling second hand stuff or just rubbish. I saw one delivery and it was piles of boxes freshly in from China (and that’s part of the problem). I stopped to look at one nice old building and the owner within two minutes asked me if I wanted to buy it. This is indeed the famous ‘Main Street not Wall Street’ that Obama promised to help. We’ll see – but compared to practically any town or village that you might stop into in France and my word they are worlds apart. There is so much to love about the USA but the problems they have are huge. Still, at least lunch was only $5. Arrived at my hotel in Cleveland – in the very pleasant university district and decide to walk to Downtown and the Lake (Erie). Oops, it was 7 miles and took my one and a half hours and I swear I passed only two (2!) people on the sidewalk the whole time… What is that all about? Downtown was very quiet but interesting. I caught a taxi back and worked till 2am (with a background of some great classic concerts on VH1) when I was hoping to ring the kids at home but no-one answered and then I was simply too tired. |
September 24th 2009
| DAY 1 The Wilderness World Tour... well, it is 40 days after all. I haven't been away from home for so long since the kids were born and so its all a bit a risk. An expensive, extremely time-consuming and exhausting risk - but it's no good making films if you don't get out there and sell them, get them seen. So USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Hong Kong here I come. Never again will I underestimate how much effort goes into a rock tour. Combining cinemas across three continents and sorting out the travel, accommodation, press and who knows what else has taken a scorching amount of time. But here we are: it's Day 1, I'm packed and on the way to Gatwick airport near my home in Sussex. On suitcase is full of DVDs that I certainly hope to sell en route...and maybe fill with some new shirts as I haven't had time to shop for ages (and no doubt it shows!). But 40 days....the kids seem to grow even if I am away for a week... Well, as it is 40 days, I am going to try and abstain from something: and I have decided on two foods I'm quite fond of... bread & alcohol. I had a check-up yesterday and while the nurse said it's great I haven't put on more than a kilo in 9 years she thought maybe I could still lose one or two.... Oh well, at least I won't need to eat those dreadful BA sandwiches. (They do so much so well but the food still lets them down). Their in-flight entertainment, however, and I'd say their staff too, are second-to-none most of the time. Caught up on some reading on the plane and before I knew it I was at JFK. Then in a taxi (bang! There goes $50) and at the hotel. Evening in my room and first two reviews are in: the two keys ones actually and they are good! NY TIMES: '... jammed with prominent musicians and conductors, all striving to put across just how revolutionary Beethoven's works were. They don't just talk the usual documentary talk, they play the music to illustrate their points: expertise and passion combined... ...with an awfully high-class soundtrack'. VARIETY: 'beautifully lensed, intelligently crafted ...The musical performances -- ranging from the aching melancholy of "Moonlight Sonata" to the sublime transcendence of Symphony No. 9 -- are impeccable. Grabsky infuses his storytelling with a compelling sense of drama and elicits more interesting observations from a select group of musicians (many of whom perform), historians and musicologists. "In Search of Beethoven" affectingly deals with the composer's increasing deafness and romantic disappointments. (Royal Shakespeare Company vet David Dawson reads passages from Beethoven's letters.) Just as important, however, the pic also finds elements of rich humor in Beethoven's life and art'. I walk down to the cinema where Beethoven is to premiere - no posters! First problem... Back to hotel and endless emails. DAY 2 Can't sleep. Could be nerves - more likely this crummy hotel where the window opens onto a dark narrow infinitely long shaft of some sort and the room is so small I can just about get past the bed to the bathroom or the front door...And 200/night - breakfast is extra! Anyway, allows me to crack on with my emails. Sometimes that is like trying to hold back the tide by lying flat on the beach...it's impossible! Went for a 5 mile run at dawn along a new jog & cycle track along the Hudson River. Not as nice as Chicagos shoreside but good enough... and better than trying to jog in Manhattan with that grid system.... Met Marjorie my NY publicity agent... She is super and knows her stuff. Tells me this is one of the worst weeks to open : there are 30 films out this week including the Almighty Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore (to whom all documentary filmmakers owe an enormous debt) with his new film. She says it is a testimony to the Beethoven film that we have been getting such good press - indeed reviews at all - in such a packed marketplace. And there is a free screening in Central Park tonight of a film about US National parks...and the UN are in town blocking everywhere....and so on and so on. I decide to walk 50 blocks north to see the press people at the Neue Gallerie and the Metropolitan Gallery of Art. We filmed there last year for an interview show (on SkyArts) called Marlow Meets and I want to be sure they got the DVDs we sent them. The city is packed as always - how do I get these folk to the screenings??? The police are everywhere blocking streets for the fleets and fleets of fancy cars for the UN meeting - and right now clearly it's time for lunch as fancy restaurants are being cordoned off. All seems a little perverse... Manage to get to Met where, guess what, it's been shut for the day to allow for visiting dignitaries to have special tours - I guess they don't want the hoi polloi in there...Gosh, no wonder these leader of the world lose touch....Anyway checked that the press departments at the Met and Neue Gallerie had received their DVD of Marlow Meets and then caught a cab down to the cinema. Not alone - an elderly lady from Washington was at the Neue Gallerie upset as that was closed too (in their case they close on Tuesdays and Wednesdays). 'Want to see a great film? ' 'Sure...' So I kidnapped her....well, escorted her, downtown. At least there would be one person at the 3.45 screening... 'I'm Phil Grabsky, I directed this film, does anyone have any questions' - four times I did that today - after the 1pm, 3.45, 6.30 and 9.30pm performances. It's now 1.30am and so what the result? Not great in terms of numbers - too many empty seats but at least those that were there were VERY enthusiastic and promised to tell friends and colleagues. We can't afford the millions Moore spends on TV ads and posters so we can only rely on word-of-mouth, radio and press reviews and support and a dose of good luck. The Cinema Village is lovely - the projection is excellent - they are offering a run if we get bums on seats so let's see. Bed by 1.30am |
August 25th 2009
I have been spending the last few weeks preparing for the US and Australian openings of IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN. It all takes so much time but each and every cinema needs the same attention - with supporting radio and press interviews. But it is all worth it when one gets emails coming in from all over the world. More recently I even received a great painting someone had done of Beethoven. Anyway New York opens the 23rd of September and then LA the following week. It is going to be a long haul with lots of internal US flights as well as Canada, NZ and Australia but you really cannot complain too much if you are flying the circumference of the planet! Meanwhile, and just as exciting, we have finished our MARLOW MEETS series with the support of Sky Arts in the UK - and they are fascinating. Michael Palin, Renee Fleming, Tony Bennett, Mike Leigh, Paul Smith are in series 1 talking to Tim Marlow about what art has inspired them. It reveals so much about their characters and the creative arts in general. Also on SBS Australia and BBC World News soon. The DVD will be available to purchase in the next couple of weeks. Talking of the creative process, we have also finished MAKING WAR HORSE - all about the process of taking Michael Morpurgo`s superb book and making it a smash theatrical hit...I worked with director/artist/editor and all-round good guy David Bickerstaff on this film and recommend it to anyone with kids or an interest in art, theatre of the First World War... Having a few days off in France now. The Midi-Pyrenees are hard to beat... A bien tot, mes amis. |
July 13th 2009
