Episode 8 Film 2015

Hello and welcome to the new series of Film 2015.

We'd like to hear from you, so please do tweet us or get

Sersha Ronan sets sail for America in period romance, "Brooklyn".

How would it be for you if I did go home? I would be afraid. Afraid I

wouldn't come back? Murder on the dancefloor

for Nicholas Hoult in And Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron

Sorkin on the joys of writing. Most of the time I'm banging my head

against the wall because I can't think of what to write.

Plus "He Named Me Malala" - the life and times of the girl who was

With me, as ever, is the gorgeous Danny Leigh.

And completing the sofa line up for this first show is glorious

Thank you both so much. Danny, what's been your favourite film, if

this isn't too weird a question, since we've been off air? Mad Max

the Rewrite, and the Lobster. Not the Lobster and not Spectre. That's

clear. Mine would be Amy. I feel like we're offer.

First up, the big screen adaptation of Colm

Set in the 1950s, Sersha Ronan stars as a young woman

who leaves Ireland behind to start a new life in New York.

I'm away to America. My sister is there. I can't buy you a future,

can't buy you life you need. Will you come see me one day? Yes.

Passport, please. This way, next, please. It is set in the 1950s and

it is about this young woman calmed ailish who is sent to live in

Brooklyn New York. And really the goal is for her to have a better

life. Father Flood sponsored me, found you a job. I will thank you to

keep his name out of the conversation. We need Irish girls in

Brooklyn. I wish I could stop feeling like I'm an Irish girl in

Ireland. She goes through extreme homesickness and it weighs her down

for a long time. Gradually it is lifted off her a little bit and she

false in love. I'm ready. It is about which life she wants

ultimately. I felt it was the first time I had seen an el immigration

story in the Irish context told from the point of view of a young woman.

Dear Rose, thank you for your letter. I was happy to hear about

your golf tournament. You must have been really pleased. I still miss

you and mother and think about you every day. I think column in the

novel and then Nick in the screenplay captured that exact

emotional discombobulation that happens when somebody moves from

their homeland to another country. When we were making it, in the year

leading up to shooting the film, the she had been through that thing

herself and was confused by it. But she was lucky enough to have the

film to place all of that emotion on screen. Hello? Mammy? Everyone's

gone, I have nobody. How would it be for you if I did go home? I would be

afraid. Afraid that I wouldn't come back? Brooklyn has changed me. It is

still deeply affects me. It was tough and you were in quite a

vulnerable position because we were telling a story about your

relationship with home and you want to get that right. You have beaches

in Brooklyn. It's not the same. Ireland will always be in my heart

and I will take it with me wherever I go, but there's other places I

want to live, where I want to work. Home is home.

Danny, what did you think? It is such a simple thing you keep

expecting something else to happen, like it will turn into a zombie

film, but none of that happened. It is so clean, so sweet, so pure

vanilla you think you must be about to either die of boredom or throw up

and you realise you've been sucked in and you are wrapped up in a love

triangle. You would have to be a person of a hard and small heart not

to become smitten with it. I don't know quite why I like it. Some films

you can analyse and dissect them and pin down what's so great about them.

There is something on going on with Brooklyn. It is the magic of cinema.

And didn't this film appear at Sundance and everybody went, there

was a huge fight. It sold for more money than any other film has done.

It is very moving and incredibly timely. This is a movie about

immigration. Immigration is the great public debate of our time.

There can't be a single person watching tonight who hasn't at some

point over the last few months thought about their relationship

with the idea of the emigre. Of course this isn't an issue film. It

is not about escaping conflict and it is set in the past. But the thing

about good cinema is that it is immediate. It feels condemn tri. I

think you saw in that VT before they were talking about homesickness. I

think it does that better than most filmsive have ever seen on that

subject. Homesickness. Really that's what it is. This terrible freight of

regret and longing. This idea of an uphill mountain you have to climb to

reinvent yourself. It aces that beautifully. There are lots of

things one feels about it but isn't this all about her? I can't think of

another actress who could do it without it being slightly sepia or

adorable or cosy. She, her face, the way she does it, she is almost, as

if this isn't too weird, quite cold. That's a good word, cold. I think

she would make a good serial killer can. She's been a great actress

waiting for the right film. Without this it would be icky. If you think

about an actress like Carey Mulligan and the people who made this film.

They made An Education. That film launched Carey Mulligan's film.

