0:00:12 > 0:00:16In a career of more than 50 years, Sir Ronald Harwood
0:00:16 > 0:00:21has been a prolific writer of plays, films, novels and television dramas.
0:00:21 > 0:00:26He won an Oscar for his adaptation of the pianist, starring Adrien Brody,
0:00:26 > 0:00:31and a BAFTA for the film version of the Diving Bell And The Butterfly.
0:00:31 > 0:00:34His screenplay for Quartet attracted Dustin Hoffman
0:00:34 > 0:00:38as first-time director and a very distinguished cast.
0:00:38 > 0:00:41Let's have a toast to our quartet. To the quartet.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43GLASSES CLINK
0:00:43 > 0:00:47A double bill of Harwood's plays Taking Sides and Collaboration
0:00:47 > 0:00:52ran in the West End in 2009 but his biggest stage hit remains
0:00:52 > 0:00:58The Dresser, which opened in London in 1980 and on Broadway a year later.
0:00:58 > 0:01:01Since then, it's been revived regularly
0:01:01 > 0:01:03and has twice been adapted for the screen.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07First as a feature film directed by Peter Yates
0:01:07 > 0:01:12and now in a version for television directed by me, Richard Eyre.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15Serve the playwright and keep your teeth in.
0:01:15 > 0:01:19It's only when I'm nervous.
0:01:19 > 0:01:21APPLAUSE
0:01:21 > 0:01:28Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Sir Ronald Harwood.
0:01:28 > 0:01:30APPLAUSE
0:01:35 > 0:01:39Sir Ronald Harwood, it sounds like a name that could be
0:01:39 > 0:01:43out of a rather upmarket Agatha Christie.
0:01:43 > 0:01:46It's not my real name, you know.
0:01:46 > 0:01:48But...you caught me, Ronnie,
0:01:48 > 0:01:53because I was going to say you are of course Ronald Horvitz. Horwitz. W.
0:01:53 > 0:01:55And you're an exile. An exile.
0:01:57 > 0:02:01You were brought up in Cape Town and left Cape Town,
0:02:01 > 0:02:04left South Africa at the age of 17.
0:02:04 > 0:02:07I did. And you left to become an actor. I did.
0:02:07 > 0:02:11I became a very bad actor, too. That was a good thing. I was here.
0:02:11 > 0:02:14I was at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for a year
0:02:14 > 0:02:16and then my mother ran out of money
0:02:16 > 0:02:20and couldn't pay the fees, which were ?21 a term, I remember.
0:02:20 > 0:02:22You were robbed.
0:02:22 > 0:02:24LAUGHTER
0:02:24 > 0:02:29And the founding principal of RADA was still principal
0:02:29 > 0:02:31when I was here, Sir Kenneth Barnes.
0:02:31 > 0:02:38And I got a job in Donald Wolfit's company. Walking on.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42And when he found out, he said you've got to make a choice,
0:02:42 > 0:02:45either RADA or Wolfit. And, thank God, I chose Wolfit.
0:02:45 > 0:02:49GENTLE LAUGHTER
0:02:49 > 0:02:52And Wolfit, of course, is the inspiration
0:02:52 > 0:02:55for your most famous play, The Dresser.
0:02:55 > 0:03:01Absolutely. Which has been adapted for the screen on two occasions. Yes.
0:03:01 > 0:03:06And the second occasion, I was responsible for adapting it,
0:03:06 > 0:03:13with tremendous faith in the script and tremendous verisimilitude
0:03:13 > 0:03:19and we're going to see a short clip from that version of The Dresser.
0:03:19 > 0:03:22Your version. Of our version.
0:03:22 > 0:03:26Starring Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen.
0:03:27 > 0:03:30Look. What? My hands, they're shaking.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33Well, they'll be very effective in the part.
0:03:33 > 0:03:35Don't forgot to make them up.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38I can't stop them. You do them.
0:03:38 > 0:03:42Look here. Must be infectious.
0:03:50 > 0:03:53I can face the division of my kingdom.
0:03:53 > 0:03:55I can cope with Fool.
0:03:55 > 0:03:59I can bear the reduction of my retinue.
0:03:59 > 0:04:01I can stomach the curses I have to utter.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06I can even with the face being whipped by the storm.
0:04:06 > 0:04:08But I dread the final entrance.
0:04:08 > 0:04:10To carry my Cordelia...
0:04:12 > 0:04:15dead...dead...
0:04:15 > 0:04:22To cry like the wind, howl, howl.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25To lay her gently on the ground to die.
0:04:30 > 0:04:31Have I the strength?
0:04:34 > 0:04:36If you haven't the strength, no-one has.
0:04:36 > 0:04:38APPLAUSE
0:04:39 > 0:04:41Well, the...
0:04:41 > 0:04:45the play is ostensibly a backstage play
0:04:45 > 0:04:50and, as John Gielgud told you, backstage plays are never any good.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53Oh, never do well. Never do well. What did he say to you?
0:04:53 > 0:04:57He said... "What have you been...?" I was going into the Garrick Club
0:04:57 > 0:05:01and he was coming out and he said, "What have you been up to?"
0:05:01 > 0:05:03I said, "I have just written a play about an actor-manager
0:05:03 > 0:05:05"and his dresser."
0:05:05 > 0:05:10And Gielgud said, "Oh, backstage plays never do well."
0:05:10 > 0:05:12And went off.
0:05:12 > 0:05:14I was delivering the script to my agent
0:05:14 > 0:05:17and I went into lunch absolutely shattered.
0:05:17 > 0:05:20And when she read it, she said, "Well, I don't know if he's right."
0:05:20 > 0:05:23I said, of course he's right. He's John Gielgud.
0:05:23 > 0:05:28Thankfully he was wrong. Thank goodness he's been proved wrong.
0:05:28 > 0:05:33But it has always seemed to me much more... it's a workplace play.
0:05:33 > 0:05:37But it could have been in a kitchen, in a hotel, in a hospital.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40It seems to me much more about mortality and that scene we've
0:05:40 > 0:05:47just watched is very much about the hint of mortality. Absolutely.
0:05:47 > 0:05:50It's about the end of a life
0:05:50 > 0:05:54and his, um, his past catches up with him
0:05:54 > 0:05:56in a sense during the play, doesn't it?
0:05:56 > 0:05:58I don't remember it very well.
0:05:58 > 0:06:01LAUGHTER
0:06:01 > 0:06:03But, yes.
0:06:03 > 0:06:08The curious thing is, Richard, that it has never stopped being
0:06:08 > 0:06:10played, not just in England but all over the world.
0:06:10 > 0:06:13I mean, I don't know why. An American critic...
0:06:13 > 0:06:15Where is it being played at the moment, Ronnie?
0:06:15 > 0:06:18Well, you have to ask my agent. She's over there.
0:06:18 > 0:06:20I don't keep in touch with these things.
0:06:20 > 0:06:22You say you don't remember the play
0:06:22 > 0:06:26but how clearly do you remember the model for Sir In the play,
0:06:26 > 0:06:29Donald Wolfit? I think about him a lot.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32And he became a wonderful friend and patron.
0:06:32 > 0:06:34I mean, he was a delightful man.
0:06:34 > 0:06:39Not in... his public reputation was appalling.
0:06:39 > 0:06:41Appalling. Reputation for what?
0:06:41 > 0:06:44Being cruel, vicious.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47And he was all those things. He was a very complex man.
0:06:47 > 0:06:49So he was an autocrat.
0:06:49 > 0:06:56Oh...well, the actor-manager system was based on paternalism.
0:06:56 > 0:06:58That was how it ran.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00He was the father of them all.
0:07:02 > 0:07:07And he... he exercised those paternal rights.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11Which he did with brutality, sometimes.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14Sometimes with great kindness. But more with brutality.
0:07:15 > 0:07:18Well, let's listen to a clip
0:07:18 > 0:07:24from THE greatest play about bad exercise of paternal rights,
0:07:24 > 0:07:25which is King Lear.
0:07:25 > 0:07:31And this is a clip from, um, Donald Wolfit playing Lear on the radio.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39Blow, winds and crack your cheeks!
0:07:39 > 0:07:42Rage, blow,
0:07:42 > 0:07:45you cataracts and hurricanoes!
0:07:45 > 0:07:50Spout till you have drenched the steeples, drowned the cocks!
0:07:51 > 0:07:54You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
0:07:54 > 0:07:57vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
0:07:57 > 0:08:00singe my white head.
0:08:00 > 0:08:04And thou, all-shaking thunder,
0:08:04 > 0:08:08smite flat the thick rotundity of the world.