| Just back from launch of IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN in Chicago. I have to say that it all went extremely well. I decided last year to have the US premiere at the excellent Gene Siskel cinema in downtown Chicago. I like the people there, the radio station WFMT is superb and a big supporter, and the city's leading arts critic Andrew Patner is both a great guy and also a supporter of both the Mozart and Beethoven films. AND the Gene Siskel - for the first time in their 37 year history - booked the film for 4 weeks...So that's where, at 6pm on the 10th July, we had the first US screening. It's always such a nervous moment but a packed audience absolutely loved it. Such a relief. I have been worrying that maybe Mozart did so well because he is such an engaging character and Amadeus was such a popular movie. Also I think there is a bit of a sense that Beethoven is the aficionado's composer but after this and the subsequent (also packed) screenings it seems my fears were ill-founded. The Q&As were fun with some lovely comments and good questions - and the chatting in the lobby went on for a good hour after that. It was also nice to see a real mix of ages, not just the perceived concert crowd of over-50s. Thanks to superb Steve Robinson at WFMT I had had a slot on Entertainment Tonight - hosted by Phil Ponce. It was a shock to the system how many people after that one 10 minute interview then came up to me and said 'hey I saw you on TV the other night'. It must be hell to be a well-known actor or actress and everyone recognises you....Not for me, I'll stay the other side of the camera, thanks. Anyways, Chicago was great: thumbs-up reviews all round - even Time Out said it was a Top 5 event in Chicago and that's something in a city that seems to me to be full to the brim with art and culture. A really great city - especially in the sun. Personally I was stuck doing emails in my hotel room for far too much of the time. I did manage a lovely run along the lake - although I did wonder why I was the only man running - until I realised I'd stumbled into a women's 10k race... Next stop for Beethoven in the US are the openings in New York and LA in September.... |
July 10th 2009
| Dubai: 24 June 2009. I've been looking forward to this day for some time. The day after returning from Afghanistan. It always takes me a lot of time to prepare for a trip to see Mir (the young boy - now 15 - that I have been filming in Afghanistan since 2002). Not only do the technical preparations takes ages - you really don't want to turn up in what is one of the most remote villages in Afghanistan having forgotten your battery chargers - but mentally you have to be in the right frame of mind. Every day the news from that beautiful but blighted country can be extremely depressing. Hundreds, thousands, of pointless deaths. Civilians, soldiers, police, army. And then finally on the plane into Kabul I couldn't help but look forward to collapsing on to a hotel bed in Dubai when it was all over... and here I am. So, how was the trip? I have to say it was absolutely fantastic. I love the country. I love the hospitality of the people. That said, this was the first time I decided to wear local dress and grow a beard - just as a slight added security against a random kidnap. Interestingly, I arrived in the new international air terminal (we were apparently the first flight to use it) and certainly Kabul; shows signs of development. Traffic lights that work now. All the shot up lampposts have gone. New office blocks and residential apartments dotted about. It's all a bit patchy but it's there. And of course traffic jams. Alongside all this, endless high walls with rolled barbed wire, new barriers, bomb-proof walls, gun-toting security guards. I didn't stay long in Kabul and at 4am we (myself, my local producer and driver) headed north out of Kabul. It wasn't long before we were in the Shomali Plains (with vineyards either side of the road!) and then heading up higher and higher to pass through the Salang Tunnel. The air was cold from the snow and the overloaded trucks struggled up the steep road but our 4x4 swept through without problem. A quick stop for tea and the delicious kebab & bread you can get anywhere in Afghanistan and we were off again. Many hours later, having crossed desert and ravine, we arrived at Mir's home village - hidden through a gorge and surrounded by mountains. It always seems like the end of the world when you arrive. Though after a while you start to feel that it's more like the start of the world - so elemental is the landscape and the lives of those who scratch a living from it wasn't long before I was filming the subject of the film, a boy called Mir that I first encountered playing in the rubble of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Then he was a cheeky bright 8-year-old. Now he is a headstrong, determined 15-year-old. Once he wanted to be a teacher or even President. Now he just wants to avoid joining the casualty lists of the ANA - the Afghan National Army. But surprises there were a-plenty. Things are moving forward. I love the conviviality, the sitting on the floor eating rice, bread, lamb and talking (no TVs is so refreshing). I said in 2002/3 that the best way to proceed wasn't to spend billions on soldiering but swamp the country with new schools, new roads, clinics with medicines, etc. It didn't happen that way and Iraq didn't help either And yet you do see everywhere the green shoots of recovery - not the rhetoric ones politicians glibly refer to but real tangible ones. Strong roots of growth. New wells, new schools, 13000 new police vehicles. (2000 of which, it has to be said, have apparently already been blown up by the Taliban). The road west to Khandahar is Russian roulette for those who are too poor to say no or too foolhardy to realise the risk. But the road north that I took was packed with new lorries, new tractors, new cars - loaded with coal, wood, rolled steel, materials of all sorts. I've been on quieter European motorways. Above all though, the image that lives with me is that of the 62 girls crammed into a small schoolroom in Mir's village - eyes wide in wonder and excitement at being taught how to read and write. We help fund that school and trust me, for the selfish pleasure alone of seeing what a little can do, I completely recommend it. You'll never again raise your eyebrows when an airline asks for your loose change. So much has changed - but, my word, there is a host of problems to still be overcome. Hearts & Minds: an overused phrase perhaps. But it is so vital. And Afghans are losing faith with us. Mir's aunt was pushed in a wheelbarrow across mountain passes in the vain effort to find a doctor to stop her haemorrhaging - both she and the unborn child died. These people remain desperately poor. There was not one vegetable in the village of over 1000 people. Not one. They are utterly dependent on nature - and there have been drought after drought in Afghanistan. When you think of global warming, think of this village that has but one spring that brings its water. If that spring dries up, the village dies. Indeed the only thing that really keeps it alive is the good fortune to be a few kilometres from one of Afghanistan's biggest coal mines. Day and night the overloaded coal trucks move at two miles an hour along the bumpy mountain tracks back to the main road a day or two days away and then back to Kabul. Sadly the allure of ten dollars a day (in a culture where if you're lucky to have a job you earn about a dollar) has sucked Mir out of school and onto the gangs shovelling coal from big piles into the trucks. No goggles, no masks, no gloves. Sheer, hard labour. Not once did I see Mir on this trip when he wasn't rubbing his eyes and spitting out coal dust. He's 15. My young man Mir now talks about not being sure if he'll 'even be alive in three years time' (when I'll finish the film). Well, I bade him and his family farewell once again, with enough cash to buy food, medicines, and clothes and hopefully prevent Mir from working in the mine. But that money will be spent no doubt before I return. It needs Afghanistan to change to really protect their futures. A huge poster on the road back to Kabul showed a dead or unconscious girl in the arms of a man, maybe her father. 'Enough of war' the poster simply but movingly, said. Quite so, if only... I offer nothing but respect and admiration to our soldiers - I feel like shaking them by the hand when I see them. I've had my scary moments in Afghanistan but they have them day after day. And get killed or badly wounded day after day, week after week. Whether these losses will be worth it, I don't know. If it is their efforts which have prevented the Taliban from retaking Kabul, then yes. If they are keeping open the hundreds of schools like the one in Mir's village, then yes. But ultimately it has to be the ANA, the ANP and the people of Afghanistan who win this war. Another 30,000 American troops might help to stamp out more forest fires but perhaps the money would have been better spent planting new trees... And what of my beard? On the road back to Kabul, we stopped for a tea. 'Remember we stopped here on the way up?' said my colleague. "well, I didnt tell you at the time but the restaurant owner said you were the spitting image of the warlord Basir Salangi and lots of people are desperate to kill him'. I reflected on that as I looked around me and saw that I was the only person with a beard in sight. That's the thing about Afghanistan, you have to see it to believe it - and see it to understand it. Or start to understand it. Despite everything I read and hear, I left feeling positive about the place. A postscript, however, as I write this, a roadside bomb has exploded in the north killing three decent human beings working for the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees). I can't wait to go back and, as always, am not sure I want to. |
