Episode 3 Film 2014

Hello and welcome to Film 2014. We're live and if you want to get in

touch the details are on the screen now. Coming up on tonight's show:

Oscar favourite Matthew McConaughey stars in Dallas Buyers Club. Mr

Woodroof, you are nothing more than that common drug dealer.

Ralph Fiennes explores Dickens' secret life in The Invisible Woman.

Do you love him? He is married. That has not stopped him falling in love

with you. And the crime-fighting man machine

is back in a remake of Robocop. Dead or alive? You are coming with me.

Plus we talk to John Ridley, the BAFTA and Oscar nominated writer of

12 Years A Slave. Danny is here. And we're joined by

guest critic Peter Bradshaw. Before we begin, we must talk about

Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died this weekend. Danny and Peter, this

is just such a massive horrible loss, isn't it? It feels so raw. It

is so unexpected. We are not talking about an actor that reached a grand

old age and if we are honest, we had started thinking about in the past

tense. This is a man of 46. He had two new films and who knows what he

had lying ahead of him. So, as it stands, it's a devastating loss for

any film lover. You have been watching this glorious movie, which

was his career and mid-scene, the film was stopped and the lights have

come back on and now we feel disorientated. Peter, some of his

favourite work - if we were going to watch one of his films, what would

you suggest? So difficult to say. It's not so much a star vehicle for

himself, it is one of his greatest films, or possibly the film which I

clocked him in, which was Happiness. I was afraid of him. It wasn't a

scary movie. It wasn't supposed to be menacing. He always gave the

impression that there was some deep and incredible well of anger inside

him which he was converting into charm and passion. He was absolutely

unique. The incredible thing about Happiness, he was playing a

character wrecked by self-loathing. Within a year, he was starring in

Talented Mr Ripley. He was also - Twitter was heartbroken, if that is

not a strange thing to say - people felt the loss so deeply. Somebody

has said, "Whatever happens, I would never miss a film he was in." It is

true. He was a huge box office draw. He always gave the impression that

what he did, he wanted to do. There are so many films we see where the

actor is taking the pay cheque, maybe the director wanted to cast

him or didn't. Philip Seymour Hoffman always wanted to do the film

and it was reconfigured around him. I can't think of anybody who is like

him. Perhaps Paul Schofield was comparable. He was a one-off. It

seems like he played a lot of characters who were frail and

fragile and he tapped into this side of ourselves that we don't like to

acknowledge is there. If you look back at his career, he didn't play

weak, or strong, he wasn't good guys, or bad guys, he played

complex. OK. Thank you. First up, Dallas Buyers Club.

Matthew McConaughey stars as Ron Woodroof, who smuggled anti-viral

drugs into the US to save his own life and the lives of other AIDS

patients in the 1980s. # Come on... #

This is the story of Ron Woodroof. He is a heterosexual man and gets

HIV. I had inspirations - I knew that guy. I have passed him in my

life. Have you ever engaged in homosexual conduct? Homo? You said

homo? You have 30 days to live. He lived seven more years. How did he

do that? He smuggled ununauthorised drugs and vitamins from overseas and

he was a black-market drug dealer dealing his unapproved medicines to

other HIV patients and people in Dallas, Texas. You treating these

people? I ain't selling drugs. I'm selling memberships. Welcome to the

Dallas Buyers Club. This is a very special film about a group of people

that were fighting for their lives intent on making the impossible

possible, a group of dreamers that were betting on themselves. Do you

like this dress? I think the neckline is a bit plunging. The

whole purpose of this study is to determine if it is helping people.

There ain't no helping me. I do have a lot of respect. It is a brave

thing to do to choose to live your life to dream it not as others would

have you live it. Nice restaurant, beautiful woman. That's where I feel

like a human again. You look great. Mr Woodroof, you are nothing more

than a common drug dealer. People are dying. We had half the money we

thought we needed ten days before shooting. We had 4.9. We thought we

needed 40 days, we got 25. And the director and I said, "I'll be there

if you will." And we did. I hadn't made a film in over six years. I

never expected to get this kind of response and I feel really lucky.

The story has been around 20 years. Couldn't get it made. We got it made

for 4.9 million and we were around for six Oscars. It is an

extraordinary film. I have pages of people saying whatever you do, go

and see this film for the performances. Danny? At first, all

anyone is going to see is this pipe cleaner figure that Matthew

McConaughey has transformed himself into. When an actor piles on the

weight or starves it off himself, you don't see the character, you see

the scales. That is not true here. This is a phenomenal performance

playing a fascinating character. Ron Woodroof is this walking

contradiction, a dying man who still had the life force and the vitality.

