Episode 13 The Culture Show

Welcome to the Culture Show. This week we are coming from BBC

Scotland's building in Glasgow. Whether you are in the mood for

Murakami or monkey movies, a splendid slice of art or some

British watercolours, whether you'd kill for a new series of The

Killing, or crave some creepy music - stay with us. Coming up, art to

cause outrage. Cult TV, as The Killing comes back to the box. Val

McDermid meets its star, Sofie Grabol. Seminal fiction. A

philosopher on 1984, the novel that inspired the latest work by Haruki

Murakami. And spine-tingling buildings. We check out Aurora

Orchestra's latest offering. Also, psychologist at Philippa Perry

gives her verdict on primate Cinema. Mark Kermode takes a look at Martin

Scorsese's tribute to George Harrison, with a little help from

his friend, Jools Holland. I explore the very brilliant and very

underrated art of the late Edward Burra. And passionate people tell

us about the buildings they think believe -- deserve a heritage Angel

He has taken inspiration from pretty much everybody, ranging from

Picasso to Velazquez. His admirers call him the artist's artist. He

calls himself a psychological Cubist. On the occasion of his

first major retrospective at the Hayward Gallery, Alastair went to

meet him. When his painting appeared on the sleeve of the

rapper Kanye West's last album cover, it caused a bit of a stir. A

strange, demonic looking west was shown with a bushy-tailed wind

woman, a gruesome twosome with a terrible teeth. The artist behind a

provocative Hopman Cup was George condo. He's one of the most

distinctive painters of his generation. Over the past three

decades he has produced a body of work that combines traditional

techniques with distinctly contemporary sensibility. His

paintings are dark and disturbing, often nightmarishly --

nightmarishly Savage. But they are also surprisingly funny. It's all

quite a mind-bending and unruly makes. Mental states offers a mid-

career vet prospective of this intriguing artist. The exhibition

contains more than 30 paintings, and some of the lesser known

sculptural works. I was keen to meet him and find out what

influenced him to come up with his crazy cast of characters. What I

wanted to ask you is it when I look at your work I sometimes worry for

your mental health. Have a look at this stuff up. They're all these

demented creatures. Are they imaginary, they must be! They are.

The most demented portraits are usually done when I'm feeling

pretty relaxed. And that is also the time when I can reflect on what

I see and think about the world around me. Why have you always

decided not to work from life? These are all imaginary creations.

What is wrong with painting a model, someone in front of you?

obviously had to do that numerous times over. But the models are not

necessarily the character you want to paint. Unless I were to find a

woman that looked just like that and go out on the street and say,

hey, would you mind coming into the studio and letting the pain to fora

a few hours? I don't want to do that. It's quite unlikely you will

encounter anyone who looks quite He emerged on to the downtown New

York scene in the early 80s. He had a brief stint at Andy Warhol's

factory, working as a silkscreen printer. Struggling to find his

artistic voice, in 1985 he moved to Paris where he immersed himself in

the paint -- painting techniques of the old masters. His early works

mix the old and the new, a hybrid style he described as artificial

realism. He returned to New York in the mid- 90s and developed his pin

headed portrait technique. He dubbed them his part people. They

start to be able to take on any roles in human life and existence.

In this case, that particular moment in time, 2002, was right

after 9/11. The stock market and everything just was completely

crushing all over the world. I needed to paint something that

reflected that pathetic... Sort of situation that everybody was in.