June 23rd 2009
| How quickly time passes...A whole month since I last posted a blog and yet the screening in Amsterdam seems like yesterday. By and large, time has flown because I have been extremely busy. The launch of Beethoven in Holland, the UK and New Zealand absorbs a lot of time and effort but I still remain committed to the idea of doing as much in-house as we can. In New Zealand the film launched in 28 cinemas which, for a documentary, is superb. And as we enter week 5, it is still in the Top 20 charts. It's kind of strange to be in a chart with Star Trek and Angels & Demons... Now we have begun trying to arrange screenings in the USA (looks good for July and after) and Asia (only Hong Kong in October so far but we have only just begun - if any of you loyal blog readers have Asian contacts, let us know...) and Australia - all geared up for mid October. But Beethoven has only been a part of things recently - we have been very busy with some great new Tim Marlow art shows - and SkyArts/BBC World news are keen for even more. That's great - we won't become rich from them but we are creating a record of all the big exhibitions - and some super new interview shows with the likes of Renee Fleming and Tony Bennett - which have a real value. Also keeping me busy was finishing off MAKING WAR HORSE - a fascinating film about how the National Theatre took Michael Morpurgo's wonderful book and made it a smash theatrical hit. More4 plan a Remembrance Day screening which is a great idea. Actually all of the above was the day job... what has really been filling my time (as far as film-making goes) has been preparations for a trip that starts today - to Afghanistan... and the continued filming of Mir. He is now 14/15 and I can't wait to see how the cheeky chap is growing up - though it is an arduous journey to get to his village. And Afghanistan has many challenges of course. I'm excited to be going and will blog on my return. I have to say though I am already looking forward to my summer holidays! |
May 19th 2009
| On my way back from Amsterdam, the day after a wonderful launch of Beethoven. We screened at the Tuschinski cinema which, I have to say, is stunning. It used to host concerts and so forth but now is a Pathe cinema and certainly one of the best I've ever been in or screened in. And in HD the film looked really special. The post-screening sales of In Search of Mozart were like a New Year's Day sale - a crowd rushing to the tills. Well , it all helps. The film is continuing its patchy but significant way around the UK and has now started, to excellent previews I have to say, in New Zealand. We're about to take a deep breathe and start approaching the cinemas in the USA and Canada - and that's a big job! It really is a mixed bag to attempt to self-distribute: it's great to be in control and know what's going - and have direct communication with both cinemas and cinema-goers. But the workload is huge - and many territories barely get a look-in. Scandinavia, South America, etc. Anyway, step by step... Elsewhere in the wonderful wacky world of Seventh Art, we are only days now off finishing MAKING WARHORSE. It's been great to look at how Michael Morpurgo's wonderful book has been made into a smash hit for the stage (firstly at the National Theatre and now in the West End. I have to say that it is impressive just how many highly creative people were involved- from adaptors, puppeteers, actors, sound designers, lighting designers, illustrators, etc. And talking of creative people, our series looking at creative people's favourite works of fine art is now finished. MARLOW MEETS kicks off on SkyArts on August 6th. I must admit there were times I never thought we'd get it made - it's been a long long road, maybe two years and full of low points - for example when the American channel HD Gallery refused to put their funding interest in writing and caused us firstly to delay production by a year and then secondly left us a huge hole in the budget (as they then went belly up - i.e.: out of business). The trouble is once you start a film/series that you really believe in, you can't make yourself stop, even if it makes no sense financially to continue. Anyway, here we are - and they are done. Michael Palin, Renee Fleming, Tony Bennett, Paul Smith, Antony Gormley, Jung Chang and Mike Leigh. I refuse to accept I work with 'celebrities' so I call them Creatives or Artists but whatever the best term, they certainly are pretty big names. And the films are fascinating. Now there's talk of Series 2...(no wonder I'm writing this at 5am...) Well, I'd better stop before this looks like an essay. One final note: a great shame to see the end of The South Bank Show on ITV. I heard Michael Grade say the other day at the Viewer and Listener Awards that ITV would no longer do arts - he thought that was C4's job. Meanwhile at C4, it seems the Commissioning Editor is leaving for the BBC. I know nothing about why she's leaving but it can't be good news for C4 arts. |
April 3rd 2009
| I know, I know... it's been a little while since I updated my blog but I do have an excuse: the last few weeks have been absolutely jammed full working to finish In Search of Beethoven. Maybe every film feels the same but this really does seem to me to have been the most complicated film I've worked on. The post production of the cinema and TV versions has been endless but every step of the way has been great too. It's like seeing a statue emerge from a block of marble - chip, chip, chip we go and slowly that finished film emerges... I particularly love the grade (with a wonderful colourist called Vicki Matich at ENVY in London) where we look at every scene and make sure the colours are rich and coherent (to the preceding and following scenes). Similarly the audio mix - also at ENVY with Matt Skilton - was very exciting. To really hear the music on proper speakers - what a difference! Our edit suite speakers are a bit too wee to really appreciate what we have. Then I must also give a huge thanks to the on-line editors at the edit at SKY - every caption, every subtitle, every edit has to be checked - and it takes hours, days! But each one counts - it only needs one caption to be missing and that interviewee will be on the phone complaining (rightly). Well, in short, we finished the cinema version last Thursday night - after one last 19 hour day - and last night the film was premiered at the Barbican Concert hall. What a night it was - I absolutely loved it. Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel seems so far away that to finally be there with the lights going down and the opening credits coming up - what a thrill. EXCEPT the projectionist started the film too slowly and missed the opening credits! AND I spotted two or three glitches in the film so it's still not finished! But there were 1000 people there and, while I'm sure people have criticisms and what-not, they loved it! Most importantly of all to me is the final realisation that at last, at last, I've reached that point you have to reach with any film which is 'that is as good as I and my team can do'. Thus one feels ready to let it go. I guess it's like the moment you send your kid off to university or work for the first time. The other great thing about the night was to see the film in the very best of High Definition. Extraordinary. Every horsehair string of a bow as clear as you can imagine on a huge screen in a huge hall. Lots of laughs too - people laughed in all the right places and actually there are many - and that is so important to the film too. We'd had a lovely drinks reception put on by SkyArts before the show - and the place was packed with journalists and music folk - and I want to thank everyone who helped put that together - especially Manisha, Nicky and Leigh - and everyone at the barbican. I'm not sure people realise how much work events like that involve. And once again, I do want to thank Robert and Gijs at the Barbican for being so generous in their backing of this film - to play in the same hall as the world's greatest musicians and orchestras is a great thrill and made me very proud. Funnily enough, the biggest round of applause was for the credit list of those very musicians and orchestras. A Very Long List... Well, it would be nice to completely relax now but we're straight into all the press and publicity for the UK release, the Netherlands release and the New Zealand release. |
February 26th 2009