I think the film is pretty conventional. I think there were

moments when it felt like the producer had been lining up which

cleaning product they had to clean their Oscars with. This film demands

to be seen. Its heart is in the right place. It's got this electric,

unpredictable performance. From the first scene. I don't want to give -

the first scene you go, "What am I watching?" It's a barnstormer. He's

not acting, he's got this almost relaxed turn as an actor. He reminds

of a young Jeff Bridges. Yes. He is selling it to you without hammering

it. He is terrific. It's 120 degree-proof. It meshes well with

his character. Brad Pitt was going to be playing this role at one

stage. It works so well with Matthew McConaughey. On-screen, we know that

he's this free-wheeling Texas dude. Yes. Off-screen, this man was once

in trouble with the police for playing bongos naked in his house.

We've all done that! Haven't we? I think a lot of people who have seen

The Wolf of Wall Street will clock why he is so emaciated in those

early scenes. In a funny way, although they are very different

films, there is a weird overlap. They are American stories about

businessmen... It's very conservative. He is an

entrepreneurial self-help man who is into capitalism. The clue is in the

second word of the title. I suspect some veterans of the act-up campaign

won't be that chuffed of this straight man riding to the rescues

of gays. It is in favour of abstinence. The debate that was

current in the '80s of HIV people having sex with condoms, that is

absent from this movie. He believes in abstinence, except with one woman

who has full-blown AIDS. Absolutely. It's a very conservative movie. It's

socked over with such power! Can we mention Jared Leto? He hadn't been

in a film for six years. I thought his eregrine falcon for mans was

great? -- his performance was great? The only thing about let let's

performance is - lots of us will have seen this character before. I

think particularly if people remember Kiss of the Spider Woman,

it rings quite a lot of bells. Yes. This character is familiar in a way

that Ron Woodroof isn't. Yes. And the energy that Matthew McConaughey

brings to this film. Next, the 2014 reboot of RoboCop.

When a police officer is critically injured, a sinister corporation

seizes the opportunity to create a half-man half-machine crime fighter.

Give your mom a kiss. Night, baby. Too slow, boy! We are going to put a

man inside a machine. He suffered fourth degree burns over 80% of his

body. If he survives, he will be paralysed from the waist down and

confined to a wheelchair. You say you could save him, what does that

mean? What kind of life will he have? What kind of suit is this?

It's not a suit. It's you. It is a man being joined with a machine.

That is the basis of the concept. Let's go with black. It brings out

the question - what is the melting of machines and humans going to be

like in the future? This is the future of American justice. How many

like Thomas Kane will pay for their crimes now, now that RoboCop is

here? It is close to original. We have not tried to mess with what

works. It will make him think he is in control, but he is not. It is the

illusion of free will. With regards to technology and CGI and what can

be achieved and regards to action scenes and the worlds you can

create, we are living in such a different age. We didn't shy away

from great visuals. We didn't shy away from state of art visual

effects, shots of graphic design. We focussed a lot more on Murphy as

a family man and how him post the RoboCop re-work, the pressure that

it puts on the family dynamic. You need to speak to your son. This is

really a thinking man's action movie. Somehow, he's overwriting the

system's priorities. The human element will always be present.

Compassion, fear, instit. They will always interfere with the system. --

instinct. They will always interfere with the system. Dead or alive,

you're coming with me. I can't come with you because I'm asleep! I have

fallen asleep. "I can live with toned-down violence, but if the

satire is absent, it will get nothing but disdain from me." I

haven't seen a re-boot that has so failed to get the point of the

original film. The original film was a black cometic gem. The idea of a

RoboCop clanking around with thrilling efficiency, that is not

just scary and exciting, it is funny. That was the point. If it is

not funny, it is not anything at all. This fails to get it.

Absolutely fails to get it. It turns it into Call of Duty. It's a shoot

them up first person video game with zero kind of human interest and zero

fun. I remember the original as being very funny. I don't know

whether that is my warped memory. It was incredibly funny. It was a great

movie. This is a 12A so they have taken all the lunatic cartoon

violence out. That is a great shame. The original had more than lunatic

cartoon violence. It was a trashy reputable B-movie. There is none of

that brilliance here. You get the odd glimmer. It is mostly down to

Gary Oldman playing this mad scientist. Yes. Setting up these

feeding tubes that look like they are filled with liquidised cake.

