John Madden, Film Director HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk. The Oscars are upon us and as ever, Hollywood is

awash with speculation, spin and yes, self importance but this year,

with Donald Trump in the White House and America deeply divided,

real-life has thrown up a melodrama which makes the movies look tame. My

guest today's John Madden, and Oscar-winning director whose latest

film is set in the murky world of Washington politics. But is

Hollywood doing justice to the times living in? John Madden, welcome to

HARDtalk. Thank you. Let's start by discussing the process of making

your most recent movie. It's called Miss Sloane. Perhaps the most

striking thing about it is that you were working in Washington, making a

film about the underbelly of Washington politics at the very time

America was experiencing a political earthquake. How disconcerting was

that? Well, you know, it was really like, I suppose if a movie metaphor,

it is to train 's kind of colliding. But we had no idea this other train

on the track. I'm sure explaining the obvious here but when you start

to make a movie, you don't necessarily know exactly when the

movie is going to be shot, you don't know when that movie is going to be

released and it's about a very hot button topic which is the issue of

gun control, gun legislation. And it centres around the female lead

character who is a brilliant, ruthless and not altogether

sympathetic character. She is one of the top lobbyists in Washington.

Yes, yes. It was a dive into the swamp which was -- which is to

appropriate a player --a phrase which was not current one we made

the film. It is about a lobbyist and a rather interesting parenthesis to

this to say how this film came about. The script is written by a

first-time writer called Jonathan Perera who lives in Malaysia who was

given the idea of the film by this programme and by you, actually. I

have no idea what you were talking about. I deliberately didn't tell

you before the programme started. You didn't interview with Jack

Abramov. The person who changed the face of lobbying. And here, I think,

was on your programme talking about an autobiography. Because he fell

foul... He did fall foul. He underwent a congressional hearing

and went to prison. Johnny Perera, the writer, was just beginning to

flex its muscles as a writer and he watched the programme and thought

this is interesting and enact an aspect of politics I have never

seen, certainly never been examined in fictional form and that was the

genesis of the film. I want to bring it back to the process of making the

movie and the political climate. Yes. I put it to you that most

liberal, progressive, creative people working in the film industry

like yourself had no time for Donald Trump and didn't per second believed

he was going to win and were extraordinarily taken aback when he

did win. Would that be true? That would be a fair valuation with the

one exception, that we had experienced Brexit in the middle of

June and those of us over there who had had the experience of the Brexit

upending of everybody's expectations, it felt very much that

the same thing could be happening there. What I'm getting too is this.

The film, and I confess I have not seen it because it is not out in the

UK but it is out in the States, the film, as I understand it, looks at

the gun lobby and it doesn't betray those who advocate gun ownership,

the National Rifle Association and others, in a particularly positive

light and many people around Donald Trump and who supported Donald Trump

and you voted for Donald Trump have looked at this movie and say, there

you go again. Another Hollywood movie which doesn't get America,

which belittles and casts a negative light upon all those Americans who

don't live in the big cities, who love their guns and you are

upholders, as they would see it, of American values. Yes. The

Constitution is key to the argument here, quite clearly. There are

several things to say about it. The film is not and was never intended

to be a polemic. Not that it doesn't have a point of view, clearly it

does have a point of view but I would say the topic of the film is

more political process, actually, vanity is the gun issue, per se.

It's about how you take an argument and make an argument. It's about

persuading people to take points of view and so on. Understood but here

is one conservative com -- commentator. You know who the gun

lobby actually is? Never mind this movie. It is the 80 millionplus gun

owners who don't want their rights infringed upon. It's not the NRA.

Its ordinary American people antisocial movie did not reflect

that at all. It is about lobbyists and what a lobbyist does in order to

get people to sign up to a particular, in this case, fictional

amendment that is going through Congress. It is not, as I said, it

is an examination of the political process. The film is more balanced

in terms of the arguments than you might think. I'm not saying that it

adopts a particular point of view. But what it does do, is it says...