it fair to say that part of the reason you are so drawn to

deformity and anatomical distortion and extremity is for social reasons,

it's a social comment? Yes. It is a lot to do with the idea of how do

these people feel? Not exactly how do they look, but this is the way

they feel, the inside is on the outside. Not what do they look like

in the mirror, but what are they projecting as a person? This is the

executive. It's another instance of where the unattainable is always

dangling in front of him. I feel very sorry for this man. Those eyes

are lusting after the carrot. You have the strange, distorted anatomy

but that the eyes are so sorrowful. The eyes are very realistic. That

was the switch in the paintings, from 96, 97, they had those big

discs for eyes. Then I suddenly started to turn them more and more

into humans. I at the other end of the spectrum you've got something

which is clearly inspired by a comic book. Here is Batman. This is

kind of the fall of the super hero. This is the manic side, the

flipside of some of the paintings in the other room. She's got one

blue eye, it has a sort of pop out, its cartoon-like. She is missing a

tooth. The other one is a sort of brown eyed. You can almost see the

good old days when she maybe could have been a Playboy bunny, if she

ever were a Playboy bunny. I don't know what could she would have been

On rare occasions he sometimes paints real people. His unusual

portraits of the Queen, briefly displayed at the Tate in 2006,

caused a media storm. People got really angry about it. It was a

fuse Blower and it short circuits did people's perceptions because

it's the same thing which happened with the Kanye West portraits. Once

you paint someone that everyone knows in your own style, it is far

more radical than to alter your style to paint them in a

representation all manner that might be more recognisable to

everyone. How did you feel? I hope I didn't create any disturbances in

the daily life of the Queen. I don't want her to be upset about it.

I think it's fun to have a lot of controversy. I think there is

nothing better than controversy when it comes to art. Otherwise it

just sits there and is a big bore. At the same time, I didn't want to

throw anyone off their rocker. exhibition is at the Hayward

Gallery until January eighth. Next, Haruki Murakami is Japan's most

famous and most famously perplexing literary export. His latest

offering is one Q 84. The clue is in the title. It was inspired by

George Orwell's novel, 1984. We asked for loss of it to explode

just why the concept of 1984 Norwegian Wood, what I talk about

when I talk about running, Kafka On The Shore - these are just a few

examples of Japanese writer Haruki Murakami's extensive back catalogue.

His latest, a three-volume magnum opus, his face the real thriller

and love story. Set in a parallel Tokyo in 1984, it's been described

as a mind-bending old to George Orwell's masterpiece. But just what

is it about this book which has inspired Murakami and countless

other creative minds again and What was born as a novel now has a

life of its own. But most people, 1984 exists not as a book but as an

idea. A vision of a dystopian society that provides a constant

yardstick against which we measure the decline of our own. We look at

the spread of surveillance cameras, central government databases and

proposed ID cards and say - it is so like 1984! But if you had

actually read 1984 you would never say anything so blitz. It's true

that at any time you might receive a knock on the door from someone

who, without your knowledge, had gathered information on you. But it

would only be from someone trying to get you to switch energy

supplier, not solid men in black uniforms with iron short boots on

their feet and truncheons in their hands. There are states which are

ruled by Big Brothers, but Britain is not one of them. It's the

differences between what has actually happened and Orwell's to

stop big nightmare that are most This, in 1984, is London. Chief

City of airstrip One. A province of the state of Oceana. In 1984, the

party gets the public to love it by controlling every thought. --

thought. Even changing the language, so that their minds are forced,

jelly-like, into the mould dictated For us, instead of politicians

trying to change our thoughts, they look at the way we think and to

change policy to fit us. Excuse me, I wonder if I could have some of

your time? It's called politics by focus-group. The parties tried to

make us love them by becoming what they think we want them to beat.