0:08:08 > 0:08:13Crack nature's mould, all germens spill at once
0:08:13 > 0:08:15That make ingrateful man.
0:08:15 > 0:08:17THUNDER CRACKS
0:08:19 > 0:08:21Sounds to me that's... that's rather restrained.
0:08:21 > 0:08:23LAUGHTER
0:08:23 > 0:08:26No? Yes, but he had a beautiful voice.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29Certainly, a beautiful voice but it seems to be...
0:08:29 > 0:08:32I imagine much more volume.
0:08:32 > 0:08:34Well, there was in the theatre.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37In the theatre...
0:08:37 > 0:08:40we had a pillar which
0:08:40 > 0:08:44I had to stand inside with struts...
0:08:44 > 0:08:46For the storm scene? Yes.
0:08:46 > 0:08:51And he'd lean against it so when he leaned against it, I had to lean
0:08:51 > 0:08:57forward and keep the two in balance and the storm would be going on.
0:08:57 > 0:09:01No, no, a stagehand did that. I was on the storm -
0:09:01 > 0:09:04duk-a-duk-a-dum! - doing the timpani.
0:09:04 > 0:09:08And this stagehand was pissed one night and he lurched
0:09:08 > 0:09:11and hit Donald on the back of the head.
0:09:11 > 0:09:15And when Donald came off, I said, "Are you all right, sir?"
0:09:15 > 0:09:17I was his dresser so I had to look after him.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20"Are you all right?" He said, "Yes.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23"But my enemies will not stop at anything!"
0:09:23 > 0:09:26LAUGHTER
0:09:26 > 0:09:30But he talked in those terms. But were you also an actor?
0:09:30 > 0:09:34Actor, dresser and you were on the timpani... And understudy.
0:09:34 > 0:09:38Understudy, and weren't you, didn't she become the business manager?
0:09:38 > 0:09:40Yes, when he found out I was Jewish.
0:09:40 > 0:09:41LAUGHTER
0:09:41 > 0:09:43SCATTERED APPLAUSE
0:09:43 > 0:09:46This was 1950... 1953. Right.
0:09:46 > 0:09:50And so you were touring one week... No, no.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53We were at the Kings, Hammersmith, that whole season.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55It was a whole year.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59We broke for the summer and then came back in the autumn.
0:09:59 > 0:10:04There was another writer, or would-be writer in the company, wasn't there?
0:10:04 > 0:10:06There was. He was called Harold Pinter.
0:10:06 > 0:10:08I wonder what happened to him?
0:10:08 > 0:10:11LAUGHTER Yes. We were both in the company.
0:10:11 > 0:10:15And there's a character in your play who is a writer who is
0:10:15 > 0:10:18complaining that Sir never reads his plays. Yes.
0:10:18 > 0:10:23And he is quite aggressive. I wonder who it could be based on?
0:10:23 > 0:10:28I've no idea. But you were good friends. You remain good friends.
0:10:28 > 0:10:31He's my oldest friend. Yes. We remained friends.
0:10:31 > 0:10:32I don't know why.
0:10:32 > 0:10:35We were politically poles apart.
0:10:35 > 0:10:41Er.. He wrote for a theatre I didn't really understand, you know.
0:10:41 > 0:10:46It was a very modern contemporary theatre and he changed it.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49He changed it into what he... into his own image.
0:10:49 > 0:10:50And was that...?
0:10:50 > 0:10:54Where you competitive? Did you think, "I want to be a writer."
0:10:54 > 0:10:56No, no. But he did encourage me,
0:10:56 > 0:10:59when I found out he'd become a writer,
0:10:59 > 0:11:03and I was out of work and married and just married and my wife was
0:11:03 > 0:11:08pregnant, I thought well, if Harold can do it, why can't I?
0:11:08 > 0:11:10So I started writing.
0:11:10 > 0:11:11And you wrote Wolfit's biography.
0:11:11 > 0:11:17Wolfit left, was it, ?50 in his will. ?50, my boy. A lot of money. ?50.
0:11:17 > 0:11:21And he said, I'm going to leave it but I want you... He didn't tell me.
0:11:21 > 0:11:24I only found out when his will was read.
0:11:24 > 0:11:28And you wrote, um, it's now a bestseller because I made
0:11:28 > 0:11:32everybody in the production of The Dresser... Good man. ..buy a copy.
0:11:32 > 0:11:36It can only be obtained second-hand. But it's really fascinating.
0:11:36 > 0:11:40The life of a touring company and the life of actors.
0:11:40 > 0:11:45It was much more wild and barbarian and gladiatorial than...
0:11:45 > 0:11:50Yes, it was. It was rogues and vagabonds. Yes.
0:11:50 > 0:11:54Queen Victoria did the acting profession a great disservice
0:11:54 > 0:11:58because when she knighted Henry Irving, she decapitated
0:11:58 > 0:12:02the rogues and vagabonds and it was a bad thing, really.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06Well, but Donald Wolfit was knighted, wasn't he?
0:12:06 > 0:12:09Yes, but he had waited a long time. He was very...
0:12:09 > 0:12:13When John Gielgud was arrested for...
0:12:13 > 0:12:16importuning, Donald said,
0:12:16 > 0:12:19"Oh... they'll never knight me now."
0:12:19 > 0:12:22LAUGHTER
0:12:22 > 0:12:27And were there other actors that you worked with
0:12:27 > 0:12:29who fed into the characterisation?
0:12:29 > 0:12:32Well, I tried to use things from ...
0:12:32 > 0:12:36Laurence Olivier asked me that and he calls his wife, in the play,
0:12:36 > 0:12:39Pussy, which Larry called Vivien.
0:12:39 > 0:12:43Yes. Larry was rather pleased, I think.
0:12:43 > 0:12:45And there were other things that I...
0:12:45 > 0:12:50I tried to cobble together... Yes. A composite likeness.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53The fascinating thing to me
0:12:53 > 0:12:56is that it can thrive with
0:12:56 > 0:13:00actors as different as Albert Finney and Anthony Hopkins. I know.
0:13:00 > 0:13:04And the text thrives.
0:13:04 > 0:13:08The first film that Peter Yates made
0:13:08 > 0:13:11was your adaptation. Yes.
0:13:11 > 0:13:12And you took it...
0:13:12 > 0:13:17film producers always say, "We're going to open it out."
0:13:17 > 0:13:20They didn't say that, actually. And I don't ever call it that.
0:13:20 > 0:13:23I call it opening in. Meaning what?
0:13:23 > 0:13:26Meaning that you explore more. Yes.
0:13:26 > 0:13:28Because you have the opportunity of location
0:13:28 > 0:13:31and scenes that you couldn't do in the theatre.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35But there's a glorious scene which I would describe as opening out
0:13:35 > 0:13:38which, when I said to people I'm going to do The Dresser, they said,
0:13:38 > 0:13:42"Oh, will you have that wonderful scene on the station?"
0:13:42 > 0:13:45I know. And we're going to watch that wonderful scene on the station.
0:13:49 > 0:13:50ANNOUNCEMENTS ON TANNOY
0:13:54 > 0:13:57STEAM ENGINE PUFFS
0:14:06 > 0:14:09Please wait, driver. They're very elderly actors.
0:14:09 > 0:14:13We're doing Shakespeare next week at the Alhambra Theatre
0:14:13 > 0:14:14so it's all in a good cause.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17You wouldn't go without us, will you? Sod off!
0:14:17 > 0:14:20WHISTLE BLOWS
0:14:34 > 0:14:36STOP!!
0:14:36 > 0:14:38THAT!!
0:14:38 > 0:14:40TRAIN!!
0:14:40 > 0:14:42SOUND ECHOES
0:14:42 > 0:14:44BRAKES SCREECH
0:14:47 > 0:14:48APPLAUSE
0:14:50 > 0:14:52That is based on a true story.
0:14:52 > 0:14:56It's a wonderful... enviably wonderful scene.
0:14:56 > 0:15:00Well, when Pete and I first talked about the screenplay,
0:15:00 > 0:15:03he said, "Is there somewhere we can expand it?"
0:15:03 > 0:15:06And I told him that story, it is a true story.
0:15:06 > 0:15:10Donald did stop a train at Crewe, "Stop that train!"
0:15:10 > 0:15:12He had a hell of a voice.
0:15:12 > 0:15:16When you heard him in that Lear extract, it is very mild.
0:15:16 > 0:15:22He had a huge booming voice. I can imagine he could stop a train.