The whole issue of gun ownership and gun legislation in America is about

narratives, about competing narratives and the key voice in

legislative terms is the NRA and to the NRA habitually relates every

single issue to do with that to the basic issue of, well, the fiction of

confiscation. I'd like to give people a Labour of the movie. It

stars Jessica Chastain in the lead role as this very powerful and

somewhat unsentimental, ruthless lobbyist who, in a sense, flips

sides. She normally works the corporate America but she takes on

the brief of working for the anti-gun campaign against the NRA --

NRA. Let's look at this clip. Any head case can buy an assault rifle

from a Bowlorama without ID. You can't possibly win this. This is

about foresight. Anticipating your opponent's moves. We are on. It's

about making sure you surprise them. And they don't surprise you. Let's

talk a little, not just about guns but about the role of women in

Hollywood. It's very interesting, this Jessica Chastain

characterisation, the role she plays. It is deeply unsentimental

but she is in control from beginning to end, pretty much. In one sense,

she is and in another sense, she is not. True. Events spin out of

control but she is a controlling person and she is unsentimental and

her emotional life is not given much room in the movie at all which I

would say is quite unusual for female characters. Her emotional

life is given more room than you might imagine. The emotional

backstory, to use an industry term, is not given much room because it's

not relevant to the story we are watching but it is also important to

say that it's called Miss Sloane for a reason. It's a study of a very,

very extraordinaire character, an obsessive, an outsider in an insider

's job. Somebody desire is to win. You have a long career in the movie

is now going back to the 90s. He won a Best Picture Oscar for Shakespeare

in. Great success with the best exotic marigold H series. You've

worked with a lot of the very best female actors. Is it important for

you when you read a script that the female characterisations are just as

strong as the men's? There is so much debate about whether women,

older women get a fair shake when it comes to scripts and parts. It's

been observed several times, not particularly by me because it was

not an agenda that governed by choices that I have made, a lot of

films with women smack in the middle of them. Women in power to some

extent and also I supposed the emotional and political intersection

of those two things. I think that women are fascinating, to me. I

don't make any apologies for it. I was very sympathetic to Obama's

characterisation of his First Lady as being superior in more or less

every respect so I probably take that particular point of view. It's

interesting, as we talk now, with Donald Trump very firmly in the

White House and the Oscars approaching, the relationship

between Trump and his closest political advisers and liberal

Hollywood, if I can put it that way. We are all overrated. It is very

sour. We saw Meryl Streep at the Golden Globes making a high-profile

statement of deep dislike distant -- discontent of what she hears from

Donald Trump. Is that helpful or wires for actors or directors to

grandstand in that way? We are very easily disqualified as being people

who just by using a celebrity to kind of the above head and

shoulders. It is hard not to engage in this particular circumstance.

More than any of us could have imagined even 12 months ago, really.

It is a riveting to behold as political theatre. I would say that

People's engagement, particularly people who live outside the United

States who I think are still reeling and probably very fearful about

exactly what is going on. Do we need more luvvies dumping on trumpet.

Matthew McConaughey, one of Hollywood's leading actors, said on

this subject, "We have to face it and he is our president and it is

time to embrace that fact. Shake hands with the fact, be constructive

with Trump over the next four years." That is a message you do not

hear from too many actors. That is true. It is a point of view. I have

to say, it is hard to think of a political figure who has been more

provocative and more divisive than the current President of the United

States. I... You know, Meryl Streep, I read an interview with her last

night, I think she was speaking at another engagement and obviously,

she has endured a lot of very visceral attack is of one sort of

another. And her view was, I don't have a choice, I have to. Because

she is so affronted by the values appearing to be represented. I don't

think it's... I don't see there is any in it. I realise... It's not as

though Hollywood has a great record in terms of diversity itself. Yes,

some high achievers like Meryl Streep can make their big

statements... But what is the alternative? Not to say anything? On

the one level, Hollywood generates this voice which is so liberal and

so attacking and everything that they believe Trump represents the

same time, if you dig deep into the structure of the movie industry, the

industry you have been in so long, it is totally lacking in diversity.

It is not open to people of all colours and all economic classes.

Learning some hard lessons right now. That's absolutely true.

However, no individual person who stands up says, we are perfect. They

are simply taking issue with some of the policies statements that are

being made and I suppose the way, the way the country is being driven,

betrayed, given an account of as far as the rest of the world.

We talked about the fact that this movie is talking about big an

argument, it was made by the British. Do you think movies get

made that represent the views or sort of as sympathetic to white

working-class American gun murders living in the middle of America? --

gun owners. I have to sort of defend on presumption here, which is the

presumption that we attack the gun lobby with this movie. That's not

the case. I would say the movie is a political thriller, it's not an

earnest polemic. That doesn't bail me out. I suppose it is about

different voices represented in one of the key cultural forms,

moviemaking. We've learnt a lot about the anger, disillusionment of

white working-class people over the coming months, in the US and around

the world. With your experience, are those sorts of voices ever

represented in moviemaking? Thankfully we have somebody over

here who has just won best British film who has been doing it all his

life, Ken Loach, and I think there are people in America who do similar

things and there's a multiplicity of voices. Can you think of any off the

top of your head? There's a wonderful movie out called Loving,

which is made by a very fine director called Jeff Nichols. That's

about an interracial marriage in Georgia. A very quiet film about

blue-collar life. Yeah, a very, very low key examination of people in a

situation, in a highly politicised subjects, which doesn't take a

political point of view and doesn't raise its voice. There's another one

called hell on High Water, more of a thriller, I suppose. A dark Texan

thriller. Brilliant, with Jeff Bridges playing a retiring cop.

