Episode 9 Film 2015

Hello and welcome to Film 2015. We are on Twitter. Get in touch. Coming

up on the show. Hard drives and heartache, Michael Fassbender stars

as Steve Jobs. What do you do? I play the orchestra. Maggie Smith is

not a happy camper in Alan Bennett's the Lady in the Van. Merry

Christmas! Shut the door! I would not go up there if I were you, Irish

horror flick the Hallow. And we will take a look at Tangerine. Danny

Leigh and the Daily Telegraph's Robbie Collin. Hello. It never gets

tired. First up Steve Jobs written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by

Danny Boyle. Michael Fassbender stars as the digital Messiah who

gave us Apple. What if the computer was a beautiful object, something

that you want to look at and have in your home. What if, instead of it

being in the right hands it was in everyone's hands? You would be

talking about the most tectonic shift in the status quo ever. Steve

Jobsis a fictional retelling about how he became Steve Jobs, but it is

about creative genius. He has changed the world and the way it

works and the way we communicate with one another. Fix it! We are not

a pit crew at Daytona, this can't be fixed in seconds. The universe was

created in a third of that time. Someday you will have to tell us how

you did it! All these guys can see the next idea and Aaron Sorkin did a

great job of burrowing into that and exposing what made him tick. What

did you do? ! You can't write code, you are not an engineer, you can't

put a hammer to a nail. The graphical interface was stolen and

someone else designed the box so how come ten times a day I read that

Steve Jobs is a genius? What do you do? I play the orchestra. I thought

the script was the best modern-day script I have ever read. For sure. I

knew I did not want to write about the life of Steve Jobs where we land

on his greatest hits. That seemed like dramatising a Wikipedia page. I

am begging you to manage expectations out there. This reminds

you of a friendly face, warm and playful. It needs to say hello. It

is set in a pressurised backstage environment and what you get is this

almost action movie with words, the pace with which it moves is

incredibly exciting. You are issuing contradictory instructions, you are

making people miserable. Even if it were true that does not sound that

diabolical. Danny is without doubt the most positive and energetic

director I have ever worked with. I think he injects the same energy in

his visual storytelling and the sort of energy that he puts into the

camera. I was thrilled with what Danny Boyle did because it's not

easy, you have a lot of dialogue. Danny Boyle took that and with

angles and editing he married it to the words and the rhythm of the

words. Everything came together and everything was going into making the

same movie. That does not often happen. Artists lead and hacks ask

for a show of hands. What do you think? It's not about Steve Jobs, it

is a version of him. For any bad-tempered visionary. It is also

about Aaron Sorkin and I think it is mostly about Aaron Sorkin and the

film belongs to him. It is filled with dialogue that only Aaron Sorkin

writes. Everyone is 200% more articulate than anyone has ever been

in life. It is a verbal blockbuster. It is an action movie spectacular.

You have to love dialogue to have a good time with the movie but I do.

Part of the magic of cinema is that everyone looks better than in real

life and hear everybody talks about better too. A lot better. I did not

get that Aaron Sorkin domination, obviously he is at the four, but

this is a collision between Danny Boyle, the effervescent visual

stylist, and one of the greatest leading men of his generation,

Michael Fassbender. And a handful of blue Smarties and something has to

give. There has to be a spirit of compromise and collaboration that

the subject never grasped was necessary. The thing that happens is

that Danny Boyle recedes into the background although there is a great

visual innovation. It is set in three distinct time periods, the

first is 1984, shot on 16mm film. The second one shot on 85, and the

third in digital with the introduction of the iMac. Even the

visual texture of the world is bending to the will ask the jobs. He

is there as this in movable object in the centre. It has to be subtle

because Danny Boyle has two reel himself in. We think of him as being

a kinetic director and that is what he is great at but if you are going

to make this script in the style of Trainspotting, there is no space for

that. It is like sharing a small lift with a fat man with Aaron

Sorkin. You cannot do much. That is why in the West Wing they are

walking and talking because you can't do anything more interesting

visually. The social network is just back and forth over a table. It

would be bedlam if you did anything else. You don't need anything else.