Orwell got this precisely the wrong way round. Thank you. You might

think that 1984 was prescient for foreseeing a National Lottery which,

with its weekly payout of enormous prizes was the one public event to

which the proles paid serious attention. How is this for a vision

of popular culture? Rubbishy newspapers containing almost

nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five send

A lottery ticket, Koudou check this? But in Orwell's Britain, all

of this was produced by the Ministry of truth. The lottery

payouts never really happened. They were fabricated by the Ministry of

plenty. In our Britain people freely choose to go mad for the

lottery. And the free-market takes perfectly good care of trash

culture. We all know that 1984 is a hymn to freedom. However, not

everyone seems to notice that what we usually call freedom isn't what

it all well championed. -- George Orwell championed. Nowadays,

freedom is too often taken to be the licence to be believed and

whatever is true for you. Even at two plus two=five. But this isn't

the message at all. The hero of the book, Winston Smith, couldn't make

it any clearer when he says that freedom is the freedom to say that

two plus two= four. To be truly free is to be able to find the

truth for ourselves and be allowed to uphold it. But unless there is a

truth to discover and defend, then freedom has no value. 1980 code

does still speak to us today, which is why Haruki Murakami is just the

latest in a long list of writers and artists to have found

inspiration in it. But to really learn from it we have to read it

unthinkingly and reflectively. It is not enough to worry that Big

Brother is watching you. You have Volumes 1 and 2 of Murakami's book

are out now one volume three is published next week. Next, they

painted - a painter Edward Burra was a modern master he didn't quite

fit into the standard narrative of 20th century art. So his work has

been largely and criminally glossed over by the history books. As well

as being a wonderful artist, he was a unique character, a true English

eccentric. I thought it was time to find out a bit more about him. From

chorus girls to Harlem street life. Edward Burra was drawn to those on

the margins of society. His name may not be familiar but Burra is

one of the overlooked geniuses of British art, and one of the most

acute, colours of the 20th century. Although his is definitely not the

official version of history. He Edward Burra died in 1976. I never

met him. I am not sure how well even his very best friends really

knew him, certainly I am not sure how much they ever knew about his

art because Burra was quite possibly the single most elusive

British artist of the 20th century. He very, very rarely talked about

his enigmatic images. In fact, he was so reticent he didn't like to

give them titles. And he only ever gave one interview to the media and

that was a filmed interview that he conducted towards the end of his

life. It's rare footage. Not very often seen. And they keep it here

in the archive of the British Fill p Institute -- Film Institute.

Recorded four years before his death, the interview shows an

artist deeply uncomfortable about revealing anything of himself or

his art. A man who hated being interviewed. Who would much rather

be doing what he does best. I am just bored, I don't know what to do.

What would you be doing if we weren't here? Painting.

Born in 1905 he was a delicate and sickly child, plagued by illness.

From a young age he suffered from chronic debilitating arthritis. His

joints began visibly to deform from the age of five or six. And the

pain never left him for the rest of his life. His one buffer against

the hand fate had dealt him was prosperity. He was the son of a

rich lawyer. He would never need to earn a living. He was born in this

house, Springfield near Rye and would spend much of his life living

here with his mother and his father, a semi-permanent invalid, always

forced to return to this, his refuge, and main painting space.

The window is one of his earliest pictures, painted when I was still

a teenager. Like many of his works, its whereabouts is uncertain and

it's known only in black and white reproduction. It's an image that

reveals his sense of his own predicament with piercing clarity,

an ambiguous figure sits on this this side of the window, not

wheelchair bound but certainly chair-bound while outside life goes

on. Two girls can be seen through the window, perhaps his sisters.

Little Betsy and Anne. But the central figure, Burra's ultra

etkpwo remains in place -- alter ego.

Throughout his childhood Burra escaped the limits of his own body

through painting and drawing. Art had become the most important thing

in his life. And at the young age of 15 in 19121 he decided to escape

Rye for the Chelsea College of Art in London. He loved London's spirit

of limitless possibility, but it was the hidden darker side of the

city that he caricatured in early drawings. Burra received a

straightforward art education by the standards of the early 1920s

with a strong emphasis on draftsmanship which perhaps helps

to explain his very confident and strong sense of line, but equally

important to him were the friends he made at art school, lifelong

friends, a future photographer and ballet dancer. What they had in

common was a great sense of fun and as Burra later said, frivolity.

Those things too filtered straight through to his art.

As well as going to the movies, the young Burra went to galleries of

modern art. A mix of independent tphraoupbses soon to be -- of

influences soon to be reflected in his own work. This is one of his

rare oil paintings. It's a classic image and gives us a wonderful

snapshot of where he is at as an artist in his early maturity. He's

clearly fascinated by Picasso, painting the modern world as a

collage of startling detail. The wood grain of a door, tiling of a

floor, the texture of a bar counter. I think what makes it Burra-esque

is the Spence that -- sense that underneath the apparently innocent

surface of the scene all kinds of rather disturbing currents seem to

be running. It was this ability to find the darkness in the everyday

that gave his work an increasing sense of menace and Mel and

melancholy throughout his life. You can find out more about Edward

Burra in my new documentary about him on Monday 24th October on BBC 4

at 10.00pm. The very first serious

retrospective of his paintings for more than 30 years has opened at

the Pallant House gallery in Chichester and continues until 19th

February. Next, it's time to look at the latest batch of buildings

competing for the heritage angel award. English Heritage's Simon

Thurley continues his architectural odyssey around Britain locking at

buildings brought back from the brink by people who care

passionately about them. Today, sigh machine's looking at the four

contenders in the places of worship category.