| Picture-locked! That's it - six months (well, a lot longer really) of endless cutting, snipping and downright hacking and we have our 600 visual edits. Decisions have been made - there's no turning back now. And even last night, on the hundredth viewing, I spotted things I had to change! Not least a line of narrative: I had a line in the film just after we hear that Fidelio's first performance was a failure due to the French. I then had Juliet Stevenson (the narrator) saying 'After a few days the French left'. I suddenly thought last night that if the performance was the 20th November and Napoleon was already at the battleground of Austerlitz by the 21st (I made a film about that battle once so I know a bit about it) then clearly the main army must have left before Fidelio was performed. (The actual battle was December 1st). Thus those troops that went to the performance must have been the officers who had been left behind to secure the lines. And they wouldn't have left 'a few days later'. Thus the line was wrong and luckily I spotted it just in time to cut it. That's the horror of making such a complicated film - one error undermines a million other statements. But picture-locked we are and now begins the fun of grading the pictures, laying on all the subtitles, mixing the audio and so forth. It's probably 3 more weeks - and certainly with our 30th March Barbican screening it has to be finished by then. My Australian distributor and I just had a phone call (5am UK time!) and he asked me how it compares to IN SEARCH OF MOZART - well, that's hard to answer. I hope the audience like it as much as people liked the Mozart film. I don't have a feature film like Amadeus to work off - there really hasn't been a great feature film about Beethoven - but I do think people have a pretty one-dimensional view of Beethoven that my film most certainly counters. Well, we'll see. 50% of the task is almost done - now that other 50% - the distribution - begins... |
January 12th 2009
| January 11, 2009 And the new year starts...It's all Beethoven, Beethoven, Beethoven for the moment but there were a few extra things just before the Christmas break. Our ongoing series of Tim Marlow Meets saw us filming an episode with Paul Smith. What a nice guy and what an office/workshop he has! Apparently every day he gets sent all sorts of fun objects from around the world - he even recently had a guy who builds bikes in Norway fly in to London Heathrow, put a bike together in Arrivals and then cycle into Soho and drop it off with Paul... Anyway, Paul collects art and it was a nice change from the Tate, National Gallery, etc. It was fascinating for us to film so hopefully it should make a good show. The previous couple with Michael Palin and then Mike Leigh were also strong - so it's going well. Also with Tim, we produced a couple of exhibition films - on Rothko and Francis Bacon. These went out on SkyArts and BBC World - and it's always nice to get emails and Facebook messages, etc, from around the world. Talking of travelling, I managed to squeeze in a week in Mumbai, researching a new film (no, new great composers this time). Wonderful city - full of contrasts. Naturally it was still shell-shocked from the murderous attacks at the end of November (BBC, please note: they weren't 'militants', they were murdering terrorists' - who, by the way, had exactly the result they wanted: to up the tension between Pakistan and India and cause Pakistan to transfer troops from the Afghan border to Kashmir instead. All so cynical). Anyway, more on that project another time - all I'll say is that Slumdog Millionaires has come as a bit of a shock to us - not sure if it will help or hinder our project. We'll see. While I'm at it (talking for once about matters other than Ludwig v B) we also finished a little film about a wonderful summer course in Italy for highly talented singers. It's called the Solti Te Kanawa Accademia - and it's a brilliant three-week course offering masterclasses with great singers (like Kiri Te Kanawa of course), It's a wonderful location where Solti had his holiday home and it's as good an intensive course as I can imagine for good young singers - which rules me out on all counts... OK, well, another day chipping away at our film statue of Beethoven begins tomorrow at 6am so I'd better call it a day - and once again wish you all the very best for 2009. PS: someone emailed to ask when the Premiere of IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN was - it's 30th March at the Barbican Concert Hall. A star-studded evening with Q&A afterwards, etc. No red carpet but lots of red wine.... |
December 4th 2008
| Fantastic: have just done the first narrative read-through with Juliet Stevenson for Beethoven. It's been a hectic few weeks - and scripting is all-consuming. But I'm very happy with how things stand. I also am still happy to have (bar one last interview) finished the filming now - finished off, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, in Vienna with Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber playing/singing Adelaide and An die ferne Geliebte. Beautiful music and the words (largely though not entirely by coincidence) resonate exactly with Beethoven's biography. |
November 12th 2008
| Things are going well - I have had meetings with the leading arthouse cinemas of LA, New York and Chicago and all are very excited by Beethoven. At a time when many films, and certainly that includes docs, are getting no cinema screenings at all, it's nice to feel wanted! And we're talking minimum 2, even 4, week runs. The dates are a little bit here and there - some wanting next May/June 09 - others March 2010. I've even been told to have a go at Oscar qualification (which means a minimum of one week in NY and LA) but that seems a little bit fanciful to me. I have also been talking to film & music journalists, music venues, etc, etc, and what is really great is how encouraging they all are. The fact that they know the Mozart film is really helping. Meanwhile, dusk & dawn, the emails fly between my editor in the UK and me. Snip, snip, snip we go and the film pulls ever tighter together. But it's hard now saying goodbye to an interviewee whose last piece may just have gone or even one or two music pieces. The first of the 9 symphonies is under threat - and guess which one? The second. I mentioned this last night to a very charming man from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and he said 'it's always the second which gets squeezed out!' - and you know what!? That made me determined to keep it in! I am writing this at 4.35am in Chicago airport, en route to New York and a 10am meeting with the Lincoln Centre - so fingers crossed that goes well. (Last time we screened Mozart there, there was a fight outside the cinema because tickets were sold out! I remember thinking 'how awful' and 'great!' at the same time... Well, I've resisted the lure of the brick-sized muffins till now but I'd better eat something; American airlines seem not to serve food anymore. I bet Beethoven would have hated all this travelling. |
November 4th 2008
| Washington DC. I'm here sorting out the US Fall/Autumn 09 release of In Search of Beethoven and obviously a fascinating time to get here - Obama has been elected and every conversation you overhear is talking about it. I walked down to the White House and they are already constructing the Inauguration Stands - can't be much fun for Bush to look out of his window and see the preparations well under way for his successor. Very gracious speech from McCain in defeat though - something that I see from the press has been noted in countries around the world. In Kenya, for example, a young man was quoted as saying he was moved to see that those who lose an election can accept it with dignity rather than provoking riots. Meanwhile, I suspect getting elected is the easy part for Obama... As my head is so full of Beethoven one can imagine how Ludwig felt when the dashing, energetic Bonaparte took over the reins of France and how disappointed he was when Napoleon (as he renamed himself) crowned himself Emperor. Keep an eye on Obama in case he starts to wear a crown. Didn't Julius Caesar also make the same mistake? I think, though, that Michelle Obama will keep him firmly grounded. I'm also visiting LA, Chicago and New York - working all the time on the script. The first narrative read is in less than a month so every second counts. It's amazing actually how little errors can slip in or interviewees can make tiny mistakes which need to be weeded out - especially in dates. Only one more shoot to do - Bonn & Vienna. Vienna will be a nice end to over two years of filming - I'll be filming two pieces: 'Adelaide' and 'An die ferne Geliebte' - sung by Christian Gerhaher. Interestingly, it's believed 'Adelaide' was the last piece Beethoven performed in public as a pianist. Anyway, first meeting of the day awaits. Bis spter.... |
October 29th 2008