0:15:22 > 0:15:24He had this huge chest.
0:15:24 > 0:15:27When I did his biography, I went to see his voice specialist,
0:15:27 > 0:15:29a man called Norman Punt.
0:15:29 > 0:15:33I asked him, "Was there anything special about Donald's voice?"
0:15:33 > 0:15:36He said, the length of his vocal chords.
0:15:36 > 0:15:41Donald had a range from falsetto to basso profundo.
0:15:41 > 0:15:47He had resonance in all parts of the scale.
0:15:47 > 0:15:52Ronnie, having adapted The Dresser, hardly changing...
0:15:52 > 0:15:54Well, I didn't change a line, but it
0:15:54 > 0:16:00made me think a lot about what works on stage and what works on film.
0:16:00 > 0:16:05You have spent a lifetime addressing this subject.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08What's the conclusion?
0:16:08 > 0:16:10What a dreadful question, Richard!
0:16:10 > 0:16:13I don't know if I have any conclusions.
0:16:13 > 0:16:18If a producer... I don't write original films, I write adaptations.
0:16:18 > 0:16:20And why don't you write originals?
0:16:20 > 0:16:23Because I think it is a waste of an idea.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26The director is going to interfere... Forgive me!
0:16:26 > 0:16:27LAUGHTER
0:16:27 > 0:16:30And the producers are going to interfere, don't ask me
0:16:30 > 0:16:34to forgive them! And it is not yours.
0:16:34 > 0:16:39I mean, I know people have great enjoyment from writing films
0:16:39 > 0:16:40but I don't.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43So if I have a good idea, what I think is a good idea,
0:16:43 > 0:16:47it comes to me or overtakes me, I write it as a play, if I can.
0:16:47 > 0:16:52So I have never done an original screenplay.
0:16:52 > 0:16:57But when you translate from one of your plays, or from a novel,
0:16:57 > 0:17:02are you thinking, "I must stop them talking, I must get them out..."?
0:17:02 > 0:17:05Yes, I do. I mean, obviously it is a different medium.
0:17:05 > 0:17:11But I also anticipate the pace of the film in pictures, which is
0:17:11 > 0:17:13not the same as the theatre.
0:17:13 > 0:17:16In the theatre, you can have a long-playing scene.
0:17:16 > 0:17:18Nowadays in movies,
0:17:18 > 0:17:22if you have a scene longer than half a minute you're in dead trouble.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26It is extraordinarily bad history, as so much film history
0:17:26 > 0:17:28and film criticism is,
0:17:28 > 0:17:34because a lot of the great films had very long scenes of dialogue.
0:17:34 > 0:17:36If you look at a Humphrey Bogart. Yes, exactly.
0:17:36 > 0:17:39Casablanca, all of those, they have long dialogue scenes.
0:17:39 > 0:17:42Or, indeed, a Quentin Tarantino film. Yes.
0:17:42 > 0:17:46So it is a sort of odd orthodoxy that has crept in, isn't it?
0:17:46 > 0:17:48It is to do with commercials.
0:17:48 > 0:17:50The cutting rate in a commercial is so severe
0:17:50 > 0:17:54and so quick that they think that is the way to go.
0:17:54 > 0:17:58Ronnie, the first novel, I think,
0:17:58 > 0:18:00the first film adaptation of yours
0:18:00 > 0:18:04was One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich. Yes.
0:18:04 > 0:18:06Which is...
0:18:06 > 0:18:10I don't know what year but your first collaboration with Tom Courtenay.
0:18:10 > 0:18:15Yes... No, he had done a play of mine beforehand, a television play.
0:18:15 > 0:18:17He is my oldest friend now.
0:18:17 > 0:18:23Let me see, it was 1968, I think, somewhere around there,
0:18:23 > 0:18:28when we made the film. What drew you to the subject?
0:18:28 > 0:18:31Well, anti-communism, really.
0:18:31 > 0:18:33Here, there was
0:18:33 > 0:18:37a kind of tacit belief that communism
0:18:37 > 0:18:41was the...lodestar.
0:18:41 > 0:18:43Here? Here, in England. In Europe.
0:18:43 > 0:18:48What period are we talking about? The '60s.
0:18:48 > 0:18:53Just after Stalin, but even with Stalin alive,
0:18:53 > 0:18:54there were people who defended it.
0:18:54 > 0:18:58I had a great friend who was in The Dresser who defended it,
0:18:58 > 0:19:02that was... That was the way.
0:19:02 > 0:19:06They didn't like to show that they weren't
0:19:06 > 0:19:11pledging their allegiance to Stalin, or to that ideal.
0:19:11 > 0:19:14And, you know, he killed more people than Hitler.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17You filmed this in the north of Norway.
0:19:17 > 0:19:19Roros.
0:19:19 > 0:19:23It is on the same latitude as Nome, Alaska. Bloody cold!
0:19:23 > 0:19:28Unusually for you, Ronnie, you were on the set, were you?
0:19:28 > 0:19:30Yes, for two, three nights.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34I just thought it would be lovely to see the midnight sun.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37We had a wonderful cameraman called Sven Nykvist.
0:19:37 > 0:19:40Bergman's cameraman. Bergman's cameraman.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44He was a delightful expert man, great at his job.
0:19:44 > 0:19:51All the actors were old friends and so I sat in their caravans.
0:19:51 > 0:19:53We had doctors on the set, it was...
0:19:53 > 0:19:56That was directed by a theatre director.
0:19:56 > 0:20:00Caspar Wrede. Who was half Norwegian? No, he was Finnish.
0:20:00 > 0:20:05Oh, Finnish? And he worked at the Royal Exchange Theatre
0:20:05 > 0:20:09in Manchester. Yes, he was one of the founders.
0:20:09 > 0:20:14Which is, in fact, the theatre which first presented The Dresser.
0:20:14 > 0:20:20It was, yes. In the round. They had a very nice round theatre.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23Which I don't really like, I am not mad about round theatres.
0:20:23 > 0:20:28But you like anything which puts your plays on?
0:20:28 > 0:20:30Exactly, Richard.
0:20:30 > 0:20:32I couldn't have put it better!
0:20:32 > 0:20:35It was there and Michael Elliott,
0:20:35 > 0:20:38who I thought was one of the best directors of his generation.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41His daughter is a very good director, too. Yes, at the National.
0:20:41 > 0:20:46So I thought, yeah. But he didn't direct it, Caspar directed it.
0:20:46 > 0:20:49Did you get to meet Solzhenitsyn? No.
0:20:49 > 0:20:54Funny thing happened, Caspar and I were in Norway
0:20:54 > 0:21:00for the premiere of the film in Norway... Norwegian, I suppose.
0:21:00 > 0:21:06When we left Oslo, Solzhenitsyn
0:21:06 > 0:21:09escaped from the Soviet Union.
0:21:09 > 0:21:11He was exiled, I think.
0:21:11 > 0:21:15So we just missed him but he wrote a letter to Caspar,
0:21:15 > 0:21:17which I wish I had a copy of,
0:21:17 > 0:21:20in which he used a wonderfully arrogant phrase.
0:21:20 > 0:21:23He said, "You have been true to truth."
0:21:23 > 0:21:25That was his truth, you know.
0:21:25 > 0:21:31So I didn't meet him but we offered him all kinds of hospitality
0:21:31 > 0:21:34if he wanted to come to England, which he didn't.
0:21:34 > 0:21:38He was going around Europe to find out where the best tax deal was.
0:21:38 > 0:21:39LAUGHTER
0:21:39 > 0:21:43That was the reason for his journey before he went to America.
0:21:43 > 0:21:46I don't... And then he hated America.
0:21:46 > 0:21:48But what did he... He saw the film?
0:21:48 > 0:21:50He saw the film, yes. Oh, yes.
0:21:50 > 0:21:52It was in the theatre opposite the hotel.
0:21:52 > 0:21:55Didn't he say, I want more jokes?
0:21:55 > 0:21:59He did and we couldn't find one joke in the whole bloody thing.
0:21:59 > 0:22:03Yes, he did. He said, it's not funny enough. Yes.
0:22:03 > 0:22:07That must have been the humour of the prisoners, you know,
0:22:07 > 0:22:12there's always a slang which we couldn't translate, I suppose.
0:22:12 > 0:22:15But it's not really in the novel, is it?
0:22:15 > 0:22:17Well, apparently, it is. But not in the translation.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20Oh, not in the English version.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24Ronnie, you will respond, people send you novels and say,
0:22:24 > 0:22:28"I want to make a film of this." And you respond or not.