Those films do get made. It strikes me that sometimes Hollywood reacts

and responds to criticism and tries to sort them is out perhaps a little

bit superficially. Last year there was a lot of attention on the fact

that when it comes to the making of movies and the movies that are given

the plaudit, like actors and directors are not well represented.

This year with had some great black stories, Moonlight, Fences and

others, but when you look at the stats still only 4% - 5% of films

over the last ten years in America have been made by black directors.

Yeah, but the truth of the matter is you have to set that against the

larger picture which is that 90% of films made in America aren't even

about human beings. I don't know where you go with that. There's a

tiny, little independent sector that is struggling to make films or find

a place for films, find an audience for films, but are actually about

people and the way they behave. So you have to see it in that context.

That's an interesting point. There's a massive amount of work to be done

in that regard, there is no question. It is interesting you

raise the bottomline and the commercial realities in the US.

You've made films in the US and the UK. How damaging to you, I'm going

to try to put this politely, but it's a blunt question, how damaging

to you is it when you make a film... I think Miss Sloane may have cost

about $12 million and it has the grossed about 4 million, so it's a

massive loss maker. How damaging is that the UN to your brand as a

director? I think it is not great. -- to you and your brand. But

equally everyone knows the way movies work, so the last couple of

movies I made nobody thought anybody would go and see a hand they did

extraordinarily well. Marigold Hotel? Yeah. You can't make the kind

of movies I make knowing the film will be successful or not. But is

your gut a good signal of whether it will be a success or not? As you

say, the marigold to tell movies weren't deep to be good successes,

but they made the film companies lots of money and Shakespeare in

Love didn't look like a massive commercial hit, I did it great. Do

your waters tell you whether you have a hit on your hands? Know and I

do believe anybody who says that. Occasionally you come across people

who say, from now on we are just going to make successful movies and

you think, of course! What were we thinking about! What do you learn?

There's a distinction. You can make a movie and think, you know what? I

think this movie is strong, is the way I would say it, if I feel like a

movie is really working but it is biting and it has traction. I'm

using that not necessarily about a film in a political subject, you

think a film is clicking in some way and sometimes that manifested self

in an audience wanting to go and see it and sometimes it doesn't. I think

with this movie in particular, Miss Sloane, we literally collided with

the biggest political upending that there's been in my politically

conscious lifetime and I think we hit a sort of... What one of the

actors in my film called a nauseated aversion to anything political. I

think actually a political film has to get through a very narrow

opportunity, much narrower than a political series does, which can be

objective. -- than a political series. There are many different

forms of storytelling on video. They are on television and you can tell a

story over a longer period. That's a perfectly reasonable observation and

a lot of people in the industry generally, and by that I mean people

working in filmed diction, are splitting their time between the two

anyway, because the lawn form story, which is television special, is an

extraordinarily powerful and in many ways less productive creative

process. Which do you prefer? Here's what I would say. There are certain

stories that have the perfect weight for a movie that actually can tell a

story over about 90 minutes, two-hour time frame and that can be

immensely satisfying. It can create an impression that is very strong.

U2 often see movies that are way too long for that format are way too

small for that format and so when you get it right it is something

very memorable that can come out of it. There are some good examples of

that currently, films in condition this year. I want to end with this

from Alan Parker. He is conflicted because he said some of the best

work is on telly. In the end he said this. The cinema is still the

locomotive that pulls everything else along with it, as it creates

and establishes the reputations of our best at this, direct is, writers

and technicians. It is more ambitious and more creatively

fulfilling. You buy that? I think that's fair. I don't know whether

that still will remain true, because I think the creative surge in

television right now is pretty extraordinary. The only worry that I

would have about television is that it may burn itself out, because

there's so much product nobody can keep up. I don't know a single

person in the world who says, oh, no, I meant to see that I haven't

caught up. The answer is they will never keep up got there something

else to see. That is an incredibly satisfying for, I think, the long

form, because you simply don't have to resolve it. I did a pilot for an

American cable network show about the sex there of -- a sex therapist.

The Studio ten to see the pilot and said, I don't understand what makes

him behave the way he is behaving. We really need to know. And I said,

that's a movie perspective. If you know the issues around the main

character are within 20 minutes you haven't got a movie. Whereas in

television, you should simply be an packing that person probably over

the whole of the first season, so that people then become powerfully

engaged in what's going on. So movies can be a hard needle and

thread, but when it works I think they can be powerful and they lodge

themselves in people's minds in the way a television show can't moment

for moment, powerful ally. Will we on HARDtalk only have 25 minutes, so

I am afraid we have run out of time. John Madden, thanks for an much.

Thank you. -- thanks very much. We are looking at changes

to our weather now. We've lost that cold

easterly, the grey weather. Something a bit milder

coming from the south. But, in the next 24 hours

and for the rest of this week,