| Picture the scene if you will: 60+ live performances for IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN lead up to one last shoot which is, appropriately, the 9th Symphony - with the mighty Orchestra of the 18th Century at the beautiful Palau de la Musica, Barcelona. So far, so good. A wonderful location, wonderful orchestra, wonderful music. Plus great soloists and choir. I spent the day filming close-ups during the rehearsals. Instruments and faces. Then from the back of the stalls I set up for the concert myself. I wasn't too concerned by the woman from the Palau who, I have to say, had been pretty bossy: move the tripod there, keep your audio gear there, etc. But I'm used to that and these folk have a job to do... I did notice, however, that my polite, smiling acknowledgments of her requests were not exactly reciprocated. No matter. The concert began and Frans (Bruggen) drove his players forward. Shooting in HD, it looks fabulous. I'm a little surprised that the lady from the Palau had sat next to me but maybe my winning smile had won her over. Maybe it's my cute British accent. Er.. maybe not. Just as I'm thinking 'well done Phil, two years of filming and all the bases are covered - 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 6 string quartets, Fidelio, and much, much more', we reach the end of the first movement. The lady stands in front of the camera: "That's it!", she barks in Spanish - "Out! That's all you get! Well, you know that feeling when you were a teenager and (in my case) you've walked your girlfriend home only for her to say 'thanks - and close the garden gate on the way out'. That's how I felt - shocked, deflated and... no, hold on a minute. I am not going anywhere. "You are!" she snaps. I explain that we had permission and that I wasnt going to use the whole performance and indeed I would be showing off the Palau to the world. But she wasn't sure... Then I point to the stage and Frans is about to kick off the second movement - I see her problem: dare she cause a fuss in a full house of Barcelona's great & good? Fortunately not. I breathe a sigh of relief - but too soon! Security arrive. Off! Finish! Cut! Remembering some choice Spanish phrases from my time film-making in Spain some years earlier, I communicate with more American than British ability that you'll have to kill me first! The Spanish - who I adore and will now generalise about - prefer to have fun than fistfights. The security end up smiling and shaking my hand and wishing me luck. (All while the second movement plays in the background). But, good ladies and gentlemen, when you come to see this film and we get to the 9th I want you to know I risked my bones to bring you one of the best 9th Symphonies you're ever likely to see. Oh... one other thing. If that wasn't stress enough, the second half of the 9th lasts about 39 minutes which is about the time of one High Definition tape. Talk about real stress, having the tape counter down to the last minute while the timpani is still powering towards the end of the finale. I made it with seconds to spare. I could claim it was planning but between you and me it was just lucky. Actually every time I'm filming the orchestra, or Ronald Brautigam, Noseda, Grimaud, Chailly, Norrington, Vogt, Lewis, Jansen, the Endellion and so many more, I feel lucky. That's why the film was sitting at 11 hours in the edit until two weeks ago and my editor and I got tough. Down to 4 hours now and tomorrow it will start heading to 3 - except, I've now got a 9th Symphony to slot in... (Finally, this just in: the UK PREMIERE of the film will be MARCH 30TH AT THE BARBICAN CONCERT HALL, LONDON. Tickets are already selling so on www.barbican.org.uk so I have to get the film finished now! |
September 20th 2008
| A month into the editing now and the beast that is the film IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN makes slow but steady process. I remember the rough-cut of IN SEARCH OF MOZART once topped 11 hours - or maybe even more than that - and now Beethoven has hit double figures, edging over ten hours yesterday. It's not my fault! He just wrote so much great music which I have been fortunate enough, after a lot of hard work, to gain access to film - and I have also been lucky enough to have done 40 or 50 interviews with world experts on him and his music. So the challenge is whittling it down, and down again, until it is more like 2 or 3 hours. So far we've had no really tough decisions to make - except for cutting one world famous violinist who simply felt unnecessary. But I tremble at facing choices between symphonies or not being able to keep in all five piano concertos, etc. And I really don't want to only have 20 second clips - ah well, time will tell. It's Saturday today so the office is quiet and I can spend the day snipping away. I shouldn't take the great Michelangelo's name in vain but it feels like his wonderful unfinished slave sculpture- you know there is a work of art in there somewhere but it involves extraordinary precision in working through the marble until the form is fully realised. We'll see... Meanwhile, my days are accompanied by the performance of, among others, Helene Grimaud, Ronald Brautigam, Vadim Repin, Claudio Abbado, Paul Lewis - and so, so many more. Somebody asked me the other day what is my favourite piece and it's impossible to answer - it's the piece I'm working on at that moment. Yesterday we were editing the Missa Solemnis that I filmed in the Musikverrein in Vienna and we were laying the violin solo over an extract of interview from the conductor Fabio Luisi in which he was explaining how the violin playing over the orchestra was written by Beethoven like that to illustrate the Holy Ghost hanging over mankind. I love that kind of insight, explaining what I am seeing and what it means. The World Premiere is now set for 30th March in the Concert Hall in London's Barbican so I have a tight schedule to keep to now. US, Australian, Dutch theatrical releases are also being sorted out so one can feel the pressure ramping up. No-one has tried to make anything as comprehensive as this (just as no-one has made a film as comprehensive about Mozart as IN SEARCH OF MOZART) and I really feel a responsibility to do a good job not just for the screenings and broadcasts we'll have next year but the screenings and broadcasts we'll be having in 10 years. Mind you, one has to wonder what kind of media environment we'll be living in over the next decade: I went to a UK channel's Commissioning Briefing a few days ago and their Editor of Factual announced how delighted she was with a recent production (that had got just under 3 million viewers) - the title? 'The Woman with Giant Legs'. You can see why I can never raise the money to make films like Beethoven! I don't know what's worse - the broadcaster commissioning something like that or 3 million people deciding that was the best way they could spend an hour of their time. Or, indeed, the fact that, in a public forum, you would declare great pride in having shown such a film. Maybe it was ever thus: poor old Ludwig had to put up with the knowledge that the most popular symphony during his life time was his so-called Battle Symphony - all cannons and rousing patriotic tunes. Maybe human nature simply doesn't change and artists just have to deal with that fact and work around it. Anyway, my edit suite awaits - this morning, it's the fantastic Endellion String Quartet and the late quartets... |
July 7th 2008
| Apologies to those of you who read the blog - and, from emails, I know there are one or two of you out there! - it's been ages since I updated and I can only offer the moderately acceptable excuse that I have been madly busy... The film project IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN has been filming since January and has been a roller-coaster of preparation, travelling and filming. But, as of last weekend, I can now safely say we've pretty much covered 90% -and it's been a great treat. I have been able to film fabulous musicians such as Ronald Brautigam, Paul Lewis, Manny Ax, Janine Jansen, Frans Bruggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century, Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Fabio Luisi at the Musikverien in Vienna, the Endellion String Quartet, Roger Norrington, Jonathan Biss and the Salzburg Camerata, Gianandrea Noseda, Claudio Abbado conducting Fidelio - and many more (all listed soon on the insearchofbeethoven.com website). It's always a struggle gaining access and then getting to the locations with HD cameras, etc- but once the music starts....I was asked last night if I have any favourites but the problem with Beethoven - even more than Mozart perhaps - is that there are simply too many extraordinary pieces to select favourites. The symphonies, the piano sonatas, the string quartets, Missa Solemnis, Fidelio, the piano concertos - how can you leave any out? I feel genuinely privileged to have filmed them all and to have a record of them - and to at least be able to put some extracts in a film. Maybe if we can raise some funds, I can put longer extracts (of some) of the website - or at least the interviews (which have been so interesting). And Beethoven - what kind of man is emerging? Well, certainly someone far different from the caricature of a miserable, unhygienic, loveless, wild man in an attic banging furiously at the piano...he's far more 'rounded' than that - the letters alone reveal also his loves, his humours, his friendships, his optimisms. It's a wonderful story that produces some of history's greatest examples of what we, as humans, are capable of, so I hope the film adequately can pay some little tribute to him. I know there are quite a few of you who read this blog who want to know when the film is coming to your local cinemas - especially in Australia, New Zealand and North America. Well, honestly I haven't had time to pinpoint that but I would expect next Summer or Autumn - and I'll certainly be hoping to attend as many opening nights as possible. But, you know, Beethoven hasn't been our only work. ESCAPE FROM LUANDA had a limited release - I must admit I'm a bit disappointed with how the film has done. We struggled to find cinemas who wanted to show a film on a music school in Africa - and broadcasters too showed a reluctance - one European station was as bold as to say their audience had no interest in black Africans! I guess that's why we make these films - to try and cure such opinions. But, up against the reality shows and cooking/fashion/police/reality shows, it's kind of hard and getting harder. Still, at least those who saw it or judged it enjoyed it - or, perhaps more importantly, were moved by it. I was very touched to receive some donations last week from Australia (after the film was shown on SBS - incidentally one of the best channels anywhere in the world). Away from the feature documentaries, an enormous amount of time has been spent on working on the ever-successful Tim Marlow shows. In a declining cultural environment (on TV at least) Tim and I have repositioned the shows on SkyArts and BBC World - and we've been lucky to have covered some great exhibitions recently - From Russia and Klimt are but two. Coming up are Bacon and Rothko. Plus we're about to make Tim Marlow Meets - a series of shows where Tim meets and talks to cultural personalities - we just shot a super one with Michael Palin which revealed not only a lot about his creative inspirations but his biography too. So we're hanging in there by our fingertips....Funding is still a nightmare and distribution is exhausting but drip by drip we feed the river.... |