0:22:28 > 0:22:30Yes, if it is in my world I respond.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33If it's something to do with my world.
0:22:33 > 0:22:37There's a brilliant screenplay that you wrote that I'm very
0:22:37 > 0:22:42envious of because it is of a book that I tried to get the rights of.
0:22:42 > 0:22:44It's called The Diving Bell And The Butterfly.
0:22:44 > 0:22:50When it was in French, I tried to get the rights and came within
0:22:50 > 0:22:56a day of securing the rights for a modest amount of money. Gosh.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00And then your producer, Kathleen Kennedy, came in,
0:23:00 > 0:23:03Hollywood came in... Wonderful woman!
0:23:03 > 0:23:06..and I was no longer in the running.
0:23:06 > 0:23:11Anyway, you were asked to adapt this book for a screenplay
0:23:11 > 0:23:14and you found it enormously difficult.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18Well, I had read it five years before I was offered it.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21My wife read it first and said, "Ronnie, you must read this,
0:23:21 > 0:23:23"it is a terrific book."
0:23:23 > 0:23:27And so I did and I thought it was a terrific book. I forgot about it.
0:23:27 > 0:23:32When this came up, when Kathy offered it to me, I thought,
0:23:32 > 0:23:35"Yeah, I will do that. "Of course, it is a wonderful book
0:23:35 > 0:23:39"and it is absolutely a world that I would like to explore."
0:23:39 > 0:23:43When I got to Paris, we had a flat in Paris and I got to Paris,
0:23:43 > 0:23:47opened the book and I thought, "My God, how am I going to do this?"
0:23:47 > 0:23:53You know, it is about a man blinking letter after letter.
0:23:53 > 0:23:55And I had been paid.
0:23:55 > 0:23:58I was on the point of giving them the money back
0:23:58 > 0:24:05but nothing concentrates the mind of a writer more acutely than that.
0:24:05 > 0:24:10I then had this idea that the camera should be the blind man,
0:24:10 > 0:24:12the man with the stroke.
0:24:12 > 0:24:14And I solved it.
0:24:14 > 0:24:18We're going to see a clip which, I think, exemplifies
0:24:18 > 0:24:21your take on the story.
0:24:22 > 0:24:26OK, now, say your name, would you?
0:24:26 > 0:24:28Jean-Dominique Bauby.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31Go ahead, just try. But I said it.
0:24:31 > 0:24:34Try and say your name. Tell me your name.
0:24:34 > 0:24:36Jean-Dominique Bauby.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40Try to say the names of your children.
0:24:40 > 0:24:42Come on.
0:24:42 > 0:24:43Theophile, Celeste, Hortense.
0:24:46 > 0:24:52Don't worry about it. Why? The process is very long.
0:24:52 > 0:24:55But you will speak again.
0:24:55 > 0:24:59What? What did you say? Can't you hear me? Doctor?
0:24:59 > 0:25:01Doc, what is going on?
0:25:01 > 0:25:06You mean, I am not talking? They can't hear me? Oh, my God.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09You mean, I can't speak?
0:25:10 > 0:25:11What happened to me?
0:25:13 > 0:25:16My name is Jean-Dominique Bauby.
0:25:16 > 0:25:17Doc-Doctor? Hey!
0:25:17 > 0:25:18No, all right.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21APPLAUSE
0:25:27 > 0:25:32I think that's...the film is brilliantly written.
0:25:32 > 0:25:37The director, who is a painter called Julian Schnabel...
0:25:37 > 0:25:41Is that what he is? ..is notoriously...
0:25:41 > 0:25:45I mean, film directors, and maybe some theatre directors,
0:25:45 > 0:25:48are appalling for the way in which
0:25:48 > 0:25:51they appropriate all credit to themselves.
0:25:51 > 0:25:54And assisted by the media
0:25:54 > 0:25:57who are very unquestioning about who has done what.
0:25:57 > 0:25:59And they don't know a thing.
0:25:59 > 0:26:04That film, which is about this man who suffered from locked-in syndrome after a car accident,
0:26:04 > 0:26:07essentially what appears on the screen
0:26:07 > 0:26:09is what you wrote in the script? Yes.
0:26:09 > 0:26:14Except he broke the device of seeing it through his eyes
0:26:14 > 0:26:16much earlier than I did in the screenplay.
0:26:16 > 0:26:22And, er, he was... Megalomania takes on a new meaning.
0:26:23 > 0:26:29There is not a definition in any dictionary that describes him.
0:26:29 > 0:26:32Oh, God, he was awful. LAUGHTER
0:26:35 > 0:26:37We've got that. You got that? Did you hear that?
0:26:39 > 0:26:41I just learned to treat it with humour.
0:26:41 > 0:26:44Because his megalomania was beyond belief.
0:26:44 > 0:26:49And he came up to me after a private showing in Paris,
0:26:49 > 0:26:51which my wife and I saw,
0:26:51 > 0:26:54I think there were four people in the cinema, a little cinema,
0:26:54 > 0:26:55and he came up and said,
0:26:55 > 0:26:58"Could I share the screenplay credit with you?"
0:26:58 > 0:27:01I said, "No, you bloody well can't."
0:27:01 > 0:27:04Because I thought it was outrageous.
0:27:04 > 0:27:08And he never acknowledged the concept being mine ever.
0:27:08 > 0:27:12But that's par for the course, Richard. You've probably done that.
0:27:12 > 0:27:13LAUGHTER
0:27:14 > 0:27:18..At the end of this. My Dresser.
0:27:18 > 0:27:24You mentioned a director I admire a great deal, Istvan Szabo...
0:27:24 > 0:27:27Lovely man. ..who made the most wonderful film
0:27:27 > 0:27:31about compromise and art - Mephisto.
0:27:31 > 0:27:36But your quite wonderful film, I think, Taking Sides,
0:27:36 > 0:27:40is a film about moral choice, isn't it?
0:27:40 > 0:27:44He tipped... I have to say I think the play is better.
0:27:44 > 0:27:45No, I agree the play is better,
0:27:45 > 0:27:49but I'm interested in where your fascination...
0:27:49 > 0:27:52Because film after film, play after play,
0:27:52 > 0:27:56you are concerned with people who are in a totalitarian situation,
0:27:56 > 0:28:00or a situation where they have to make a moral choice
0:28:00 > 0:28:06and you are fascinated by the tactics...
0:28:07 > 0:28:11strategies that people adopt to deal with those choices. Yes, I am.
0:28:11 > 0:28:14I am and also I don't like propaganda in films.
0:28:14 > 0:28:17I don't like preaching.
0:28:17 > 0:28:21I like the audience to reach their own conclusions, which they did.
0:28:21 > 0:28:25In several of my plays, they've done that,
0:28:25 > 0:28:30went home and argued, husband and wives parted, all kinds of things.
0:28:30 > 0:28:33But in that film,
0:28:33 > 0:28:38Szabo tipped the balance a bit against Furtwangler.
0:28:38 > 0:28:41In the play, it's... In the play, it's much more even-handed.
0:28:41 > 0:28:46But is this fascination because you grew up under apartheid?
0:28:46 > 0:28:49In a totalitarian... In a totalitarian society.
0:28:49 > 0:28:51I wasn't aware of it, Richard, really.
0:28:51 > 0:28:56I didn't really realise the awfulness of it
0:28:56 > 0:28:57until I came to England.
0:28:57 > 0:29:01You didn't realise that black people and white people had separate lives?
0:29:01 > 0:29:03No, I knew that, we had servants.
0:29:03 > 0:29:06We were very poor and we had a servant.
0:29:06 > 0:29:07Always had a servant.
0:29:09 > 0:29:12I had coloured nannies, as they were...
0:29:12 > 0:29:16Cape Coloureds, which is a racial description.
0:29:16 > 0:29:21So was the fascination then with how you dealt with totalitarianism
0:29:21 > 0:29:24because of your Jewishness? I think so.
0:29:26 > 0:29:29I grew up during the First... the Second World War,
0:29:29 > 0:29:33but the Holocaust dominated my adolescence.
0:29:33 > 0:29:38And it's been with me ever since. That's how I'm made.
0:29:38 > 0:29:42I think all Jews have an awareness of that in them
0:29:42 > 0:29:46because it was a dreadful, dreadful event. I read a lot about it now.
0:29:46 > 0:29:48I write a lot about it now.
0:29:48 > 0:29:51It's haunting, a haunting experience.
0:29:51 > 0:29:56But are you haunted in the sense you think, "What would I have done?"