Think of an actress like Mulligan, who is high impact, or Andrea Rose

borough, it is could that she is much more withdrawn and withheld.

What it makes you feel is optimistic for her career. There's resume for

development. Her bag of tricks is not all out yet and that's really

another great thing. She is so good at pensive silence. A lot of actors

can't do that, they look like they are under heavy sedation. And

shouldn't we mention Nick Hornby's script? It is not overladen, there

are proper moments of silence. Beautifully done. He's an

interesting screenwriter. When he is adapting even his own books he does

take the melodrama out of things. He's taken this moval and blurred a

few of the lines in an interest way. One of the interesting things it

does which I really love is seeing a society and culture in a way we have

been seen before. We've seen a lot of working class Ireland on film. We

haven't seen post war rural middle class aspirational Ireland, the

Ireland of golf clubs and four-course dinner at the golf club

with wine and coffee. It was exciting. And it works like a

thriller. I totally agree. The second half of the movie feels as

jangly as Mad Max, which I have mentioned twice. Double entry

book-keeping and walks along the beach. We love it, you must go.

Nicholas Hoult stars as a ruthlessly ambitious music industry exec who'll

As you might imagine, wannabe record executives use some

UN you are standing on wafer thin ice. Beneath your feet you can see

sharks circling. These are your colleagues, your friends. Lock off.

Welcome to the music industry. It is about an A and R manager, someone

who is ruthless and cut throat about trying to keep his job in a world

filled with people who aren't good at their jobs and don't realise what

going be a success, so are living in fear constantly. Only one thing in

fear constantly. Only one thing matters in this racket - big hit

records. They could develop. Like a facting tumour. This is based more

around how uncreative and diabolical the industry could be. A lot of

people I know that are in the industry see a lot of realities come

to life in this. How do you want to play this? You be the enthusiastic

music lover, bang on about indie B sides. I will do the industry thing

when it says tell us about the label. The mentality of the record

industry the film represents I would say is fairly accurate. So, what's

your favourite track? For me one of the biggest reasons I want to be

involved in this is that it is an authentic voice. John worked in the

music industry and it is talking about music in a very authentic way.

And the way that John writes dialogue has a special rhythm to it

that took a bit of writing. We'll interfere with the artistic process,

mix tracks without your permission and force you to appear on

children's programmes when you are ill in the morning. Antonia? I can't

think of a single good thing to say about this film. Oh, no! Sorry, I

have tried. I'm not going to pull any punches. This is a very faithful

adaptation of a sour screenplay of the sourest book you could possibly

imagine. Now, it is not a thrilling film. It is not radical, it is not

particularly genuinely angry and neither is it shocking. If you want

to see a radical shocking satire on the music industry, watch 24 Hour

Party People. The reason that movie stands up is because it is a satire

of something it loves. This doesn't work because it is a satire of

something it hates. If you are going to go and spent 10 quid in the

cinema are you going to spend it on something that's full of hate? I

think it is toxic. I really hated it. What about Nicholas Hoult? I

love him. There were some great movement, you didn't agree? Nicholas

Hoult was really great in Mad Max. I think we can put this to one side.