January 30th 2008
| 2007 ended well with an excellent screening of The Boy who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan hosted by the Canadian Embassy and Afghan Aid. It was a great night for the film to be re-visited, particularly as The Kite Runner was released at the end of the year, re-awakening people's thoughts of just what life is like as a boy to live in Afghanistan. The High Commissioner was fascinating to talk to - and I hadn't realised that Afghanistan is Canada's number 1 foreign aid recipient by a long way. The screening was attended by Ambassadors, Charities and other Afghan groups and was sold-out and extremely well received. I'm happy for the film to be used by other Afghan Charities who might be able to use it for a fundraising screening. Contact us if you are one of these and are interested. Filming continues this year for The Boy Mir (the follow up to The Boy who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan) and it's amazing to see him growing from boy into man, although it saddens me to see how slow progress is being made. It also saddens me how hard it is to raise funds for the follow-on film - surely we don't need more films telling us that chicken nuggets are bad for us or that Size Zero is not a size women really need to attain.... 2008 then began with the launch of Escape from Luanda. We held a Houses of Parliament screening for MPs, including members such as Clare Short MP. Ironically (given Angola's history and Britain's involvement in that) this took place in the Thatcher Room! The theatrical release of Escape from Luanda then began took at a sell-out screening at London's Barbican Cinema. The Q&A was great fun - I'd forgotten how many funny stories there were from that shoot. The film is now being rolled out to other selected cinemas across the country. Details of all screenings can be found at www.escapefromluanda.com The film was also featured on Film 2008 with Jonathan Ross which was of course a thrill - especially as we followed In The Valley of Elah. The reviews have been great but it remains tough to get cinemas to take a doc about a music school in Luanda. But we'll keep pushing it as best we can. In Search of Beethoven is now in full production. Filming has already taken place in Sweden, Canada, London and Salzburg with the highest class of musicians and exponents including; Leif Ove Andsnes, Sir Roger Norrington, Louis Langre, Salzburg Camerata, The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Ronald Brautigam to name just a few. I'm sure that In Search of Beethoven will be bigger and better than the Mozart film with venues already signing up to film screenings for the beginning of 2009. Watch this space! Finally I thoroughly recommend Maggie Brown's book on the history of Channel 4. Fascinating. |
October 4th 2007
| Well, just back from USA & Canada. First place visited was Seattle where Mozart was playing in an art house cinema under the banner of the Seattle International Film festival (year-round screenings programme). We got great press from Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer (gave the film a Grade: A) though the audiences were modest the 3 screenings I attended - about 70 folk in a 300+ seater. However those that did brave the pretty miserable weather seemed to really enjoy it. And I was interviewed by the local classical radio station but the i/v wasn't going to be broadcast until the next day so that will have helped seat sales subsequently. Anyway, well worth the journey. Then I travelled up to Port Townsend (which is a ferry ride and drive north from Seattle). There we had Half Life in the festival competition. It's a small festival that runs over the weekend - and the film was projected onto a wall of a room in a local school. But there was a good audience and an interesting Q&A afterwards - especially as just over the hills from this area is a major US nuclear waste dump which preys on people's minds. Then one last drive up to Vancouver where Mozart was playing in the Vancouver International Film Festival. I was really impressed with this festival - it was my first visit. Excellent cinemas, organisation, accommodation and , above all, programme. And each of the 7 films I managed to see over 2 days were packed. I have to say that the best film, by miles, was an animation about Iran entitled Persepolis. Go see it - a work of genius in my humble opinion. The Mozart screening was a great success - and I must admit I was pretty nervous how the film would do in a big festival like this. What was really nice also was how many people remembered The Boy..which played there in 2004. The Q&A was as much about how he was as about Mozart! Oh - and while on this trip I managed three excellent interviews for In Search of BeethovenAnd I managed to run off all the bagels I ate(most anyway.) |
July 5th 2007
'Beautifully lensed' - 'lensed'?? I don't believe that word exists - and that from a reviewer in Variety. Oh dear. Anyway, he more or less liked the Mozart film which is still rating 90% on the Rotten Tomatoes site. The world of blogs, internet sites, MySpaces, etc, is bottomless…. Whenever I 'Google' In Search of Mozart, I am amazed at the scope of who's talking about it and where. My favourite so far though are the Singles' dates that met at screenings in LA. Excellent. I'm off to screenings in 2 weeks in New York, Newport, Chicago and Boston - I'll keep an eye out for singles on blind dates… I'm sure Mozart would have thoroughly approved. I'm certainly looking forward to those screenings - especially, I have to say, the Opening Night at Cinema Village in New York. It's a special cinema at one of the true hearts of cinema anywhere in the world - and so to have a documentary on a classical composer play there is, for me, a thrill. Hopefully, I won't be sitting on my own - but, if I am, I'll still be humming along. Meanwhile, the whole distribution juggernaut is beginning to kick into gear for ESCAPE FROM LUANDA - it was only finished days ago but already we have festivals chasing us for copies. I'm very level-headed about all that. We'll see how it does and then go from there. Interestingly enough, only today, Angola have refused to allow BA to fly into Luanda any more in retaliation for the British banning Tagg airlines (due to an EC report that concluded they were too dangerous for the European air corridors). What a mess. And just as we were planning how to show the film to the school and students. Talking of students, I ran the gauntlet of thousands of screaming kids last night when I went to the European premiere of the latest Harry Potter. The film is tremendous - each graphic wonder costing more than my entire annual film budget! You have to hand it to them - they do what they do supremely well. I wouldn't know where to start. It too, by the way, was 'beautifully lensed'…. |
May 9th 2007
With May only just beginning we have one production commencing, one coming to an end, one touring cinemas, another entering festivals and a couple seeking funding – what a busy month we have ahead! Escape from Luanda – the end, or should I say beginning, is now in sight. Next week I will be travelling back and forth to London for the final online edit. Then it will be full steam ahead as we crack on with festival entries and the planning of our premiere, watch this space… Tuesday 2nd May we held a private screening of Heavy Water: a film for Chernobyl at the Tate Modern’s Starr Auditorium – a great venue for any of you who are yet to go there. Tim Marlow asked David Bickerstaff and I about our experiences of Chernobyl and future plans for the film. A thank you to all those that sacrificed half of the Chelsea – Liverpool match to join us; we even managed to catch the crucial penalties afterwards. David recently visited Gdansk in Poland for a similar screening, and on May 21st we have a screening as part of the Brighton Festival, this time a chance to hear a Q & A afterwards with David, Mario the poet and myself – there are a few tickets left. In Search of Mozart continues to be a big success in the USA & Canada, with cinemas booking extra dates to keep up with the demand – now covering at least 20 different cities and cinemas. Almost everyday I hear of a new screening or a new newspaper review, in fact just yesterday I was sent a link to a podcast from an interview I did with a journalist. Mozart (you really have to be careful what you say – as all of a sudden it’s on the internet as a podcast!) Finally, the follow-up to The Boy is well under way with another trip to Afghanistan under our belt; we have now edited together a pilot with which we’re trying to pull together enough funds to enable the final shoot to happen and the expensive post-production stages. The Boy who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan continues to be a success with DVDs selling well and new screenings being arranged all the time. And lastly, for all of you in New York, do check out Janine Jansen’s Carnegie Hall debut this week. |