In 1964 an exciting new building appeared on the outskirts of

Nottingham. As though from outer space, it

looked alien, daring, a vision of the future. The Church of the Good

Shepherd was the work of Gerard Goalen and represented the optimism

of a bright new age of technology. The Church's unusual interior

design with the altar to one side of a centralised plan was ground-

breaking. So, too, was its use of concrete to creates its modernist

angular forms. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about this Church

is the tremendous wall of dalle deverre stained glass that floods

the altar with multicoloured light. This is not just a temple to God,

this is a temple to contemporary design.

But it was precisely the use of its innovative materials that led to

its near ruination. Within 20 years concrete cancer had set in and the

job of restoration began. There was a problem where the steel rods in

some of the lower parts of the stained glass window were rusting

and the candle wax, grease, had disfigured some of the honeycomb

effect so we had to get that cleaned and get back to what my

little grand-niece described it as fruit salad window. It will become

for us our spiritual dream... you a lover of this type of

architecture from the beginning or did you have to be gradually

converted? I took to it straightaway. It has a charm of its

own that makes people love it and want to keep it. I feel privileged

to have been allowed to come in and help. It gave me a purpose in life.

To mark the efforts of all the volunteers who have helped restore

the Church, a new Angelus bell was recently installed which is

remotely controlled to sound each day. The second entry in the

worship category, the Church of St Peter's in Leicestershire has

hardly changed since it was built in the late 15th century. The

ancient name for the dooms day village was a settlement of robbers

but little of its criminal ancestry remains today, an army of Saints,

rather than sinners, have been hard at work restoring their beloved

Church. When you drive down that road

coming into the village the first thing you see is the Church tower.

Life wouldn't be the same in the village without it. That was one of

the things that sort of rallied the troopsing to. Ten years ago it was

like lots of Oldchurches. It smelt, there was a lot of damp and reKay.

But everybody -- decay. But everybody has been prepared to join

in, to work and offer whatever services they possibly can. Money

from the Heritage Lottery Fund has allowed the trust to replace a

collapsed floor, restore its Victorian pews and salvage the

original 1898 pipe organ. Before the restoration you couldn't get a

note out of it. It was under a thick layer of dust, it was a

broken shell and now it's been brought to life. The original

condition, and it's a great thing. Shackerstone may have the honour of

being mentioned in the Doomsday Book, but the third building up for

the award also has an impressive historic pedigree. The 12th century

St James Priory is thought to be Bristol's oldest surviving building.

Once the heart of a great monastic settlement it now is surrounded by

busy life. Most pass it unawares. But its doors are always open,

ready to welcome in anyone in need of quiet contemplation, or more.

Like the more famous celebrity clinic priory in London it forms

part of a drug and drink rehabilitation centre. The majority,

the vast majority of our residents come with a carrier bag or nothing.

They literally come from prison or from the park. They're chaotic lost,

lonely souls who are broken, find their way to us. When I calm came

to this Church I would always get an overwhelming feeling of calmness,

my head would be racing with the paranoia where I would be

withdrawing from the drugs I was taking before. Even though the head

was racing this building would give me an overwhelming feeling of

calmness and make me feel protected and comforted. We have always felt

that the Church is the beating heart of our project, that the

Church is where we get the strength to carry out the work that we do.

It's felt like a long journey but you just look at it now and think

the Oasis of peace that we wanted to build in the heart of the city,

it's here. The final building competing in the

worship category is the former Church of St Margaret of Antioch in

the inner city area of Leeds skaf six. Not much to look at from the

outside. In fact, most people hurry past its forbidding exterior. But

step inside and you will be greeted by a wonderful sight. The soaring

neo-gothic interior is designed to lift your spirits. The moment that

people walk through the door is one of the best parts of my job really,

to see the jaw drop and the eyes open and people say wow and then

there is a pause and then they swear and then they say, what

they'd like to do in the space. The area where the building is is

incredibly diverse. We have a fantastic fashion show in the last

few weeks. Tkpwots of gig -- lots of gigs, we have had parties, it

goes on and on really. The heritage angels who have given the Church

its new wings are left bank Leeds, a collective of young young

Christians whose patron is IRA pat -- - Corinne Bailey Rae -- -.

think it's really important to recognise that this building came

about because of the local community. It was paid for by

subscription, so for me the building and anyone who uses it has

a depth to the community and as a musician I want to continue to be

linked to the community that I am from.

