:00:17. > :00:23.On the review show tonight, Killer Joe, Friedkin freesd provocative
:00:23. > :00:28.new film. He says it is black comedy, but did our panel come out
:00:28. > :00:32.laughing. It smells heavenly, who would like to say grace? The Age Of
:00:32. > :00:37.Miracles, the debut novel had a sold for over �1 million, can it
:00:37. > :00:43.live up to that price tag. For Harry, England and St George, the
:00:43. > :00:48.BBC plays Shakespeare's history big. Edvard Munch at Tate Modern,
:00:48. > :00:55.revealing the man behind The Scream. We mark the 80th birthday of Sir
:00:55. > :00:58.Blake, we will have live music from jazz vocalist, Ian Shaw.
:00:59. > :01:02.Joining me are the journalist and broadcaster Miranda Sawyer, the
:01:02. > :01:07.performer and writer, Mark Thomas, and the actor Kerry Shale. As ever,
:01:07. > :01:13.you are welcome to join in the conversation on Twitter. William
:01:13. > :01:18.Friedkin is kill best known for his 70s hit The French Connection and
:01:18. > :01:22.the classic horror, The Exorcist. His latest film, Killer Joe has
:01:23. > :01:31.just opened the Edinburgh International Film Festival. He has
:01:31. > :01:36.lost none of his skill to shock and sur prize. He came with leading
:01:36. > :01:46.lady. Have you ever heard of Killer Joe, he's a cop, he has a little
:01:46. > :01:48.
:01:48. > :01:51.business on the side. Ja What does he do? He kills people. A debt
:01:51. > :01:55.dealing drug dealer decides to kill his alcoholic mother for life
:01:55. > :01:58.insurance. This will get done, one way or
:01:58. > :02:03.another. Our conversation is finished, I never met you. You
:02:03. > :02:07.never met me. But Chris and his father get more
:02:07. > :02:11.than they bargained for, when Killer Joe, played by Matthew
:02:11. > :02:14.McConaughey, sets his sights on Chris's virginal, some what brain-
:02:14. > :02:21.damaged young sister, Dottie. course we never discussed the
:02:21. > :02:25.posbgt of a retainer. It is -- Possibility of a retainer. It is a
:02:25. > :02:30.take on the Cinderella story, there is a young woman in it, in a
:02:30. > :02:35.desperate situation. Her father and brother are pimping her out to a
:02:35. > :02:40.hired killer, but the hired killer becomes her Prince Charming.
:02:41. > :02:46.smells heavenly, who would like to say grace? What I'm saying with the
:02:46. > :02:51.film is there is good and evil in everyone, everyone. Everyone in
:02:51. > :02:57.this audience, everyone outside, and it is a constant struggle for
:02:57. > :03:01.our better angels, to thrive over our demons. I told you from the
:03:02. > :03:05.start. Shut up. The combination of violence and absurdity in this
:03:05. > :03:11.dysfuntional family, has proved challenging for some critics.
:03:11. > :03:16.Particularly the scene in which Killer Joe brutally humiliates
:03:16. > :03:19.Chris's stepmother, Sharla, with a piece of fried chicken. If she was
:03:19. > :03:22.an innocent, and she hadn't done nothing wrong and that scene
:03:22. > :03:26.occurred, it would be really horrible. To say she gets what is
:03:26. > :03:31.coming to her, it is very extreme. Look at Chris he gets beaten up
:03:31. > :03:35.just as badly, and nobody is saying it is violence against men. No like
:03:35. > :03:44.to do films that provide easy answers for people. You know, there
:03:44. > :03:49.are no easy answers in life. It is not a neat package.