0:29:56 > 0:29:59Oh, yeah, that's a... You wonder if you could have escaped,
0:29:59 > 0:30:02or if you could have done anything to...
0:30:02 > 0:30:05But it was a massive machine against you.
0:30:05 > 0:30:10One of the reasons I'm fascinated by your subject matter
0:30:10 > 0:30:13is that I'm haunted, being non-Jewish,
0:30:13 > 0:30:19of thinking, "Would I have behaved honourably with my Jewish friends?
0:30:19 > 0:30:21"Would I have taken arms?"
0:30:22 > 0:30:26I can't answer that, that's a difficult question.
0:30:26 > 0:30:27It sometimes obsesses me.
0:30:29 > 0:30:32Which is... When I was running the National Theatre,
0:30:32 > 0:30:37I used to think of Mephisto and the man who was running the theatre
0:30:37 > 0:30:40and the Nazis arrived and said, "You must do this play."
0:30:40 > 0:30:44And I thought, "What would I do when they say...?"
0:30:44 > 0:30:49You are an honourable man, you would have done the honourable thing.
0:30:49 > 0:30:51One of the things...
0:30:51 > 0:30:54We're just going to watch a scene from Taking Sides.
0:30:54 > 0:30:57I watched this play
0:30:57 > 0:31:02and I thought of Furtwangler who was the most wonderful musician
0:31:02 > 0:31:07and I sit there like the rest of the audience and think,
0:31:07 > 0:31:09"I hope I would have behaved better."
0:31:09 > 0:31:12That is precisely what was through my mind when I wrote it.
0:31:12 > 0:31:14I'm glad you said that.
0:31:14 > 0:31:18I can't bear plays that tell you what to think.
0:31:18 > 0:31:20I like plays that leave it open.
0:31:20 > 0:31:22Very few people do that.
0:31:22 > 0:31:26They follow Bernard Shaw really in preaches and lectures.
0:31:26 > 0:31:30But the film did make judgments, didn't it?
0:31:30 > 0:31:31The film did,
0:31:31 > 0:31:35and the end particularly, when he wipes his hands.
0:31:35 > 0:31:39It persuaded you to think that he was a bad man.
0:31:39 > 0:31:42Yes, or that he felt his own guilt.
0:31:42 > 0:31:43But I don't think he did.
0:31:45 > 0:31:50His wife came to see it, his widow, who I didn't know was still alive.
0:31:50 > 0:31:52I got the shock of my life.
0:31:52 > 0:31:55They said, "Frau Furtwangler is in the audience tonight."
0:31:55 > 0:31:58I thought, "Oh, Christ!"
0:31:58 > 0:32:02And she was delightful. She was absolutely enchanting.
0:32:02 > 0:32:06She went round to see Daniel Massey who played it in the play.
0:32:06 > 0:32:11And she said... He had a slightly unctuous, Etonian manner...
0:32:11 > 0:32:15bowed a lot and kissed hands and things.
0:32:15 > 0:32:18And he said to her, "Have you any suggestions?"
0:32:21 > 0:32:23She said, "I have two criticisms."
0:32:23 > 0:32:25He said, "Yes, yes, what are they?"
0:32:25 > 0:32:28"Wilhelm did not have so much hair here."
0:32:29 > 0:32:33He said, "I will talk to the wig maker. What was the other one?"
0:32:33 > 0:32:38She said, "Um, Wilhelm's... Your lips are not quite right.
0:32:38 > 0:32:40"Wilhelm had different lips."
0:32:40 > 0:32:45He said, "I don't what I can do about that." Did you know Dan?
0:32:45 > 0:32:48I did. He was a lovely man.
0:32:48 > 0:32:50And then he did it in New York as well.
0:32:53 > 0:32:56She then went round seeing productions of the play in German
0:32:56 > 0:32:59and she would always sit with the Furtwanglers,
0:32:59 > 0:33:02sometimes with her arms through his arms.
0:33:02 > 0:33:03She was a very beautiful woman.
0:33:03 > 0:33:06And give notes to all the Furtwanglers.
0:33:06 > 0:33:09I don't think she gave notes, but she liked being near them.
0:33:09 > 0:33:15There's a wonderful actor, Stellan Skarsgard, in the film
0:33:15 > 0:33:17and we are going to see a clip
0:33:17 > 0:33:23which has him as Furtwangler arguing his case.
0:33:23 > 0:33:28I've always believed that you have to fight from the inside.
0:33:28 > 0:33:30Not from without. I ask myself,
0:33:30 > 0:33:34"What is the duty of an artist - to stay or to leave?"
0:33:34 > 0:33:36Then Goebbels demanded
0:33:36 > 0:33:40that I acknowledge Hitler as solely responsible for cultural policy.
0:33:40 > 0:33:42Well, that was a fact.
0:33:42 > 0:33:47It seemed pointless to deny. I simply acknowledged that Hitler,
0:33:47 > 0:33:49and the Minister of Culture appointed by him,
0:33:49 > 0:33:52were solely responsible for the culture and policy of the Reich.
0:33:52 > 0:33:54What I wanted to express was that I, personally,
0:33:54 > 0:33:57had no responsibility whatsoever for their cultural policy.
0:33:59 > 0:34:02I've always held the view that art and politics
0:34:02 > 0:34:03should have nothing to do with each other.
0:34:03 > 0:34:06Then why did you conduct at one of their Nuremberg rallies?
0:34:06 > 0:34:08I did not conduct at the rally.
0:34:10 > 0:34:14I conducted on the evening before the rally.
0:34:14 > 0:34:17That sounds like the small print
0:34:17 > 0:34:19on one of our insurance policies, Wilhelm.
0:34:19 > 0:34:21What about April 19, 1942?
0:34:22 > 0:34:26The eve of Hitler's 53rd birthday, the big celebration?
0:34:26 > 0:34:28You conducted for Hitler, didn't you?
0:34:28 > 0:34:31Was that in keeping with your view
0:34:31 > 0:34:34that art and politics have nothing to do with each other?
0:34:34 > 0:34:37That... That was a different matter.
0:34:37 > 0:34:39I was tricked. How come?
0:34:41 > 0:34:43Can I have a glass of water please?
0:34:43 > 0:34:46APPLAUSE
0:34:48 > 0:34:51Where did you get the idea for Taking Sides?
0:34:51 > 0:34:54Let's see. Um...
0:34:54 > 0:35:00I think I was somewhere abroad, my wife brought over a few books
0:35:00 > 0:35:05and one of them was a book that Bernard Levin had written
0:35:05 > 0:35:11which contained a piece on Furtwangler and I became intrigued.
0:35:11 > 0:35:14I love those dilemmas, those moral dilemmas
0:35:14 > 0:35:16and I like writing about them.
0:35:16 > 0:35:19So when I got back to London,
0:35:19 > 0:35:24I went to a bookstore and got the Devil's Musician...
0:35:25 > 0:35:31the Devil's Maestro I think it's called by a Japanese American.
0:35:31 > 0:35:34It was a full scale biography.
0:35:34 > 0:35:39I then looked up the various transcripts of the trial.
0:35:39 > 0:35:42But there is no record of the interrogation
0:35:42 > 0:35:45by the Harvey Keitel character?
0:35:45 > 0:35:48Is he your fiction?
0:35:48 > 0:35:52I made him up, yes. There is no record of him.
0:35:52 > 0:35:57The Americans were determined to get the top guys in every profession
0:35:57 > 0:36:02and Furtwangler was the top man in music and they went for him.
0:36:02 > 0:36:08They didn't win. It was left, sort of, blank.
0:36:08 > 0:36:12And were you tempted also to write about Karajan
0:36:12 > 0:36:14who has a sort of...?
0:36:14 > 0:36:16Well, he's too black and white.
0:36:16 > 0:36:19He was a Nazi, he joined the Nazi party twice.
0:36:19 > 0:36:22The first thing he did when he was de-Nazified in Vienna
0:36:22 > 0:36:24was to employ a Jewish secretary.
0:36:24 > 0:36:27Forget it. You know exactly where he stands.
0:36:27 > 0:36:30No, no, I was not interested in von Karajan.
0:36:30 > 0:36:32And I didn't like his conducting either.
0:36:32 > 0:36:36LAUGHTER
0:36:36 > 0:36:43That's like a friend of mine who objected to Kissinger
0:36:43 > 0:36:46and when I said is it because of the bombing of Cambodia?
0:36:46 > 0:36:48And she said, "No, it's not,
0:36:48 > 0:36:51"it's because he doesn't sign his own Christmas cards."