It is an uncanny time capsule of 1997. The problem was 1997 was

possibly the worst year in modern British history. You can't possibly

mean that. There was stuffed crusts in pizzas, Oasis. And you felt like

you were locked in a room with 100 people doing cocaine. You don't want

to be taken back there, Danny. I never did it anyway, so I sat there

miserably. That's the problem with the film, the people old enough to

appreciate why this is quite so funny and why the mention of a

menswear CD is inspired are going to be old enough to not to want to go

back to 1997 and to remember the looming elephant in the room,

American Psycho. Nicholas Hoult wanted to be involved in it is

because of the breaking of the fourth wall aspect, the looking to

camera, the speaking to camera. When he's walking down the plane, he's

talking to me. I felt it. It doesn't work. Even chaplain struggled with

that? The Great Dictator. It is hard to get right. When it does work,

like in American Psycho, it is not a brilliant film but a great

performance... Can I say, what did you think of this scene in Cannes

where Maurice is... The mullet and he's playing his song. You love that

scene. Did you not like that scene? No, there's nothing about the

film... Listen, I think there is stunny stuff here. John Niven is a

funny writer, there is funny lines. There's morbid entertainment value

in matching up the semi fictional bands on screen with their real-life

counterparts. Nicholas Hoult is funny and Cossack dances ashes the

gents That stuff works. You keep coming back to the same problem,

that '90s was a terrible time. It is so sour, full of loathing for

anything. The one thing I liked about it was the Lazies. They were a

good band. OK. You were on your own like that. You are saying it is

almost like you could doing alpicture of Alex James and it would

make the same point about the 1990s. Let's leave it behind. That's harsh,

he makes delicious cheese. Next, Oscar-winning writer of "The

Social Network", "The West Wing" and Since

his big screen debut 23 years ago, Sorkin has become Hollywood's "go

to" man for smart, witty screenplays Just don't ask him to talk

about himself. I'm a lot better on paper than I am

in person. What you do? I play the orchestra. My friends, my daughter,

my beer ads in Chile. What you protect me for? $1700 a week. I

wouldn't take a bullet for that. Did you order the code red? Your dam

right I did! The cliche about Hollywood writers

is that they start writing because they are uncomfortable in speaking.

Was that true with you? I would much, much rather do this interview

by e-mail them the way we are doing it right now. I am not as polished

as the characters I write or as smart as they are all witty. That is

something that happens when I am in a room by myself and have time. And

I'm doing the thing I am most comfortable at. But that quality

also helps me identify with the ball like Steve Jobs and Mark Zarco Berg.

You are going to be a very successful computer person. You will

go through life thinking that girls don't like you, and I want you to

know from the bottom of my heart but that won't be true.

Mark Zarco Zuckerberg invented something that he needed. Are you

OK? We are ranking girls. Other students? This is in such a good

idea. I need the algorithm. That cliche about writers is true for me

and has helped me identify with some people I have written. Aaron Sorkin

burst onto the Hollywood scene in 1992 with his debut screenplay a few

good men. You want answers? I want the truth! You can't handle the

truth! I don't write things that are meant to be read. I write things

that are meant to be performed. So my job isn't over once the script is

done. And is that important to you as a writer, do you have a

relationship with the director? Some directors would think, once I have

the script, I am done with the writer. I wouldn't want to work with

that director. Everyone is waiting for the man. It is an abstract. In

his new film, Steve Jobs, Aaron Sorkin collaborates with Danny

Boyle, and a new set of actors face the challenge of 180 pages of his

language, a daunting chance. I remember flicking the pages and

going, there were no stage directions, it was just people

talking, and it was like a plate, a very long play. And that is

overwhelming and intimidating, and your instinct as an actor is I

absolutely can't do this. But all I had to do was take a breath and

think about poor Michael Fassbender who is on every single page. I can't

even pick the script up, it is so... Don't panic! And I am proof

after three years of Newsroom, you will survive this. Ask me again. Ask

me your idiot question again. What makes America the greatest country

in the world? You do. When I find an actor who I really like we think

fits particularly well with the style I like to write in, I try to

keep that actor in my pocket, work with them as many times as I can. I

tried to work with actors and actresses from the West Wing cast as

often as I can. It is like getting back together with your old band. I

am on the way to see the president. Flamingo is on her way. What did you

call me? Tell me about your writing routine. The cliche is someone

sitting there at 2am. I do have much of a routine because most of the

time I am banging my head against the wall because I'm stuck. I can't

think of what to write. You don't just let the genius come and start

doing it. But that senior have described, that is how writers are

always portrayed. Surely when someone is making the Aaron Sorkin

film, that is going to be the way it will be written. I hope that film is

never made! But whoever writes it is going to need to condense that year

of banging my head against the wall and lying on the couch and watching

ESPN and ordering another pizza and driving around in my car. They are

not going to be interested in any of that. They will have me look at

something over there, that teapot, teapot, I'm inspired!

Teapot and Aaron Sorkin, I would watch. Do you love him? I have been

blinded by his teeth for the last week! We will be reviewing Steve

Jobs on next week's show. Next is a documentary

about the life of Malala Yousafzai, the 18-year-old shot by the Taliban

simply for speaking up. There is a moment when you have to

choose whether to be silent or to stand up. Tonight Malala remains in

intensive care. She was shot in the Headford daring to suggest that

girls should to school. A documentary about Malala Yousafzai.