Weirdly, the film, more than anything, feels polite and earnest

and almost apologetic for itself. There is a dig at one point at the

Transformers movies as if to say, we are not that kind of film. You are

the remake of RoboCop. The rubbish at the beginning, it front-loads it

with this elaborate satire, the idea that the RoboCops are being deployed

on the streets of a subdued Tehran and they are called drones and the

film is so pleased with itself. This is it, this is satire. And it loses

interest in all of that. Absolutely loses interest and the point is to

get on with the boring action. And the action... The action is dull.

The only pretext for remaking the movie was so you had these snazzy

effects and they are OK, they are pretty fine for what they are. I

felt like they were too eager to get rid of that stuff and the satire

klaxon goes off. Absolutely. Marketing departments are full of

terrible people... The TV presenter played by Samuel L Jackson. What a

tired cliche. It is a strange RoboCop. It's a RoboCop that wants

to be the wire, it wants to convince you it has seen The Wire. You think

that is such a fantastic opportunity. All the subversion has

gone. They don't like it. I don't know whether that came across(!)

12 Years A Slave has been nominated for ten BAFTAS and nine Oscars. We

went to meet writer, John Ridley. Exterior... I don't want to survive,

I want to live. If you let yourself overcome with sorrow, you wi drown

in it. He sits and the mistress has tea poured for him. You want to

express yourself, that's what you want to do and I had this

opportunity, probably the biggest opportunity in my life that was

presented to me and, as I started going, I realised it is not about

me. You are done. Do Solomon, what did he do? What did he say? What

happened? Do that. That is all you have to worry about. I was born a

free man. I lived with my family in New York. Be good for your mother.

Till the day I was conceived. Sold into slavery. To understand the

power of what is going on, you have to care about these people. When you

care about people, you care about tharks and you feel their pain and

you don't need to dial that up. Days ago I was with my family. And my

home. Now you tell me all is lost. Tell no-one who I am, that's the way

to survive. I don't want to survive. I want to live. 12 Years A Slave,

two hours and 15 minutes, it's - things fall by the wayside. I wanted

to avoid the idea of wouldn't it be nice if the things that happened in

the film happened in the memoir... You are no free-man. You are a

Georgian runaway. There are moments of personal colour. That was

probably the first lesson I learnt. It is not about what I want. It's

not about making him into a traditional action hero. One of the

things I appreciate about the production team, they were not

interested in a conventional film. # Went down to the River... #

Servant, don't obey his Lord. Shall be beaten with many strikes. That's

scripture. The condition of your labourers, it's all wrong. It's my

property. You say that with pride? I say that with fact. I said come

here! Writers are not always treated the best and it maybe dies where you

don't feel as though you are treated very well. Even at its worst,

millions of people are going to be familiar with your work. On top of

that, I tried to be realistic. To be treated like garbage in Hollywood,

what does that mean? You get a town car instead of the limo. What does

that mean? You get flat water instead of sparkling water. Look,

all writers work hard. Everybody works hard. And within film, it is

such a team effort. The script can be phenomenal. Without other people,

it's 122-page paper weight. I have to say on this production, they

treated me like a partner. That's all you can ask for. I've seen the

film many times over and there are moments where you go, "That scene is

touching and tender and beautiful." And, "That one is really powerful."

One scene I would pick out that was not in the script when he is making

the corn husk dolls and that is something she came up with and that

was beautiful. You hope you deliver something that people can build off

of. This is nice. It's always been days since they announced the

Oscars. The one moment in your life that is supposed to be about you,

you realise it isn't about you. Even now, it's not. It is about Solomon.

I will survive. I will not fall into despair. I will keep myself hardy...