I do hope that you have enjoyed bringing this -- being in this

building, it's really amazing. Still to come tonight: Weird and

wonderful primate cinema and music from Aurora orchestra. Next, rot in

the state of Denmark hasn't gripped the great British public this much

since hamlet. Dan irk detective drama the killing became a cult

crime hit last year and it's to return to BBC4. Understated heroine

Sarah Lund is at the heart of the action more. We set Val McDermid to

I am so sorry, it is Mary's afternoon off it. Once upon a time,

the female television detective was a little old lady with fluffy,

white hair who always deferred to the cops. Not exactly a figure

which resonated with most modern women. Like they say there has bus

commercials, why don't you just sit back and leave the driving to us?

Television drama has come a long way since Jessica Fletcher and Jane

Marple, but I think it's safe to say we've never encountered a

detective as singular and surly as the brilliance -- brilliant Sarah

Lund. The first series of The Killing saw its female detective

investigate the brutal murmur - VAT Much more than a simple whodunit,

Sarah Lund's search for the killer led her through the corridors of

power and shone a light on the dark heart of Danish society and

politics. As the plot played out over 20 slow-burning episodes,

Lund's obsession with the truth threaten to enter police career for

Over the years, I have made my own contribution to the evolution of

the female sleuth, both in books and television. But now me and my

fellow trailblazers have been overtaken by a Danish Grayshon

mohair knitwear, and we are all backing to find out what happens

next to Sarah Lund. Sarah Lund is an aspirational character. In many

respects she does the kind of things we don't like to do but

don't usually have the nerve to do it. Where did the roots of that

character like? I'd worked with the brighter, Soren Sveistrup, before

on another television series. And also the same producer. They phoned

me a year before, saying... Soren Sveistrup had a loose idea. He knew

he wanted to make a crime story. He knew he wanted only one murder. He

knew he wanted a female investigator. Out of those meetings

came a direction for this character. As an actor, you are always looking

for a challenge. You are looking to always go somewhere. Though some

way you haven't been before. Up until that point, I had always

played very emotional characters. Traditional feminine characters. I

had been crying a lot and shouting a lot and feeling a lot and

communicating a lot. I remember saying at that very first meeting,

I'd like to play a person who is not able to communicate. When I was

standing on the set, especially in the beginning, I actually found it

It is the writer's story, but this writer, Soren Sveistrup, he insists

on writing as we go along. That means that we are shooting one

episode at a time. He is writing on the next episode as we shoot the

first one. But it allows him to take a lot from actors. If you add

something as an actor, then he will start writing in that direction if

he gets inspired. The one relationship that is at the heart

of that first series of The Killing is the relationship with the jumper.

When you see series that have female protagonists, they always

have a nice wardrobes. You've got this woman wearing the same jumper

week after week after week for 20 weeks. The jumper becomes almost

iconic. I don't know what it is with that jumper, but they have

been times when I've felt that it was wearing me! A lot more than I

was wearing it. We knew we were looking for somebody not a cliche

type of detective. Not a woman in a suit. So we had tons of clothes and

I just spotted that jumper. I just felt right away that that was it.

Sarah Lund and her boss are the only characters to the service in

the second series of The Killing. Demoted from detectives the status

at the end of series 1, Lund was called back in to help solve a very

It's a much more complicated plot. It is a shorter. There are less

episodes. Where the first season was this a very small story of one

girl being killed and one family... In the second season the story is

lifted up on a higher level. So it deals with politics on a greater

scale, and it deals with Walk, In series two, it is again set

principally in Denmark, but I believe there are parts of it that

are set in Afghanistan. Did you go to Afghanistan to film? No. But

then again, a pity to reveal that. No, we went to Spain, where they

did all the spaghetti westerns. They have a desert there. It was

very hot in the jumper. You wore your jumper? Oh, yes! That's

fabulous! The second series of The Killing, starring Sofie Grabol in

that jumper, starts next month on BBC Four. Aurora Orchestra is one

of the most dynamic and innovative forces in British classical music.