April 17th 2007
| April 16th 2007 It's time to take stock - it's been a hectic few weeks, not least because the weather has been so beautiful that one really shouldn't be writing blogs when you live next to the South Downs. Anyway, the bike is back in the garage and it seems like a good time to explain what we've been up to. We're pretty well through with the editing of our film about the music school in Angola. Entitled ESCAPE FROM LUANDA, we're now ready to move to post-production. I love this late stage - the grading, the audio mixing, even the last-second tweaks to subtitles - it all makes a huge, quick difference - and hopefully improvement. The editing has certainly been the most complicated of any film I have ever made, trying to intertwine three life stories as well as give a real sense of life generally in Angola. I'm now at a stage where I personally can't think of anything to improve it - so it's up to you out there to decide for yourselves how well we've done. Certainly the film has already generated an awful lot of interest from film festivals and film distributors. I guess some of that is because we were lucky enough to get some Sundance funding - and word gets round. We'll see... At the same time, we've been excited by the modest but significant US cinema release of IN SEARCH OF MOZART - I think it's a 15 or 20-city release. Last night I did a live telephone Q&A to a packed audience in Chicago where, after four top ratings in their press, the first week of tickets completely sold out before the first night. Needless, to say, we're delighted - but let's see what happens next. Once again though, it confirms my enduring belief that there is a cultured, intelligent audience out there which TV in particular has by and large abandoned. The audience last night was happy to hear that two years from now they'll be able to watch IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN! We've started another long-haul project and already I'm gripped by the man and his music. Watch this space. |
January 20th 2007
January 20th 2006 : it's been a busy few months ; it's certainly never dull making docs ! November was largely focussed on the start of the edit for ANGOLA MUSIC SCHOOL (wt) and pitching it at the Amsterdam Forum (during one of the best film festivals IDFA).  copyright Luke Holland. The Forum is an intimidating arena of 20 or 30 commissioning editors seated in a semi circle with filmmakers and supporting commissioning editor at one end with 14 minutes to show a trailer and make the pitch. There are so many ideas, so many film-makers that to get the chance to pitch is great but it's harder still to make an impact. I'm glad to say that Angola went down well with some definite confirmations from some and serious interest from others. Good news but now starts weeks of contracting and working out who can have X rights and who can have Y. Perhaps more significantly from a creative perspective is that the editing has started and what a complex process it is proving to be. As always. But it helped to have done six or so weeks before what will be the last shoot which I did in Angola just before Christmas. The last shoot is often the hardest because you have that added pressure of knowing you have to cover all the bases - especially in interviews. Any background information or personal recollection you have to get because there's no going back. We had the added pressure of organising a farewell party, with special gifts for the characters (importing pianos for the main characters which, thanks to British Airways, cost more in excess baggage than from the shop!), and a piano for the school - all that was arranged in Luanda itself only for the music shop to sell 'our' gift 30 minutes before we were due to pick it up! All this and trying to film too... Anyway, managed to get back on Christmas Eve and be home for Santa's annual visit. Since Christmas, it's been a focus on editing - with a hope to complete by the Spring and hit the Autumn festivals. The first confirmed theatrical release is due for Xmas 07. Elsewhere chez Seventh Art, we're busy making more Tim Marlow shows for Five. There was a change of Director of Programmes just before Christmas who immediately imposed a commissioning stop but that starting to ease now and we're about to make 2 films - one on Hogarth and one on Gilbert & George. Both should be fascinating though the Gilbert & George has to go out late (11.30pm) due to the material. It will be interesting to see how it does at that time. Finally, IN SEARCH OF MOZART continues to have screenings internationally, especially in the USA and Canada. It's been a quick Mozart Year and I wonder if the interest in him will wane in 2007. Somehow I doubt it - I still find myself being stunned by the versatility and ability of the man. It's been tough for us to keep up with all the requests to show or buy the film but, when it all seems a bit overwhelming, I remind myself that Mozart was doing it all - and more, much more - essentially on his own. |
September 22nd 2006
| Welcome to the new website - God Bless her and all who sail in her! It's cost a small fortune to bring it up to date so I hope you like it. Things are changing so fast in film-making that it really is a dawn-to-dusk effort to keep up. We'd been having so many hits on the website, plus daily & increasing demands for TV or DVD sales, that we had to streamline the process a little. Of course, this is all good news but a little daunting too. While it's clear that traditional broadcasting is fracturing - and broadcasters are paying less for programming - the possibilities for alternative funding and distribution are improving all the time. And the website helps faciliate all that, as well as helping many well-wishers or interested parties keep upto date with our projects. So, anyway, one feature of this new site will be an occasional blog. Feel free to ignore this and explore the site instead. For those of you still with me, here's a shortish update of what we've all been up to. There have been many exciting and sold-out screenings of In Search of Mozart recently but I have to admit my favourite was the Lincoln Center in New York. To see people almost fighting at the door to get tickets was kind of fun - and a little bit scary. Elsewhere, across the globe in Australia and New Zealand, the film is still playing after more than 26 weeks. Hopefully this success can be replicated now in the USA and Canada now that we have a distributor, Direct Cinema. (Sorry to those in North America who have been after the Mozart DVD but Direct Cinema will not be releasing it until next year). For those of you who enjoyed Mozart, you may be interested to know that, almost despite myself, I've started filming In Search of Beethoven. It strikes me that he is equally as fascinating but how much do we really know about him and his music? So, after many deep breaths, here we go again. While in the US, I flew down to LA for the excellent Docuweek screenings in Hollywood. These are seven straight days of programming at the Arclight Cinema. Qualification to be one of the 12 Docuweek films qualifies you for Oscar nomination and so we were thrilled that our Half Life - a Journey to Chernobyl was one of those selected. It was tremendous seeing it on the screen there (claimed to be the best screens in the world) and the reaction was very strong. The film has now been sent to those who choose the doc shorts nominations so, while it's all an extremely long shot, we must admit we have a few fingers crossed here and there to maybe make the shortlist. I've sat on enough juries to know what a lottery that process is and most certainly the best films don't always qualify but who knows what can happen? More importantly, the film is now being picked up for other festivals and special screenings. This was a film we financed largely ourselves because we desperatley wanted to make it - so there is a sense of pleasure in seeing it finished and being appreciated. Mind you, I had a screening last night which left a good few people in tears - that's quite hard to deal with actually every time you have a screening. But the poetry of Mario Petrucci is so strong and the stories are sad & shocking. I've also been busy on the main project at the moment which is my feature doc being shot in Angola. I had an exhausting but rewarding shoot in Luanda a few weeks ago -and the