:03:49. > :03:52.Mark, Killer Joe is certainly not a neat package. No it is not. Was it
:03:52. > :04:02.a film where there were lots of dilemmas in, do you think, about
:04:02. > :04:05.good and evil? I don't think the film dwelt a huge amount upon any
:04:05. > :04:10.die -- dilemmas, he was saying it was about good and evil, there was
:04:10. > :04:16.not a lot of good many times. That was mispackaging on his film. A
:04:16. > :04:20.really interesting film and the writer, Tracy Letts, is an
:04:20. > :04:24.incredible writer and great background, really concentrates on
:04:24. > :04:29.those family dramas, and things falling apart. The writing is
:04:29. > :04:32.incredible in the film. It is really good. Very funny as well. I
:04:32. > :04:36.thought it was very funny. It doesn't quite translate for me from
:04:36. > :04:40.the stage on to the film. It doesn't quite make the jump.
:04:40. > :04:46.not? I think there are some key scenes where you would see
:04:46. > :04:55.something in the theatre, like the he isduction or sexual awakening of
:04:55. > :05:05.Dottie, which -- sexual awakening of Dottie, which you see in the
:05:05. > :05:09.theatre and you couldn't quite go along with it here. You read the
:05:09. > :05:12.play, have you any disconnect between the play and the page and
:05:12. > :05:16.the film? Mark made a really good point and I agree with it. I read
:05:16. > :05:20.the play because I wanted to see what the difference was. I was
:05:20. > :05:26.disappointed in the film, I thought is it me, or is it the film, or is
:05:26. > :05:29.it the original play. The original play, more or less, the dialogue is
:05:29. > :05:32.the same. When you are in the theatre, and somebody gets the crap
:05:32. > :05:36.beaten out of them, you know they are going to do it eight times a
:05:36. > :05:40.week, you know they are just acting. When you see a film, you think, oh
:05:40. > :05:45.my God, this is really happening, films are so much more visceral.
:05:45. > :05:50.That is what you want? That is why ultimately I disliked the film. The
:05:50. > :05:53.end of the film, I won't discuss, but McConaughey said when he first
:05:53. > :05:57.read the script e felt like scouring himself with a steel brush,
:05:57. > :06:01.he said today in an interview in the Guardian. I felt like that, I
:06:01. > :06:04.thought I don't want to be sitting through this. I thought it was
:06:04. > :06:12.pretty disgusting, I wouldn't advise my friends or servants to
:06:12. > :06:15.see it. I think it is interesting, the most
:06:15. > :06:19.successful scenes are actually the two most disturbing ones, which
:06:19. > :06:24.involve the women. They are successful, I think, because they
:06:24. > :06:28.are very theatrical. In a theatre, if you want to do something, you
:06:28. > :06:34.can say, let's beat the crap out of somebody, we know it is not really
:06:34. > :06:37.happening. You have to be more inventive with your humiliation, or
:06:37. > :06:40.your questioning of what is going on. I think the two central scenes
:06:40. > :06:44.with the women do that successfully, the violence doesn't work for me,
:06:44. > :06:48.we have seen it all before in film, it is just violence, I'm used to
:06:48. > :06:51.violence. Those two scenes had me thinking, they were incredibly
:06:51. > :06:55.different. I also think it is interesting, Killer Joe, the play,
:06:55. > :07:00.came out at the end of the 1990, it has taken a long time to come to
:07:00. > :07:04.film. I spoke to somebody who had seen the play, they said one of the
:07:04. > :07:08.things that was really interesting about the play, is it showed this
:07:08. > :07:12.Hick family, very unusual to see it at the end, now we see it all over
:07:12. > :07:18.the place. Part of the problem I had with the film was the
:07:18. > :07:21.familiarity with hick things and violence. Where it was odd, that is