0:36:52 > 0:36:57What a grand thing to say. Well, she was very grand.
0:36:57 > 0:37:05So this speculation about art and morality is-is...
0:37:05 > 0:37:09is a line that goes through all through your work.
0:37:09 > 0:37:13Yes, you see, Richard, when I got to England,
0:37:13 > 0:37:16when I became a writer in 1960,
0:37:16 > 0:37:19it was just the time of the change
0:37:19 > 0:37:22when social writing became the dominant thing.
0:37:22 > 0:37:23You had to write about class.
0:37:23 > 0:37:23You had to write about class.
0:37:23 > 0:37:26Well, I didn't know anything about the English class system,
0:37:26 > 0:37:29it wasn't part of my upbringing,
0:37:29 > 0:37:30I didn't go to school here,
0:37:30 > 0:37:33I didn't do anything here except study at RADA for a year
0:37:33 > 0:37:40which didn't qualify me to write about the social scene in England.
0:37:40 > 0:37:45There was Osborne, Wesker, all those people writing about England
0:37:45 > 0:37:51and about the class structure, that was the main thrust of their plays.
0:37:51 > 0:37:53I thought, "I can't deal with that.
0:37:53 > 0:37:55"I would love to write for the theatre,
0:37:55 > 0:37:57"but I wouldn't be able to do that."
0:37:57 > 0:37:59So I wrote novels.
0:37:59 > 0:38:02And eventually, with The Dresser,
0:38:02 > 0:38:09it was the first time I was able to write a play about what I knew,
0:38:09 > 0:38:15which was then acceptable in that period, er, 1980.
0:38:15 > 0:38:20But music has been... I would have loved to have been a musician.
0:38:20 > 0:38:24No talent at all, but I would love to have been a conductor.
0:38:24 > 0:38:28Just imagine raising your hands and 120 people doing your bidding.
0:38:28 > 0:38:32It would be wonderful. But I have no talent for it.
0:38:32 > 0:38:35I have appreciation for it, but no talent.
0:38:35 > 0:38:39As a child, did you listen to music? All the time.
0:38:39 > 0:38:44I used to conduct to a radiogram which my sister bought us.
0:38:44 > 0:38:51I used to have proper concerts - an overture, a symphony,
0:38:51 > 0:38:53an intermezzo, whatever.
0:38:53 > 0:38:55And I could stand with my mother's knitting needle
0:38:55 > 0:38:59in the little lounge we had and I'd conduct.
0:39:02 > 0:39:06And do you think music is...does it have a healing...?
0:39:06 > 0:39:10For me it does. But, also, it is universal.
0:39:10 > 0:39:15You don't have to have a language apart from listening to the music.
0:39:15 > 0:39:18And I think that's an admirable quality.
0:39:18 > 0:39:24But don't you find the oddness of this sublime music
0:39:24 > 0:39:29and sometimes the context and the people who are playing it
0:39:29 > 0:39:31are monsters.
0:39:31 > 0:39:38I'm always haunted by the image of Schubert's quintet being played
0:39:39 > 0:39:45in one of the camps. Yeah. At the insistence of the camp commandant.
0:39:45 > 0:39:51Hoess. So how do you parse that equation?
0:39:51 > 0:39:55There is no par... There is no solving that.
0:39:55 > 0:39:59I mean, Hoess, who was the commandant of Auschwitz,
0:39:59 > 0:40:03who I have just written about, was, um...
0:40:03 > 0:40:06when he had a bad day,
0:40:06 > 0:40:09when they did not meet the quota of Jews they had to kill,
0:40:09 > 0:40:12he went and listened to music for soothing,
0:40:12 > 0:40:13which is what it's for.
0:40:13 > 0:40:19Music is a soothing... It soothes the jagged nerves.
0:40:19 > 0:40:23But you and I would argue that music has an inherent humanity,
0:40:23 > 0:40:26a human... We certainly would.
0:40:26 > 0:40:29But clearly, it doesn't.
0:40:29 > 0:40:34But the divorce in Nazi Germany between humanity and murder
0:40:34 > 0:40:40is so difficult to penetrate why they believed those...
0:40:40 > 0:40:43This was the most cultured nation in Europe.
0:40:43 > 0:40:50And yet they destroyed their nation with anti-Semitism. Yes.
0:40:50 > 0:40:56You won an Oscar... We don't pay any attention to these things of course.
0:40:56 > 0:40:58Oh, yes, I remember that.
0:40:58 > 0:41:05..for your screenplay for The Pianist. I did.
0:41:05 > 0:41:08This combines the two subjects we have been talking about -
0:41:08 > 0:41:12the Holocaust and... Music. ..and music.
0:41:12 > 0:41:14And we're going to see a clip.
0:41:16 > 0:41:18Halina? What?
0:41:21 > 0:41:23It's a funny time to say this.
0:41:23 > 0:41:26What?
0:41:26 > 0:41:27I wish I knew you better.
0:41:32 > 0:41:33Thank you.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38SHOUTING IN GERMAN
0:41:50 > 0:41:51Szpilman!
0:41:51 > 0:41:54Szpilman.
0:41:59 > 0:42:00HE GRUNTS AND WHISPERS
0:42:02 > 0:42:04Papa, Papa!
0:42:09 > 0:42:11Halina.
0:42:12 > 0:42:15What do you think you're doing, Szpilman?
0:42:15 > 0:42:17I've saved your life. Now get out, just go!
0:42:17 > 0:42:18Go!
0:42:21 > 0:42:24Don't run.
0:42:24 > 0:42:26APPLAUSE
0:42:29 > 0:42:34Tell me about... That scene isn't quite as you wrote it, is it?
0:42:34 > 0:42:40No, I wrote, obviously, the setting and I had him run off.
0:42:40 > 0:42:42And Roman said to me,
0:42:42 > 0:42:45"No, why don't we do what happened to me?"
0:42:45 > 0:42:49A man... When he was pushed under the wire of the Krakow Ghetto,
0:42:49 > 0:42:53a man said to him, "Don't run, walk."
0:42:53 > 0:42:55I thought, "God, I would never invent that,
0:42:55 > 0:42:58"that seems to me impossible." And we did that.
0:42:58 > 0:43:02That's the change in the scene and it works very well, I think.
0:43:02 > 0:43:04Ronnie, what fascinates me,
0:43:04 > 0:43:08you wrote...you fleshed out this quite
0:43:08 > 0:43:13thinly written autobiography into a very rich script,
0:43:13 > 0:43:18presented it to Polanski who said, "Terrific, now we start work."
0:43:18 > 0:43:22Yes, he did, the rotten sod.
0:43:22 > 0:43:25He did. And what did that mean? Your heart sank?
0:43:25 > 0:43:27Well, we spent five weeks together,
0:43:27 > 0:43:33he took a house somewhere in France, with his children.
0:43:33 > 0:43:36His wife was working in Paris.
0:43:36 > 0:43:40We sat down, we had a housekeeper and we worked every day.
0:43:40 > 0:43:44Roman is meticulous about the stage directions.
0:43:44 > 0:43:46He doesn't like anything like,
0:43:46 > 0:43:48"camera goes in, zooms in, zooms out."
0:43:48 > 0:43:52And, I tell you, if I put, "Close shot, Richard Eyre,"
0:43:52 > 0:43:55it'd be shot from half a mile away. Yes.
0:43:55 > 0:44:01He doesn't look at that. He taught me someone wonderful things.
0:44:01 > 0:44:03I used to put in "fade in" at the beginning,
0:44:03 > 0:44:05which is a sort of convention.
0:44:05 > 0:44:08He said, "What's this?" I said, "Roman, it's a convention."
0:44:08 > 0:44:13He says, "This meaningless, cut it." So I cut it, I never use it now.
0:44:13 > 0:44:17But the little that I've done of film adaptation,
0:44:17 > 0:44:22you write a stage direction and all the crew read this
0:44:22 > 0:44:28as if this is instructions. So if you put, "There is a glass on the table,"
0:44:28 > 0:44:31if you describe the glass, that glass will appear.
0:44:31 > 0:44:33That book will appear, the colour of wall will appear.
0:44:33 > 0:44:39Exactly, the property masters in films are sensational. Yes.
0:44:39 > 0:44:42And they come and check all the time, "Is this what you wanted?"
0:44:42 > 0:44:45"Is that what you wanted?" They're brilliant. Wonderful people.
0:44:45 > 0:44:51But...five weeks, what did you do all day? Because he didn't...
0:44:51 > 0:44:53I'm not telling you.