characters (4 key ones) all continued to round out and become increasingly engaging. We'll be heading back in the next few days to see how things are getting on. Back in Brighton, it continues to be hard work raising the funds and agreeing contracts, etc, but you just kind of keep your head down and slowly, slowly, you get there. But never be fooled into thinking it's easy! We're also continuing to film Mir in Afghanistan. The family were visited by a collague of mine two months ago and they are all well, though their living conditions haven't improved much. Nor will they. Afghanistan is sadly drifting away from reconstruction and back towards conflict, pain and suffering. It's far worse in the south but the north (where MIr and his family now are) is being affected to. But we'll keep filming and still hope to release an updated film in 2008. We're also stil getting in donations for Mir which go into an education account he can access when he hits 18. This has been particularly noticeable after the US Sundance channel screenings. So thank you to anyone who has sent us a cheque (made payable to Seventh Art Productions, not Mir - he obviously can't have an account in the UK). Every little bit helps. Finally, in this brief overview, we've also been busy making arts film for Five. We really enjoy making these and Ben Harding (director) and his colleagues (especially production manager Julia Wilkie) do a great job. Holbein and Velzquez are two forthcoming exhibition films. Ben and I have been working together on a couple of other interesting films too - one on Modern Art Oxford and the other on Carsten Hller at Tate Modern. Both are fly-on-the-wall process films and it's been fascinating seeing both galleries and artists at work. Watch this space - both will be finished in a few weeks. So, it's been busy! |
March 25th 2006
| My air-miles are clocking up nicely. I've divided the last three days between Washington D.C and New York where I have been promoting In Search of Mozart and attending screenings. The Austrian Embassy in Washington has just hosted its third screening of the film and it was packed with over 400 guests. In New York I visited the Lincoln Center to finalise the arrangements for its showing of the film in August. I'm hoping the DVD will soon be readily available in the shops throughout the USA too. Mozart fans based in Brazil will be pleased to know that It's All True - 11th International Documentary Film Festival is showing In Search of Mozart in So Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and Brasilia (April 3rd to 16th) and Campinas (April 24th to 30th). We've also secured a festival screening in Turkey which will be followed by a theatrical release and hopefully a TV broadcast. After all this globe-trotting I mustn't forget to mention the most recent UK screening on my home turf of Brighton. On 12th March many of the city's classical music fans gathered to watch the film at the Brighton Dome and judging from the feedback at the Q&A afterwards they all enjoyed themselves. More again soon, Phil |
March 7th 2006
| I've been back in the UK two weeks now and things don't seem to be calming down too much. In Search of Mozart is still playing to good audiences in Australia and has it seems now entered the Top 50 All-time Grossing Docs in Australia. We've had two serious offers from the USA for cinema & DVD distribution but nothing confirmed yet. And other countries are nosing around too - so there's a lot of administration involved in seeing that the film gets seen by as many people as possible. The one area that I particularly like is the special screenings we've been having in concert halls - we're up to 50 now and some have been 1000+ plus. They are very exciting and I have one in my home town of Brighton this weekend (March 12th). Fingers crossed it goes well - they'll be no escape if it doesn't. The only cinema that the film seems not to have done well is, oddly, sadly, Salzburg where if an email has been correctly understood the film was seen, over a period of a week, by...wait for it...4 people. Oops. Maybe the lovely Salzburgers are bored of him - or feel they know it all already. I love that town so it's a shame if things don't go well for the film but we'll see. Only 4 in a week does seem like a misprint.... Although the above smacks over all of success, it still barely covers our costs so life moves on and I'm working on three other films - Half Life: a Journey to Chernobyl, Tim Marlow on...Highlights of the Tate Modern, and a film in Angola. All of which means life is very varied right now - though almost certainly still not as busy as Mozart! Best wishes, Phil |
January 4th 2006
| I've just returned from The Barbican in London where In Search of Mozart received its world premiere this evening. The press build-up over the Christmas period has been really encouraging with The Times describing the film as 'the most comprehensive and illuminating film about Mozart that you are likely to see, even in 2006', but even so I wasn't prepared for the fantastic reception the film got tonight. After years of travelling around Europe with my camera filming some of the world's greatest orchestras and performers it feels strange in part to be in one place for so long, but also a great relief that the film is finished. It was practically impossible to get funding to make this film, one broadcaster said to me 'arts films for us are at the bottom of our list and beneath that comes classical music'. So I realised that I would have to commit a hefty investment from my company Seventh Art in order to realise this project, but I felt so strongly about it - I was determined to make this film. Over 1,000 people packed in to watch and I was really pleased that among them were some of the artists who had participated in the film. It was great to catch up with Ronald Brautigam , Lada Velasova and Andrew Marriner. Juliet Stevenson, who narrates the film, also came with her husband and daughter. The Barbican had kindly let us use the Fountain Room for a press reception complete with champagne and the requisite nibbles, and despite the fact I'd spent the day worrying that nobody would show up on such a cold January night, I could hardly move for the crowd - and I never did manage to grab a second glass! I've seen my previous films on big cinema screens before, but there was something about seeing this particular film tonight that made it incredibly intimate - especially after working on it for so long on small monitors in the editing suite. I had filmed the musicians very closely and the effect of seeing Lang Lang's fingers literally dance over the piano keys at superhuman speed on such a large screen was amazing. Jonathan Miller's part in the film prompted the audience to erupt into laughter and an appreciative round of applause at his Glyndebourne comment. I must remember to thank my editor, Phil Reynolds, because he did a great job getting the finished film down to just 128mins from hours and hours of footage. I found myself wondering how audiences would react to the pieces of music I'd chosen to include. It was very hard to decide what to use from such an extensive collection of works. I have in fact included over 80 works featured in chronological order, revealing striking parallels between the music and Mozart's own experiences. I've tried to let the music take centre stage, with the jigsaw of Mozart's life fitting around it. I was lucky to work with the actor Samuel West on this project. His voice is very expressive and therefore he was my first choice to read Mozart's letters which form part of the film's narrative. Mozart's letters reveal an extraordinary personal voice, which rings out on an engaging, human level, full of joy, passion, pain, rage, jokes, bawdy humour and sensitivity - those letters are a joy to read and evidently a pleasure to listen to if the audiences reaction was anything to go by. I guess tonight is just the start of Mozart's anniversary celebrations. His birthday isn't until 27th January and the film's got several more screenings before then. And after that ...? My company Seventh Art has been so busy liaising with music festivals all around the world, setting up screenings and press tours that it's too numerous to talk about here. If anyone wants to see if there's a screening in their home town I would recommend you visit www.insearchofmozart.com. While you're there you can also read interviews with some of the stars from the film and buy the DVD if you wish. British broadcaster Five has serialised the film which airs in three parts starting on 10th January so hopefully that will raise the profile of the film too. I'm just delighted that many of the Austrian Embassies around the world have embraced this film wholeheartedly and arranged screenings or purchased the DVD to give away in their host countries. It could have been very different - I mean there's a lot of room for error when one is dealing with another country's national treasure. As a colleague of mine pointed out - imagine if an Austrian production company made a documentary about Shakespeare - there would have to be something very special about it for the British literary world to sit up and take note. I'll be posting again soon when I've returned from a few more screenings. Best wishes, Phil |