:07:21. > :07:25.where it worked for me. We will talk about Matthew McConaughey's
:07:25. > :07:27.performance in a moment. I wanted to show you a scene where Dottie
:07:27. > :07:32.tells McConaughey what happened to her at the hands of her mother who
:07:32. > :07:37.tried to kill her. My momma tried to kill me when I was real little,
:07:37. > :07:42.she put a pillow over my face, because she cared more about
:07:42. > :07:46.herself than her little baby, she didn't care about me as a little
:07:47. > :07:51.baby. She was happy when she done it, I couldn't grow into something
:07:51. > :07:55.more than she had been, or ever had been. She hadn't done t she hadn't
:07:55. > :07:59.sent me back to him. One of the things that is so extraordinary
:07:59. > :08:02.about this film s that performance, that character is the central
:08:02. > :08:07.character in the whole film? should really have been called
:08:07. > :08:11.Dottie, it is really about her. It is not about Killer Joe. She is the
:08:11. > :08:16.only good person? It is remarkable, it is about how she escapes. If you
:08:16. > :08:18.looked at the play, and if we take the family as a state-of-the-nation
:08:18. > :08:21.broadcast, which America is very good at doing. You look at this
:08:21. > :08:25.family, the American dream, completely dead, you are not stuck,
:08:25. > :08:29.you are going down. And that's where it is. You don't know whether
:08:29. > :08:31.she escapes or not, that is the whole thing? I would say about the
:08:31. > :08:36.violence. One of the interesting things about the violence, was
:08:36. > :08:40.actual lie there are bits when he pulls back -- actually there are
:08:40. > :08:44.bits where he pulls back, the film is shot like it's on stage. You are
:08:44. > :08:48.very aware it is make believe. That allows that violence to continue.
:08:48. > :08:55.It was shot in three weeks on a budget of �5 million, because
:08:55. > :09:00.Friedkin doesn't do roing. It wasn't a big -- it wasn't a big
:09:00. > :09:04.studio. The bit I felt toyed with and you
:09:04. > :09:09.knew it was happening, was when the kid, the guys come to get him for
:09:09. > :09:12.the loan, you know he's going to get beaten really badly, and he
:09:12. > :09:15.goes through the soft soap scene with the guy. The person who comes
:09:15. > :09:22.out of this well is McConaughey as an actor. He's not somebody you
:09:22. > :09:28.really rate as an actor? He's very good at playing sleaze balls, I was
:09:28. > :09:32.watching EastBound and Down, he play as sleaze ball, he is coming
:09:32. > :09:37.into his own playing these sleaze balls. In the interview in the
:09:37. > :09:41.Guardian when he said he didn't want do T I'm sure his agent said,
:09:41. > :09:46.math thue, baby, the romcom thing is dead, go for the sleaze ball
:09:46. > :09:52.thing, it will work for it. He's brilliant. I hadn't seen the
:09:52. > :09:57.romcoms, and he as brilliant. film he's really great. The Thomas
:09:57. > :10:03.Haden Church character, plays the stupid guy, he's a brilliant actor.
:10:03. > :10:09.It turns around he's not so stupid. There are lovely moments and gets a
:10:09. > :10:15.laugh. If you want to take it as ark types, there are two women in
:10:15. > :10:21.here, that are the virgin and the er who, they are not as you imagine.
:10:22. > :10:24.The virginity in Dottie is Kurdled, there is something going on,
:10:24. > :10:28.simultaneously religious and slightly off key. She seems to have
:10:28. > :10:31.a premonition all the time about things. It is not quite what you
:10:31. > :10:35.think. That is what I found interesting, when I first left the
:10:35. > :10:40.them, I thought, I feel dirty, I'm not sure. I kept thinking about the
:10:40. > :10:42.two central scenes with the women in it, they are disturbing, but not
:10:42. > :10:49.straight forwardly disturbing in that tedious way you get in films.