0:44:53 > 0:44:54LAUGHTER
0:44:54 > 0:44:57He didn't say, "Ronnie, this line is no good."
0:44:57 > 0:45:00We'd sit at a round table he had in -
0:45:00 > 0:45:02or the person whose house he was renting had -
0:45:02 > 0:45:05and we'd go through it page by page.
0:45:05 > 0:45:10And he had a strange memory, Roman Polanski.
0:45:10 > 0:45:15Because he was a tiny boy in the Krakow Ghetto,
0:45:15 > 0:45:19he knew every belt and the buckle
0:45:19 > 0:45:21of all the German units.
0:45:22 > 0:45:27And so he got the costume department to fax him what they wanted,
0:45:27 > 0:45:30or if they suggested it, and he'd send it back.
0:45:30 > 0:45:33He'd say, "That's not the belt, that's the belt of the police.
0:45:33 > 0:45:36"I want the belt of the Ghetto," or whatever.
0:45:36 > 0:45:42And would he make you put that in the script? No, he wouldn't.
0:45:42 > 0:45:46Once he's given his orders, he trusts that.
0:45:46 > 0:45:50So he didn't change any of the dialogue?
0:45:50 > 0:45:51Well, no, don't think he did much.
0:45:51 > 0:45:53And when he was shooting?
0:45:55 > 0:45:57Well, I don't think so, no.
0:45:57 > 0:46:03Once it got onto the floor, that was it, he locked it. And...
0:46:03 > 0:46:06You know, I once said to him, he speaks five languages,
0:46:06 > 0:46:10"Roman," I said, "actually you speak six because the sixth is film."
0:46:10 > 0:46:13He just knows it.
0:46:13 > 0:46:17He's never stuck for where to put the camera or how to move
0:46:17 > 0:46:23or whatever. He's a fascinating man. He's a very engaging companion.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26And you did Dickens. You did Oliver Twist.
0:46:26 > 0:46:30Oliver Twist, which he said one day will be a classic.
0:46:30 > 0:46:34I think more people saw it in Poland than saw it in America.
0:46:34 > 0:46:37I've never seen it. No. He did it very well.
0:46:37 > 0:46:39He did it for funny reasons.
0:46:39 > 0:46:43Because he was reading it to his children in French
0:46:43 > 0:46:46and they were enchanted by it and so he thought,
0:46:46 > 0:46:48"We'll make a film of it."
0:46:48 > 0:46:53The other play that you wrote, it's about theatre or opera
0:46:53 > 0:46:57or singers and mortality is, of course, Quartet.
0:46:57 > 0:47:01Well, it had very, very bad reviews when it was first done in London.
0:47:01 > 0:47:06Really? Oh, very bad. Oh, I remember it as rather successful. No.
0:47:06 > 0:47:09No. Michael... What was he called?
0:47:09 > 0:47:12Michael Coveney. Coveney. Coventry.
0:47:12 > 0:47:16Whatever his name was. No-one remembers him now.
0:47:16 > 0:47:18LAUGHTER
0:47:18 > 0:47:22He gave it three bad reviews on the same day.
0:47:22 > 0:47:25Which was quite excessive, I thought.
0:47:25 > 0:47:27I wonder what's happened to him. LAUGHTER
0:47:27 > 0:47:30Ronnie, how do you deal with critics?
0:47:31 > 0:47:33I try not to.
0:47:33 > 0:47:36But I get very upset if I get a bad review, of course you do.
0:47:36 > 0:47:38I get depressed.
0:47:38 > 0:47:42You work like hell, you put on a play and they dismiss it.
0:47:42 > 0:47:46When you think of those reviews and, of course,
0:47:46 > 0:47:50we all remember the bad ones. The bad ones, yes, exactly.
0:47:50 > 0:47:54They're etched into our soul but do you ever think,
0:47:54 > 0:47:57"Actually, they were right or half right"?
0:47:57 > 0:47:59I wouldn't dare think that.
0:47:59 > 0:48:01No, I don't, I don't.
0:48:01 > 0:48:06I have a play that I loved called Mahler's Conversion. Yes. Yes, yes.
0:48:06 > 0:48:09About Gustav Mahler. And I loved it.
0:48:09 > 0:48:12It got terrible reviews, really awful.
0:48:12 > 0:48:14With my cousin Antony Sher in it.
0:48:15 > 0:48:20And it came off after four weeks, five weeks - five weeks
0:48:20 > 0:48:24at the Aldwych Theatre. I was heartbroken about that.
0:48:25 > 0:48:28You just have to put up with it. Yes.
0:48:28 > 0:48:33Well, that kind of stoicism is what comes across in the film
0:48:33 > 0:48:35of Quartet, the play and the film of Quartet.
0:48:35 > 0:48:39We can see a clip in which Maggie Smith,
0:48:39 > 0:48:46a soprano, is being persuaded to appear in public again.
0:48:48 > 0:48:49My gift deserted me.
0:48:49 > 0:48:54It has left us all, Jean, it is called life. Oh, my darling,
0:48:54 > 0:48:58old age is not for sissies. No.
0:48:58 > 0:49:04Jean? Let go. What's it matter now what anyone says or thinks?
0:49:04 > 0:49:08You might even enjoy it. You telling me to go out and smell the roses?
0:49:08 > 0:49:09No, I'm telling you to sing.
0:49:09 > 0:49:12The roses are long gone but the chrysanthemums are magnificent.
0:49:12 > 0:49:14They certainly are, Cissy.
0:49:14 > 0:49:17Jean, if you say yes, Cedric will give us
0:49:17 > 0:49:20the finale instead of Anne Langley.
0:49:20 > 0:49:22Anne Langley? Yes.
0:49:22 > 0:49:23Yes, she wanted to sing Violetta
0:49:23 > 0:49:26and she was, of course, a very fine Violetta.
0:49:26 > 0:49:28Oh, pull yourself together, Cissy.
0:49:28 > 0:49:31Violetta's supposed to be dying of tuberculosis.
0:49:31 > 0:49:33She sounded as if she was singing Falstaff.
0:49:33 > 0:49:34Well, she's singing Tosca now.
0:49:40 > 0:49:43Over my dead body.
0:49:43 > 0:49:46APPLAUSE Oh, lovely, lovely. Lovely.
0:49:48 > 0:49:53Well, we're watching with some affection, our mutual friend
0:49:53 > 0:49:58Maggie Smith giving one of her constant exemplary performances.
0:49:58 > 0:50:00Oh, she's extraordinary.
0:50:00 > 0:50:06Ronnie, if you say the play was not a success, Quartet,
0:50:06 > 0:50:10but it was a rather successful film. It was, in certain countries.
0:50:10 > 0:50:14In Australia it was a humdinger.
0:50:14 > 0:50:16Here it did well.
0:50:16 > 0:50:19It did well in the States. Quite well. Quite well.
0:50:19 > 0:50:23But tell me how Dustin Hoffman came to direct it.
0:50:23 > 0:50:25Well, we couldn't find a director.
0:50:25 > 0:50:27LAUGHTER
0:50:27 > 0:50:29And I'm not sure we found one.
0:50:29 > 0:50:31Well, yes, we did. LAUGHTER
0:50:31 > 0:50:32Shh!
0:50:32 > 0:50:35Is anybody listening?
0:50:35 > 0:50:40No, Dustin came in because the producer had worked with
0:50:40 > 0:50:43an editor who'd just worked with him and he said to them,
0:50:43 > 0:50:47Dustin had said to the editor, "If you ever hear of a film
0:50:47 > 0:50:49"that needs a director, I'd like to do it."
0:50:49 > 0:50:52And that's how he came onboard.
0:50:52 > 0:50:56And he was enchanting to me. And enchanting to the actors.
0:50:56 > 0:51:00Oh, the actors adored him. Maggie and Tom absolutely adored him.
0:51:00 > 0:51:02Yes, yes.
0:51:02 > 0:51:05I have read you being questioned about this, you know,
0:51:05 > 0:51:10how a first-time director could make a successful film of your work.
0:51:10 > 0:51:12The answer you gave,
0:51:12 > 0:51:17"Well, well, directing is easy, what's the problem?"
0:51:17 > 0:51:19Yeah... Did I say that? Yes, you did say that.
0:51:21 > 0:51:23Well, I would say... Quite...
0:51:23 > 0:51:29I'd say the opposite but I would say writing is harder. Well...
0:51:29 > 0:51:31You spend a lot of time...