Kate Winslet, without her you would be like, stop shouting. She is

magnificent. She plays the marketing Guru. If it was just Fassbender and

Aaron Sorkin, it would lack humanity and what she does by standing on the

sideline, handing him a tissue or a biscuit, she manages to ground the

drama and bring it back to the real world which is important. It is not

like the social network where it is purely this great man, Citizen Kane

like thing. Look at this guy, he is the modern world so pay attention.

It is a more intimate character study, more close-up and

touchy-feely. It will appeal to some people. It is a much softer film, it

is about the modern world but I don't think Aaron Sorkin likes the

modern world much. He does not like Marks and about but he likes Steve

Jobs. I liked the fact that they are brazen about it and Michael

Fassbender looks as though he could have been designed by Apple. He is

so perfect. There is nothing superfluous there. He fits the role.

What a big role to take on. Kate Winslet said last week, I could not

get over the amount of pages I had to learn and it made me feel better

because what does Michael had to learn! It is like being in an

extraordinary play. There is reams and reams of dialogue. Danny Boyle

does it very carefully, making sure supporting characters share the

spotlight. Catherine Waterston was great in inherent Vice earlier this

year. She plays Steve Jobs' one-time lover. She is in the film briefly

but she makes an enormous impact. I know exactly what she is like. And

Seth Rogen. That is where Danny Boyle finds a bit of space to work

with. He is working with the actors. What Aaron Sorkin gives you

is a script with no stage directions and it is just words on a page and

it is the director who has to relate to that likes Steve Jobs never did.

Alan Bennett's the Lady in the Van finally reaches the big screen. It

is directed by Nicholas Hytner, starring Maggie Smith as the in

fragrant vagrant who comes to stay. You are not St John are you? Who? My

name is Bennett. Alan Bennett bought a house on Gloucester Crescent in

Camden Town and shortly after moving in an old lady called Miss Margaret

Shepherd drove her van onto his drive and she stayed for 15 years.

He could not get rid of her. The idea would be off-street parking.

Merry Christmas! Shut the door, I'm a busy woman. It would have been so

difficult to get rid of her, she probably had squatters rights after

a year or so. The flush is on the blink. Where is it? ! She had an

iron will, she never at any point said thank you. I did not want to be

banged but at the same time, if she had thank you it would have been a

chink in her arm and she never exposed that. I brought three in

case she fancied a change. Where am I supposed to put three? Green is

not my colour. It throws up questions about what we would do

faced with Miss' Shepherd. I don't know what people would do. I don't

think I would let it happen, really. A carer will often feel... I am not

a carer. I hate caring and I hate the thought and the word. I do not

care and I do not care for her, there is no caring. Shooting the

film in his house, in his study, looking over his drive where a

replica sat, knowing that the van was occupied by Maggie. It occurred

to me that if Maggie Smith decided to stay for 15 years no one would

dare move her. Would you like to push me up the street? Not

particularly. Certainly very physically challenging for Maggie,

getting in and out of the van. She was incredibly up for doing this. It

was an extraordinary experience, being around her and being with her

as she created this thing. This will do. Turn me around. I think it's

remarkable what she does in the film, the insights into view that

lonely, cantankerous, nightmarish, magnificent woman was. Would you

like a cup of coffee? No, I don't want to put you to all of that

trouble, I will just have half a cup. I will say this out loud before

you say anything, I loved this film. When I came out of the screening I

asked if I could go to another and they thought I was weird. Go ahead.

I had certain expectations that I will blame on down to an abbey.