:10:49. > :10:55.I do think some of it meant to disturb, The Exorcist is a much
:10:55. > :11:00.better film, they reminded me of the projectile vomiting in The
:11:00. > :11:06.Exorcist. There was a jokey bit with Thomas Haden Church does
:11:06. > :11:11.vomiting which was a throwback? Hasn't he grown up. There is lots
:11:11. > :11:16.to talk about, Killer Joe is in cinemas now. With book shops
:11:16. > :11:20.closing and e-books cutting into hard back profits, you would be
:11:20. > :11:28.forgiven for thinking the book industry is in a crisis. Awe the
:11:28. > :11:34.more surprising for a first-time novelist to be given a �1 million
:11:34. > :11:38.advance, that is what happened to Karen Thompson Walker with The Age
:11:38. > :11:42.Of Miracles. It is a family who wake up to the news that the
:11:42. > :11:50.rotation of the earth is slowing down. It is about Julia growing up
:11:50. > :11:57.during this time of extreme change and uncertainty. "We didn't notice
:11:57. > :12:04.right away, we couldn't feel it. We did not sense the first time the
:12:04. > :12:08.smooth kin like a bloomer under the surface of the skin." A lot of it
:12:08. > :12:12.was accidental, reading the newspaper every day. If I read a
:12:12. > :12:15.story about weird weather or mysterious extinction of species,
:12:15. > :12:18.or some stories about climate change, I would try to learn about
:12:18. > :12:24.the situations in the real world and use those details in the book.
:12:24. > :12:34.Then, when I had a complete draft, I worked up the nerve to show it to
:12:34. > :13:00.
:13:00. > :13:06.an astro physicist, which was It just felt true, that once, that
:13:06. > :13:10.the Government would have to put people on a 24-hour clock, because
:13:10. > :13:15.there would be too much chaos without T but at the same time it
:13:15. > :13:19.seemed just -- without it. But at the same time it seemed realistic
:13:19. > :13:22.that there would be a group would wouldn't want to live that way, and
:13:22. > :13:27.instead of living on an artificial clock, with the rising and the
:13:27. > :13:30.setting of the sun. There wasn't a specific parallel in the real world,
:13:30. > :13:34.but it feels like a familiar and common divide that I see in all
:13:34. > :13:43.kinds of situations. I don't know if it is especially American or not,
:13:43. > :13:46.that is the country I know the best, so it felt realistic to me.
:13:46. > :13:50.Miranda, Age of Miracles, a personal story of a global disaster,
:13:50. > :13:57.what about the voice? It is quite interesting, essentially massive
:13:57. > :14:02.thing is happening, it is an incredibly domestic book. So it is
:14:02. > :14:06.a story of what is supposedly an 11-year-old girl. You could say
:14:06. > :14:12.she's slightly wise for an 11-year- old, as often happens in novels. I
:14:12. > :14:17.personally gave her the benefit of the doubt, because she's more 13,
:14:17. > :14:22.but Californians are advanced. The book is perfectly written, it is a
:14:22. > :14:26.polished gem, not a sentence out of place. It is about a massive world
:14:26. > :14:30.disaster, that nobody can do anything about. What everybody does,
:14:30. > :14:33.and the protagonists included, carry on as normal, and make
:14:33. > :14:37.everything incredibly domestic and small. That is what happens
:14:37. > :14:42.generally in disasters, these things don't tend to happen in the
:14:42. > :14:45.western world. But if you go to place where is there are massive
:14:45. > :14:52.ecological changes, people just hold on to the very, very small
:14:52. > :14:57.things in their life. That rang true to me in that book. Kerry?
:14:57. > :15:04.didn't think it was a good book. I have heard that they have sold the
:15:04. > :15:13.movie rights, I have seen it might make a good disaster movie. It has
:15:14. > :15:20.to be shot in 1-D, not 3-dplt. I thought the characters were not
:15:20. > :15:23.deep. The mother was shallow, and the dead was hard working, the
:15:23. > :15:28.little girl is shy, the boy is sensitive because his mother is
:15:28. > :15:31.dying of cancer. She's not good on character, she's terrible on
:15:31. > :15:35.character. I would agree. The positive thing about the book is,
:15:35. > :15:39.actually, you do want to get to the end of it. You want to whizz
:15:39. > :15:42.through it, it is quite a page- Turner. On terms of character, you
:15:42. > :15:52.don't really care about what happens to them. You don't really
:15:52. > :15:58.