. Finally, Ralph Fiennes directs and

stars in The Invisible Woman. Every human creature is a profound secret

and mystery to every other. This is a completely true story. She was a

young actress Dickens met when he was putting on a play and he fell in

love. It affected the rest of his life and led to the disintegration

of his marriage. You are an admirer of my husband's work? Of course. It

is a fiction designed to entertain. Surely it is more than that. It

changes us. My writing is ferocious. I fight not to be distracted. Nelly

met Dickens when she was 18 and they were together for 13 years. So a lot

of the film is about this woman looking back and understanding this

incredible love affair that she had with Dickens. Do you love him? He is

married. That has not stopped him falling in love with you. He's an

honourable man, but he cannot marry me. No, he cannot. The position of

actresses at that time, the status was not so great. Unless they were

very successful, they were badly regarded. Nelly didn't really have

much of a future as an actress and that what do you do? How do you

survive? You have to find a husband. Action! As an actor, the main thing

for all of us in the cast was to play each part with integrity and

commit fully to those characters and playing real people does feel like

such a responsibility and so it was always trying to find the truth of

who they were and their interactions with each other. Do you like this

life? Life is nothing without good company. Dickens was very protective

of his reputation and of his private life. He wanted the world to believe

one thing. The thing which he did which nowadays you would not be

advised to do if you are under pressure with a private figure, but

certainly today the tabloids would have a field day with this. What is

it that we are? When your wife asked me if I was fond of you? I could not

honestly reply. I wanted to say no! An extraordinary scene. I thought a

beautiful film. I think you have to accept going in the film thinks the

most noteworthy part of Charles Dickens' long life is becoming the

married lover of Nel Turner. It has a fine touch. It's bold as well. It

sets itself this interesting problem which is how do you make a film

about a hugely successful man and a shy insular teenage girl without her

becoming overshadowed and becoming the invisible woman in her own

movie? It cracks that by letting her get harder and wiser over the course

of the film. Felicity Jones is great here. Absolutely. Peter? I liked it

very much. I thought it was a very passionate film. I thought it was

interesting because Charles Dickens is such a cliched figure and this

reinvents him as this extraordinary extrovert and assertive hero. It

brings in his career as a theatrical actor-manager and it is very clever

in the way it suggests the title does not simply refer to his secret

mistress, but to the other invisible women in his life, and Kristin Scott

Thomas as Nelly's mother. It is interesting to consider in The

English Patient, she was Ralph Fiennes's lover and now she's his

lover's mum. That is something to think about. I thought it was so

beautifully shot. There are some scenes that you want to photograph.

Some of them look like paintings. We also, I remember, I loved... It is a

different movie. Of course. It says interesting things about Victorian

"celebrity culture." Yes. Then you find from there, from the point of

Nel, how corrosive that can be when you end up as the plaything of a man

that powerful. I kept thinking the script didn't seem to like Dickens

very much. That was a bit of a problem for me. I think it is

incredibly well made. Behind the camera, Ralph Fiennes has a real

confidence. I like the fact that it didn't look like a BBC Sunday tea

time Dickens. It didn't - it looked like the real thing. It has a

documentary realism about what his personal and professional life was.

Part of that was down to the Production Design. That's right.

With this period, you worry about feeling like you are on a

sightseeing bus with a tour guide. You don't feel like that with this

film. Peter is right. There is an authenticity to it. You do feel

there is something genuinely Dickensian. Ralph Fiennes has gone

from strength to strength as a director. Yes. He really is proving

himself. Then, a very difficult question. What is your Film of the

Week? I will let Peter tell you. It is Dallas Buyers Club for sheer

engine power. You have to see Dallas Buyers Club with Matthew

McConaughey. I did like The Invisible Woman more than I was

expecting to. Possibly not RoboCop. I know. We were harsh! Thank you

very much. And The Invisible Woman will be in

selected cinemas on Friday and on general release from 21st February.

That's all from us. We'll be back next Tuesday at 11.05pm when we

review The Monuments Men and Cuban Fury.

We're going to play out tonight with Philip Seymour Hoffman in his

Oscar-winning role as Truman Capote. Good night.

I thought you had missed it. I thought I was heading to Kansas by

myself. I'm glad you agreed to come. You are the only one I know with a

qualification... Thank you. I'm nervous. Yes? Mr Truman Capote,

where would you like these, Sir? You can put that right there between the

doors. What did you bring? Just a few things. Thank you greatly, Sir.

You are welcome. It is an honour to have you with us, Sir. I hope you

won't mind me saying - I thought your last book was better than the

first. Thank you. Just when you think they have gotten as good as

they can get. Thank you very much. You're pathetic! What? You paid him

to say that. You paid him to say that. How did you know? Just when

you think they've got as good as they can get... I thought that was a

good line. Did you think that was too much? A little bit. LAUGHTER