0:51:31 > 0:51:35The adaptation of a play to a film is quite difficult because you
0:51:35 > 0:51:40have to abandon the play in some ways and rethink it in visual terms.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43That's what you have to do.
0:51:43 > 0:51:46So you get a little bit tense when the director says,
0:51:46 > 0:51:48"Do we need that scene?"
0:51:48 > 0:51:52Yes. Dustin was very...
0:51:52 > 0:51:55frank with his views.
0:51:55 > 0:51:57So was it quite a combative relationship?
0:51:57 > 0:51:59No, no, we had a very good relationship
0:51:59 > 0:52:01until they went on the floor. Right.
0:52:02 > 0:52:04But do you think...
0:52:06 > 0:52:10Do you ever sympathise for the position of a director who is...?
0:52:10 > 0:52:11Very seldom.
0:52:11 > 0:52:16HE LAUGHS HEARTILY
0:52:16 > 0:52:21Have you ever, apart from Julian Schnabel, who clearly was...
0:52:21 > 0:52:27Well, he was a lunatic. Yes, but do you fight
0:52:27 > 0:52:30in a constructive way with Polanski, for instance?
0:52:30 > 0:52:34No, because we spent all that time together thrashing those
0:52:34 > 0:52:39things out and once we'd got the script, he locked it in.
0:52:39 > 0:52:42So I would say the point of all that was that he was trying to
0:52:42 > 0:52:47get into his head exactly what it was that you wanted.
0:52:47 > 0:52:49Well, I don't think that's exactly true. No?
0:52:49 > 0:52:52No, I think it's what he wanted.
0:52:52 > 0:52:57But presumably if he takes all that time, it must be marrying what
0:52:57 > 0:53:05he sees in his head with what you see in your head. Perhaps that's true.
0:53:05 > 0:53:08He's a great delight to work with.
0:53:08 > 0:53:13I mean, he's generous, he has very little ego. I mean, of that kind.
0:53:13 > 0:53:16Yes. He doesn't push himself at all
0:53:16 > 0:53:21because he knows he's very good and he does understand movies.
0:53:21 > 0:53:25But what I find sometimes distressing in film
0:53:25 > 0:53:29and when film is talked about is the incredible
0:53:29 > 0:53:35ignorance of journalists and public about how a film gets made.
0:53:35 > 0:53:38Well, they don't understand the writer's role at all.
0:53:38 > 0:53:42And the writer's really shuffled into the wings.
0:53:42 > 0:53:46I mean, deep in the wings, in the shadows.
0:53:46 > 0:53:51They only think there's a director, journalists.
0:53:51 > 0:53:56There's sort of yards of material that are taken.
0:53:56 > 0:53:58I'll have...I'll have
0:53:58 > 0:54:03three yards of that and I'll have another two yards of that.
0:54:03 > 0:54:05Six inches of that.
0:54:05 > 0:54:09Have you ever worked as a rewriter?
0:54:10 > 0:54:15Didn't you do a bit of rewriting on Australia? No, I started the script.
0:54:15 > 0:54:17Oh, did you?
0:54:17 > 0:54:20Yeah, he did a bit of rewriting when he went back to Australia.
0:54:20 > 0:54:22Baz did? Baz did.
0:54:22 > 0:54:25And he turned it into a dreadful film, I think.
0:54:25 > 0:54:26LAUGHTER
0:54:26 > 0:54:31I mean, it's really awful and I thought Nicole Kidman was appalling.
0:54:31 > 0:54:33Absolutely appalling.
0:54:33 > 0:54:37So, Ronnie, you wrote the first script from a book.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40No, from Baz's treatment, I think.
0:54:40 > 0:54:41Right.
0:54:41 > 0:54:44And I needed the money, you know, that's no shame.
0:54:44 > 0:54:46And they paid me very well.
0:54:46 > 0:54:50Good, good. You don't write treatments, do you? No, no.
0:54:50 > 0:54:53I mean, they seem to me completely pointless.
0:54:53 > 0:54:58Well, you write out the story... You write out of yourself the story.
0:54:58 > 0:55:02Then the trouble is that the producer reads the treatment and says,
0:55:02 > 0:55:05"Go away, write the script," and then says,
0:55:05 > 0:55:09"No, no, that's not what I meant at all." I know. Absolutely.
0:55:09 > 0:55:13Because the treatment allows people to fantasise that they can
0:55:13 > 0:55:15write their own screenplay.
0:55:15 > 0:55:19That's true. But I guess that's why, in the end,
0:55:19 > 0:55:21you've come back to the theatre.
0:55:21 > 0:55:22I love the theatre.
0:55:22 > 0:55:26Because everyone in a theatre is aware that the event is only
0:55:26 > 0:55:31happening because somebody has written something down. Yeah.
0:55:31 > 0:55:33Well, the English theatre, the British theatre,
0:55:33 > 0:55:36is so loyal to the playwright. Yup.
0:55:36 > 0:55:38You know, we have it in our contracts
0:55:38 > 0:55:41that you have to have casting approval.
0:55:41 > 0:55:44That's an extraordinary gift. Yeah.
0:55:44 > 0:55:48So I love the English theatre, always loved it.
0:55:48 > 0:55:51But you've got a play opening not in the English theatre
0:55:51 > 0:55:53but opening in Berlin.
0:55:53 > 0:55:56I'm going out for it. And this play is, what?
0:55:56 > 0:56:00Well, there was a case in the English newspapers all over
0:56:00 > 0:56:04the world, actually, about a man called Gurlitt who had...
0:56:04 > 0:56:11They found 2,500 masterpieces in his two flats in Salzburg and Munich.
0:56:11 > 0:56:13Paintings, yeah.
0:56:13 > 0:56:20By Picasso, by Matisse, Manet, Monet, anybody - and sculptures.
0:56:20 > 0:56:24An extraordinary horde. I was fascinated by it.
0:56:24 > 0:56:27His father had been a director of an art museum
0:56:27 > 0:56:30and then they found out his grandmother was Jewish
0:56:30 > 0:56:34when the Nazis came to power and he was stopped.
0:56:34 > 0:56:37And then the Nazis had an exhibition of something
0:56:37 > 0:56:41they called "degenerate art," which was, really, Jewish art
0:56:41 > 0:56:46or avant-garde art of some kind. Picasso was included.
0:56:46 > 0:56:50Communists. And...
0:56:50 > 0:56:5350,000 people came to that exhibition.
0:56:53 > 0:56:58When the Germans put on German art, 5,000 people came.
0:56:58 > 0:57:02Now Goebbels was not an unintelligent man
0:57:02 > 0:57:06and he thought to himself, "We've got a war to fight,
0:57:06 > 0:57:09Jews to kill, God, we need money."
0:57:09 > 0:57:12And so he appointed my man's father,
0:57:13 > 0:57:16Cornelius Gurlitt... Hildebrand Gillett,
0:57:16 > 0:57:21to go to France and sell these things at auction.
0:57:22 > 0:57:25Well, Hildebrand did that but he also kept a few.
0:57:25 > 0:57:29Ronnie, this play is opening at Renaissance-Theater in Berlin.
0:57:29 > 0:57:31Exactly. But is it in German? Yeah.
0:57:31 > 0:57:34So it's been translated by somebody who's done your work before?
0:57:34 > 0:57:35Yeah, I think so, yes.
0:57:35 > 0:57:37But when are we going to see it in English?
0:57:37 > 0:57:40Well, when a theatre wants to do it.
0:57:40 > 0:57:44I'm not very popular in England, you know, my plays are not very popular.
0:57:44 > 0:57:48Ronnie, there's never a time when there isn't a Harwood...
0:57:48 > 0:57:54No, this is absolute nonsense. I was never done at the National Theatre.
0:57:54 > 0:57:57I've never been done at the National Theatre.
0:57:57 > 0:58:00AUDIENCE MURMURS AND LAUGHS I know. I'm sorry about that. I know.
0:58:00 > 0:58:03I thought I'd get that in. Yes.
0:58:03 > 0:58:05The shame, the shame.
0:58:05 > 0:58:08Well, I don't mind now, Richard, I did mind then.
0:58:08 > 0:58:10And I was rude to you.
0:58:10 > 0:58:12Directing The Dresser was my way of making up for it.
0:58:12 > 0:58:15Well, you did make it up to me, you did it beautifully.
0:58:15 > 0:58:16Thank you, Ronnie.
0:58:16 > 0:58:19I wanted to just say thank you very much, Ronnie. Thank you, Richard.
0:58:19 > 0:58:22It's been such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you.
0:58:22 > 0:58:25APPLAUSE