Smith's character is in sconce tin the public imagination. -- Downton

Abbey. She takes a waspish comedy turn the next minute. Having not

seen the original play on which this is based I was expecting more of the

same. The film strikes a difficult balance and you can tell from the

clips that it is middle ground and quite safe and there is nothing to

frighten the horses but what it's able to do is within that very tight

framework it is able to say important things about the way in

which we respond to family members because it's a parable about how

difficult it is to love your family members directly. Something that is

not mentioned in the clips is that it's about Alan Bennett's

relationship with his mother after he hits the big-time in London. A

lot of his concerns his mother our misdirected towards this strange

woman and it's about the difficulty of the directness of that love of a

parent. He does a compare and contrast in the film. I totally love

agree that asks big questions -- I totally agree that. I was struck by

the fact that when you said Alan Bennett and Maggie Smith people

would have already been sold. It's a done deal. You have made the right

choice. We could say that the film gives you manger and people would

still be there! It's Alan Bennett, funny, perceptive, spiky. I like it

when they have this gentle to hours of Alan the human being moving in to

the flat in Camden and also the writer and there is interplay. There

is a nice line in the film where the writer says, he looks out the window

and says, I'm never going to write about her, this is just something

that's happening. I can't help but thinking that he meant that at the

time and I don't know why he changed his mind. This thing happened. All I

want to say is that that is right but that is the point at the end,

just when you think you are writing about something else in life

happens. She was there for 15 years. He had to write about her. The point

of the device is that you can have one of them being an active

participant in the story and the other one standing apart and

commentating. A large part of what the film is about is our need to

impose a fiction like order on the real world. It is fantastic. He

plays two parts, not just one impersonation of Alan Bennett twice

over, the writer and the living Alan are different. There is a great

chemistry between them which is just one man bouncing off himself. I feel

as though I'm being pushed into a corner of not liking it because I'm

not sold as you and I did not get the sense that Alan Bennett knew

why, apart from having this extraordinary woman in his driveway

for 15 years, I don't know why he was writing it. It is beautifully

acted. Everybody already knows Maggie Smith already. It's an

extraordinary character. Miss Marple needs Golem. I like Camden as well.

That is the unsung hero. Kate Winslet was the secret weapon of

Steve Jobs and Camden Town is the secret weapon here. When Alan

Bennett moves in in 1970, it is the Camden of Withnail and I. Then you

follow it through the 70s and into the 80s and the yuppie Camden and

the end of misses Vacha's power. -- end of Margaret Thatcher's power.

They end with him talking about property prices. We have to move on.

It's good. It is better than God, it's brilliant. Tangerine was born

out of a collaboration between film-makers and the transgender

world of West Hollywood. Filmed on an iPhone. This is no ordinary love

story. Contains strong language. The oestrogenic has been kicking in. The

only thing that has not broken down at these arms. Everything else looks

good. A secret about me and Chester.

What? She get out of jail and fines that

her man has been cheating with another girl. Instead of checking

her man, she goes to find the goal. She is back and she is going hard.

We did not want to influence any prescription or plot on this

neighbourhood until we did our research, so we had to find

collaborators, and she was our passport to that world.

Come here. I was at the LG BT centre in Santa

Monica, a very attractive director, he was talking to me and he asked me

about the area, he wanted to know more information. I started to give

him a key stories and some of the background. He fell in love with my

personality and the way I looked. He owes me money.

He said he wanted it to be real. I knew it would be real because I am

going to make sure. She said, I will make this film with

you, I trust you, but you have to promise me that it will show the

brutal reality of what these women go through on the street, do not

hold back, and at the same time, make it hilarious.

She is from the Hill. I was like, that will be a balancing

act! I will go with you on the one

condition, promise me there will be no drama.

We shot the entire film on the iPhone, it started from a budgetary

constraint, but it became an aesthetic that we were developing

and finding. It kept us under the radar, people think we are maybe

just doing some little product. What do you see in him?