:15:58. > :16:01.know them that well. It is so different from the Road by koerm
:16:01. > :16:09.Mackintosh Cartney, where it is one man travelling with his child, and
:16:09. > :16:14.you get to the heart of that character and want him to live?
:16:14. > :16:19.keep thinking, where is Twitter, she kept saying I wonder what is
:16:19. > :16:25.happening in other parts the world. It is set in modern day. It is
:16:25. > :16:31.ahead of modern day? They the internet. They it Facebook? It is
:16:31. > :16:35.so American centric, I expected it, I knew it would happen, she made
:16:35. > :16:41.excuses for not knowing the big picture, I thought that was, it
:16:41. > :16:45.didn't work. Do you think that was why she was 11 as opposed to 15.
:16:45. > :16:49.She is writing at a 20-year-old. One of the things she was talking
:16:49. > :16:56.about, which was the Government putting everybody on clock time,
:16:56. > :16:59.then there are the refuseniks going on normal time. She is talking
:16:59. > :17:04.about society dividing into different stpeers, which is true?
:17:04. > :17:08.thought it was interesting that the people on the natural time don't do
:17:08. > :17:12.anything, they smoke a lot of pot, form a commune and die. What I
:17:12. > :17:22.would like to say about the book, I think I liked it more than you two.
:17:22. > :17:26.
:17:26. > :17:30.It is a massive event happening, I know people react in a small way,
:17:30. > :17:35.but people do go nuts, there were few example, I wanted her to lose
:17:35. > :17:41.her mind a bit more. This is the problem I had with the book. I felt
:17:41. > :17:44.she had written it like she had been to a writing course. There was
:17:44. > :17:49.huge polished moments, build to suspense, keep the chapters short,
:17:49. > :17:53.if you are writing as a child, keep the sentences short. If you are
:17:53. > :17:59.decribing things do it quickly and have them done with. You felt it
:17:59. > :18:03.was writing by numbers. What I thought was interesting, is when
:18:03. > :18:07.the big events happen and things change, things fall apart and
:18:07. > :18:12.things stay together. It is annual thing. The differences between us
:18:12. > :18:18.count in these films -- it is an unusual thing, the difference
:18:18. > :18:23.between us counts in these films. Any thoughts? Jive had some good
:18:24. > :18:29.ideas, she had good ideas, but didn't follow it through. If you
:18:29. > :18:33.can imagine Margaret Atwood with these ideas. Do you think it is too
:18:33. > :18:39.vanilla. That is the problem, it is a little too vanilla for a great
:18:39. > :18:43.idea for a book. It is a brilliant idea. Some of it certainly was not
:18:43. > :18:47.vanilla was the acclaimed writer, Nora Ephron, known as the creative
:18:47. > :18:51.force behind some big screen classics like When Harry Met Sally
:18:51. > :18:54.and Silkwood, she died on Thursday. She started a career in journalism
:18:54. > :19:01.and went on to write and direct movies, infused with elements of
:19:01. > :19:10.her own life. Her divorce from Watergate investigative reporter,
:19:10. > :19:14.Bernstein, was fictionalised in a - - the movies such as Heartburn.
:19:14. > :19:21.know about you and Thelma Rice, it is all here, you didn't even hide
:19:21. > :19:26.the evidence, you just threw it in a drawer, hotels, moat tells.