For their latest project they teamed up with the celebrated

American horror writer, --, Peter Stroud, to make a thriller

automatic writing. It weaves text around a series of spine-tingling

musical themes. But both writer and musicians claim other voices may be

Any theatrical spectacle involve the suspension of disbelief. And

Aurora Orchestra's new show is no accept -- exception. So leave your

rational mind at the door and open yourself to a world where the

supernatural is palpably present. Where elements from another realm

intrude upon ours. And all is not We are going to work on a programme

that involves using music in connection with paragraphs from a

novel of mine called Shadow land. We envisaged floating, enigmatic

passages of text which would match the mood or contrast with the mood

of what ever orchestral pieces were to be played. My voice is reading a

script that indicates the confusion between the realms of the real and

the imagined. There's not really a narrative to this event. We hope

there is an intriguing trail of thought which you lose yourself

along. It is a theatrical love affair with music-making, with

classical music making. It is based on the idea that when you pick up

an instrument you are channelling a kind of lost energy, the energy of

a composer who may not be there, all the thoughts and inspirations

of a composer of which may have Behind that is another voice,

another art form, in the form of literature. In this particular

instance, in the form of Peter's kind of literature. It is trying to

get through to us. The core experience for the audience is a

concert, but the audience get an increasing impression that

something else was going on and trying to break through into this

medium with a different voice. us about those duets, because there

is something very elegiac in that music. Absent friends that he is

referring to. He wrote 34 of them. They are all for composers or

musicians that he knew. They are beautiful. You can imagine them as

if they were four friends who aren't there any more. They are

very short, like little postcards. All of has concentrated ideas are

in them. They create an amazing This is certainly not your average

classical music concerts. Is there an element of improvisation going

on? There is. We have an eclectic repertoire in there. Something we

enjoy doing is focusing on the skills of our players. There will

be a couple of moments where they will be playing together, just

creating a soundscape, maybe with some structures in place. That is a

really liberating experience for I find it is often some of the most

pure music making, because you don't have anything there. Thoughts

are quite simple. You are thinking about colour and sound. If you know

the people very well, you are interested in who is doing what.

is a musical conversation. You are just listening and responding as

I tend to think about music in shapes. I am aware of it spatially.

Especially when I'm improvising, my eyes are open and seeing the

different shapes. If I see gaps then I will play in those gaps. If

Is it whisky? Yes. By nature it is risky. Every night there will be

something different, it will sound different. You never know, because

you have to take what people give you. The very nature of it means it

is always unexpected. This is not a scary peace. It is unsettling,

which is a very good aesthetic goal. To create something which makes the

ground between people's feet feel a little less steady. Why do you

think audiences enjoy the suspension of disbelief so much?

You go to a performance, you are entering into an invitation, you

are entering into a deal. Please suspend my disbelief in a way. It

gives us a taste of something which is not our world. It allows us a

moment of oblivion sometimes as well. How does music playing to

that, how does music enhance those feelings and emotions? Music can

paint a picture that words can't. In the context of this concert, it

can create violent explosions, it can have the beautiful, tender

atmosphere is which can make you look at things in a slightly

The show is on tour from the end of the month, finishing up at St

Luke's in London on fourth November. Next, Primate Cinema. No, not

movies about monkeys created for human beings, but dramas about

chimps, played by humans, created for the appreciation of chimps and

then show to human beings as works of art. All will become clear. We

sent Philippa Perry to delve into Humans, or the naked ape as Desmond

Morris called us. Is it any wonder we are so fascinated by other

primates? In our desire to learn more about human behaviour, it's

unsurprising we should turn to our closest relations.