Some people come up to me crying, for two trans-stars to be on the

screen, where did you see that? It is all about our hostel, and that

is it. Danny? It is a Christmas movie, it

is also out on Christmas eve, that is when you get out of jail and hunt

down your cheating ex-boyfriend, who is also jaw pain. People at home

will be freaking out that this is a seasonal movie, but it is wonderful,

really traditional in its way. It is wild and filthy but also warm and

fuzzy. It is filled with humanity and it pops off the screen. I like

it such a lot, not as much as Robbie Collin! One of the main things I

love is it is being sold as the iPhone movie, but it is not found

footage or grubby, fingerprints, the way in which it has been made, it

feels like it is totally liberating, the camera is so small,

it was on a steady cambric, there was a bit of kit, but it feels like

you are on ground level with traffic thundering past of this distinctive

area. I apologise in advance, it should come with a cravat on it. It

reminded me of the early films of Gothard, because of the energy

levels, people running around all over the place, and it is set in

this particular social million in the city, and there is a subplot

involving a taxi driver picking people up who has a liking for what

the lead characters have to offer, it is taking place in a coherent

part of the city. It is a great LA movie. You can overstate the iPhone

thing. I like how you can have a double bill with Steve Jobs, but you

forget the iPhone is there. It is good at picking out LA in the

sunshine. Everything is too bright and bleached out. It does that job

Harry well, but the story and characters are so big and vivid, you

forget about the technology. You love them, and the characters are

fantastic. How do we find these people? How do we invite them in?

This is the importance of it being a Christmas movie, Christmas is about

providing for family, reconciling with friends, and if you live so far

outside of the turkey and sprouts demographic, what does that mean?

There is a joke that LA does not look like it is Christmas. The film

is bright orange throughout. The mother-in-law of the taxi driver

looks around disparagingly and says LA is a beautifully wrapped life. A

lesser film would have left it there, but this film is about

appearances, and somebody says, I agree to disagree. They are

presenting as who they are very directly and honestly. The honesty

would have been drowned out by a bigger budget and buy a more

elaborate production. I don't want to say that somebody did it like

that, but the editing and music are brilliant, it feels urgent. You can

get hung up on the technology, it reminds me of 28 days later, one of

the first digital video films. You forget that is happening, it has its

own luck. I saw this earlier in the week, I will go again, I will slip

into something fierce and sexy. I am excited! Next, The Hallow, never has

moving away from the city been such a mistake.

You missing London? God, no. There are enough trees to keep that the

busy until you are grown-up! Is he in the forest again? He is

trespassing. It is his job. It is dangerous for him and the little

one. He is trying to scare us, I cannot not do my job. You are making

people nervous. They believe the forest you are trampling on belongs

to The Hallow. Fairies, banshees, baby Steelers. Are you a believer?

This is not London, things go bump in the night. It is just baby

dreams. Adam? Wait! If you trespass upon them, they will trespass upon

you. Come on. You should have listened. You should never have come

here. You should never have come here!

That is what I said after I left the cinema. It is structurally not

working, you have the lovely scene setting, we saw Michael Smiley as

the policeman, you think, this is interesting, but then the film

switches to code red and the monsters come out and descend on the

house, things burst into flames, people are running around with

swords. I thought, why is this not scary? It does not have the central

act where they build atmosphere and ramp up potential. You want Michael

Smiley to come back and be sceptical again. Because of the missing

middle, it did not connect. A good horror has to be resourceful, it has

to do a lot with not much, and it does do that, it builds up an

unsettling atmosphere with nothing more than Moss, which is an

impressive thing to do. There is a mischief as to how it uses the

location, a snippet of coastal island, it looks painfully

beautiful, but it goes slightly downhill as an advert for tourism.

There is one monster, UCD face in the mirror at night, sinister,

completely horrible,... I do not want to give too much away, but

there was two stories going on. There is a moment where it loses its

head slightly, a lot of horror influences get thrown at the screen

in a panic to remind everybody, it is a bit like these films. I quite

like that, it is such a shameless barrage, ... I was scared. We have

to end with your film of the week. Tangerine, the best film that Steve

jobs made possible. Tangerine, Steve Jobs. And a film that I have

reviewed on the website, and using about it. The Lady In The Van and

Steve Jobs. Tangerine, I would not be anything else! Playing is out is

moral and Hardy's classic. You can see more of their films in selected

UK films -- cinemas throughout November. Good night.

# In the blue ridge mountains of Virginia

# Where she carved her name and I carved mine

# Like the pine, I am lonesome for you

# In the blue ridge mountains of Virginia

# In the blue ridge mountains of Virginia

# In the pale moonshine, our hearts entwined

# Where she carved her name and I carved mine

# Like the pine, I am lonesome for you

# In the blue ridge mountains of Virginia