Some people have heard about her father being shot on her school bus

or winning the Nobel Peace Prize. They thought that the bullet would

silence us. But it is really a story of this amazing girl and her father,

and how they went from this very small-town and become the people who

have captured our imagination. Me and my wife, we cried all night. My

doctors told me she would survive, but she may not be the same as she

was. When that happens to you, the small things go away, and she has a

very simple, strong focus about how she wants to live her life. I'm

still 17. I'm still a teenager. Who would you have been if you were

still an ordinary girl? I am still an ordinary girl with an ordinary

mother and father. When I arrived in Birmingham and rang the doorbell of

their home, I didn't know who I was going to meet. And I don't think

they knew who I was. Here is this guy with odd hair from LA. And so it

could have gone awfully wrong. This is the laziest one. Look at the

first impression! What is beautiful about this family is Malala doesn't

live in fear. And she is not a bitter person. It doesn't matter for

me if the left side of my face isn't working, or if I cannot blink this I

properly. I have been with her in the White House, and she walks up to

President Obama and asks him about drum strikes in Pakistan. A lot of

grown men would be afraid to ask the President about that. She is not

afraid. And then she is at home opening her laptop when looking at

pictures of Brad Pitt and Roger Federer.

Will you ever ask a boy out on a date?

So she has this double life where she is a forceful advocate for

girls, but also just a teenager. I am those 66 million girls deprived

in education, and I am not a lone voice. I am many. Our voices are our

most powerful weapon. She really is a world leader, and she has the

stuff it takes to be that person. I see her being an advocate for a long

time. I chose this life, and now I must continue it.

Danny? I don't know what we're supposed to be. Malala herself is

this awesome super-heroine, and the screen lights up when she is there.

They showed the Taliban having greyed out the face of a model on a

billboard, and you see her face, and you realise, this is why she is so

magnetic and will change the world, is changing the world. The film is a

trench, and I don't think it has any of her charisma, and it almost as

her a disservice. The makers also made an Inconvenient Truth. It is

boring. No, no, no! I want every 13-year-old to see it. It isn't

boring. She will take over the world. I hope C does -- she does,

but I also want to see her playing snap with her brothers. It is a

great film, but I have a couple of problems with it. The music is up

swelling the entire time, you don't need to be told how to feel or to be

moved, the film does this too much. And it does slightly do a disservice

in that it short-changes her a little. We see her giving lots of

speeches in African schools, speeches at the UN and all sorts of

impressive things, but what it doesn't do, it puts it into a small

montage embedded two thirds of the way into the movie, the speeches

that got her shot in the first place. She wasn't giving a generic

speech about gender and education. She is naming names. She is saying

this Taliban leader, this guy, how come he is still walking the

streets? And she is very young at this point, and these people are

looking down on her as she is speaking, and she talks about

speaking with flames, and she is electric, she is like Joan of Arc.

Why don't we see more of that? I would have loved to see that full

speech. I would just like and are half of that. Or they should have

given her the camera. She is electrifying, she is galvanising.

And the film isn't. You can come away from the film thinking that the

greatest achievement of her life was meeting Bono. I do think you do get

that, and what makes her extraordinary is seeing the

ordinary. I love her telling her dad that she doesn't like her team made

like that. Or that she had a crush on Roger Federer. And she makes

those speeches about, I am you, I am everybody, and I find it even more

moving. What is brilliant about this film is that it shows you the

tremendous chasm, the difference between great oratory and

speech-making. All totalitarian regimes, Hitler, Stalin, Chairman

Mao, any religious bigot you could care to mention, they all love

speeches, they never stop talking, they drill you into submission. Then

you hear someone like Malala or even her father who was also a great

oratory, and you hear the difference between oratory and rhetoric. And it

is there in this film. Film of the week, quickly? Brooklyn. Malala.

Well, that's it for another week, how fabulous to be back!

Look at his face! Looking especially lovely today, sweetheart. Don't

sweetheart me. I'm dying, possibly. We've all got to go sometime. Smells

like you already have all stop I'm going to call you lily. The fact is,

I believe I am a woman. I believe it, too. Life is a sacred creation.

It's alive! We all have one enemy. Tonight, turn

your weapons to the capital. Welcome to the 76 hundred games. I am

talking about the security of your country. You could prevent a full

thermonuclear exchange with the saviour union. We gave each other

the most breathtaking of gifts. Don't ever think that the world owes

you anything, because it doesn't. My name's joy, by the way. We are

home. The Osgood Box can wipe out

humankind.