But what is it in our psyche that drives the need to attribute human

qualities and abilities to animals? Humans instinctively want to reach

out and make contact. And we frequently fail to do this with

each other, which might be one of the reasons we look to primates. If

chimps and apes are our closest cousins they're also our most

exploited, certainly in cinematic terms. The original big daddy of

apes on film was, of course, King Kong. The most recent spin-off of

Planet of the Apes, portrayed the apes rising up in a bid to escape

human tyranny. Over the years humans have cast primates in

countless films. But what would happen if we were to cast ourselves

in a film primarily for their entertainment?

Well, Rachel Mayeri has attempted to find out by making a primate

drama with a difference. Tell me what you wanted to achieve with

Primate Cinema? I wanted to communicate with chimpanzees

through an artwork, we tested for a year to see what chimps would be

interested in watching and from that information I came up with an

original script and the idea was to appeal to chimpanzees and also

human beings to be able to understand something of khfrp --

chimpanzee minds by seeing what it was in the film that I made that

appealed to them. The main drama centres on a chimp befriending a

group of outsiders, all played by humans in costume. This film was

then shown to real chimpanzees located in Edinburgh Zoo. The final

piece juxtaposes the drama, with footage of the real chimps reacting

to it. I am curious if this is for chimps, why you are not using

chimpanzee frames of reference more? For instance, we have

narrative, we have got cropped images. How can a chimp even begin

to follow that? For one thing, I was interested in giving the chimps

some novelty, I wanted to show them a situation they had never seen

before, like the inside of a fridge or a house. I included dramas

around sex, food, territory, social rank and that's for chimps and on

another level I was making a film for human beings to reflect on our

representations of chimpanzees in films, our romantic ideas about

nature. From what I could see, the chimps never watched it for very

long. I think that while they may not be following the larger

narrative that's intended for human beings, they are possibly

recognising characters and they're responding to moments of high

energy in the narrative. I guess I like to think that the history of

films about apes so far have been films that take apes to be a kind

of monster or a clown and I hope that my film is slightly more about

engaging what chimpanzees are actually like. But there is, of

course, a danger in trying to second guess how our primate

cousins look at the world. As shown by recent documentary Project Nim

by James Marsh, we might be the same species, but huge gaps in the

understanding between us remain. The film is the story of a

chimpanzee taken from its mother, pretty much when it's born and

given to a human mother as if it were a human child. It's an

experiment that was done by a university in the 70s and the

objective is to see whether if you humanise a chimpanzee, can that

then learn a language the way a human child would learn? And be

able to communicate with us what he is thinking which is incredibly

radical and mind-boggling idea that we could find out how a chimp sees

the world. Young had this idea that we project out our shadow side on

to other people or to other species or other animals. Do you think we

like primates in films so much because we are projecting our

aggression on to... That's a very good idea, because the chimpanzee

physically resembles us, their faces have emotions we think we

understand. They seem to be able to engage with us in a certain way.

They're easy to project on to, but all animals that are out there,

they're the easiest vessel for our fears and sometimes our

misunderstandings. There's also a danger in that, too. As you see in

Project Nim it doesn't end well for the chimpanzee, this sort of

meddling with his nature. When the experiment to humanise Nim fails he

is abandoned in a cage for medical research. So, in that respect it's

quite a sober conclusion one can draw from project Nim and perhaps a

disappointing one, there is a limit so how much we can overlap and

connect with our closest animal relative. Perhaps, as with most

films concerning primates, Rachel's film also tells us more about

humans and our beliefs than it does about the animals. Can you tell me

a little bit about what you wanted to achieve as an artist with this

piece? I think that every artist wants to defamiliarise the world a

bit and in a way thinking about ourselves as primates within the

ape family is a way of making what it means to be human a little bit

strange. It's an interesting idea. But I am not sure that either the

science or the art of primate cinema quite work and I am not sure

what the chimps get out of it either. But it shows that using

primates as a mirror will always continue to fascinate us.

Primate Cinema is at the arts catalyst in London until 13th

November. Now for cinema of a different kind.

Living in the material world is Martin Scorsese's epic documentary

tribute to the late beatle George Harrison. Jools Holland has

described making music with Harrison as one of the greatest

privileges of his life. So, Mark Kermode went to find out what Jools

made of the new film. And, of Harrison himself.

We are here at Television Centre, Jools Holland is rehearsing for the

next edition of Later and he doesn't like to break from

rehearsals for anything, except to You have seen George Harrison

Living in the Material World, how fair a representation of George do

you think it is? Well, I was really impressed with this film. I think

it's an amazing work because at the end of it I felt as though I had

been in George's company. I felt that you really got his personality,

which was a complex personality and all of our personalities are, I

thought it captured all the # I saw her standing there...

He was cocky, a cocky little guy. He had a good sense of himself. He

wasn't cowed by anything. He had a great haircut. I learned new things

looking at it it about George's early life, about his personality,

about how he always felt because he was the youngest he was always

treated as the youngest even when he was grownup, thanks very much.

Don't bother me, this is remake calling it take ten... Don't bother

me, that's the first song, it was written as an exercise to see if I

could write a song, if John and Paul can write, everybody must be

able to write. It's like he is a person, as a songwriter, he is like

a Burt Bacharach. But then fate has cast him into a group with John

Take 12! His songs do stand as distinctly their own. Which stand

out for you and what is it about him musically you think is

important? I think that - all things must pass is a fantastic

song. That's like a really just beautiful song. In every element

about it. I think the other thing that's great about his songs, like

a Hank Williams song, they can be done in any different style.

# Still my guitar gently weeps... I always felt really close to the

public and where I grew up and that's where I suppose I wrote some

songs that were like, hey, you can all experience this, you know. It

is, it's available for everyone. People talk about Harrison seeing

the Pythons as taking on the mantle of the Beatles, there was edgy

humour there. One of the things people forget about the Beatles as

a group, to put George in the context of the film and comedy,

when you see the Beatles being interviewed they're sharp and funny.

We have been together now for... have all been mates for a long time.

So we don't get on each other's nerves as much as we could. George

enjoyed his humour and I think that he saw in the Pythons that same

sort of abstract humour going on which he rather liked. It made him

laugh. He liked to laugh. We had written Life of Brian, we had EMI

putting up the money for the movie and we get a call and Bernie to his

friends, had finally got around to reading the script, apparently, he

hadn't read it before. He was shocked and horrified and he said

there's no way EMI is going to be involved in this filth and pulled

the plug on the Thursday. We were dead. Eventually when we finally

got to California George says I figured it out, we are going to

create a company, and we are going to give you the money. It's $4

million and he mortgaged his house to put up the money for this movie.

Because he wanted to see it. One of the things that is tpas Nat --

fascinating, he seemed to facilitate great work in others.

It's classic British cult movies, that if it hadn't been for his

support those wouldn't have happened. What everyone says his

por was -- support was yes I will make it happen but then stand back

and not get involved, which sounds like the ideal producer. I think he

wanted to have fun, as well. Also, from being in the Beatles, he had

enough of being in the limelight, he didn't want to be the star,

didn't want to be photographed going up the red carpet and that

sort of thing. He had no idea in that. He was really interested in

the enjoyment of creating something and the fun of doing it and the fun

of hanging around with people he liked. What is it that you found

most most interesting in that documentary which you are in,

incidentally? Well, me, of course! That was by far the best bit.

Olivia Harrison said to me score sor score saw that film -- Martin

Scorsese saw that film and that song and every every element of

that is perfect and it was, because George produced it, by being there

and just gently saying I think that works. Never bell lowing

instructions, almost looking and you go with what his feeling was.

It would be hard to fit anybody we know, whether it's a relative or

your next door neighbour, to fit their lives into a documentary,

it's pretty hard. Most importantly, you capture the spiritual George

and the man that was in good humoured and kind and spiritual,

which actually that's all you could ask from anybody as a human being

really. And Living in the Material World

will be screened by the BBC later this year.

That's about it for tonight. We will be back next week with new

music from David Lynch and I will be exploring a new show about the

expeditions of Scott and Shackleton. We will leave you with another

highlight from this year's London film festival. The Black Power Mix

Tape features remarkable unseen footage of the American civil

rights struggle hidden away until now in Swedish television archives.

It's also on general release this week. Good night.

When you see images, you only see the speeches. This is the first

time I have seen something where he is hanging out with people, his

mother and he seemed like a regular dude. That's what you don't realise

about his theme, none of these people are evil or bad or even