:19:26. > :19:29.shit. You couldn't even pay cash, like a normal fill lander, you
:19:29. > :19:36.charged everything. Look at this, look all the flowers you bought her,
:19:36. > :19:43.and you occasionally brought me home a bunch of wilted flowers, how
:19:43. > :19:50.can you do this f I'm such a bitch, tell me. Meryl giving it all for
:19:50. > :19:57.Norah. I loved the book Heartburn, we still use so. Recipes, there is
:19:57. > :20:03.a recipe for vein receipt -- vinaigrette, it is classic. I know
:20:03. > :20:08.she said her husband, Bernstein, was the only man who would have sex
:20:08. > :20:14.with a Venetian blind! She had way with words. She could pour the pain
:20:14. > :20:22.and heartbreak into acid sharp observations? I'm fan of her essays
:20:22. > :20:25.swhreerbgts an amazing speech to her old college that she wrote an
:20:25. > :20:29.amazing speech to her old college that I found. She's great at saying,
:20:29. > :20:34.this is your life, this is what happens in life, to women, this is
:20:34. > :20:39.what it's like, and we can make it fun. It might be awful, but you can
:20:39. > :20:44.turn it into an amazing anecdote and have an amazing story at the
:20:45. > :20:49.end of it. It helps if you are a great writer? She's an amazing
:20:49. > :20:53.writer. One thing that was great in the romantic comedies, she would
:20:53. > :20:56.leave you with a sense of yearning, you knee it wasn't real, but the
:20:56. > :21:03.writing was good enough to make you wish it could be, that was a great
:21:03. > :21:07.thing. Nora Ephron, who died this week. Back in the 1970, the BBC
:21:07. > :21:10.embarked on an ambition plan to put all of shiex peer's televisions
:21:10. > :21:15.recorded for television, it took eight years. It sapped their
:21:15. > :21:24.enthusiasm for recording the Bard for a decade. Things have packed up
:21:24. > :21:34.with hamlet and hack Beth, receiving imaginative stage-to-
:21:34. > :21:35.
:21:35. > :21:40.screen productions. The Hollow Crown, consists of adaptations of
:21:40. > :21:45.Henry IV, parts one and two, and Henry V, the unifying theme is
:21:45. > :21:49.monarchy, the personal cost of gaining the crown, which can often
:21:50. > :21:59.prove a hollow victory. For this herculean task, directing duties
:21:59. > :22:05.have been divided between Rupert Gould, and Thea Sharak, who took on
:22:05. > :22:12.Henry V. Now are we well resolved? And by God's help, and your's, the
:22:12. > :22:18.noble sinews of our power, France being our's, will bend it to our
:22:18. > :22:23.oar, or break it all to pieces. more I read it and shout about it,
:22:23. > :22:29.the more this play, for me, is a play about war, and it is a play
:22:29. > :22:35.about, centrally, it is about one man's journey through learning to
:22:35. > :22:38.be a king. Not knowing how to do it. Not knowing what the next thing
:22:38. > :22:48.he's going to have to deal with will be. Particularly given the
:22:48. > :22:49.
:22:49. > :22:53.history, you know. The Hal that he is in Henry's I and II, he's a
:22:53. > :22:57.particular kind of man in those plays, by the time he gets to Henry
:22:57. > :23:01.V he is already king and has all these choices ahead of him.
:23:01. > :23:06.tempt plate for the traditional rendition of Henry on film was
:23:06. > :23:11.delivered first by Lawrence Olivier and then Kenneth Branagh. He
:23:11. > :23:15.resisted the temptation to update this kingly tale. It is very much a
:23:15. > :23:20.period piece, but I wanted it to have with thes could suems and
:23:20. > :23:24.design to have a modern feel with it. I want Henry looking good. I
:23:24. > :23:29.want him in delicious tight-fitting leather jackets, that is what I
:23:29. > :23:35.want. I want people to look at it and want to keep watching, I don't
:23:35. > :23:38.need him in tights, we can still make the point. He has nice leather
:23:38. > :23:42.trousers. With a contemporary audience in find, certain scenes
:23:42. > :23:46.took on a significance for Sharrock. There is the scene I left out which
:23:46. > :23:50.is the killing of the soldiers, in any day and edge it is a terrible
:23:50. > :23:54.thing to do. We will cut the throats of those we have, and not a
:23:54. > :23:59.man we shall have will taste our mercy. What I tried to do, because
:24:00. > :24:04.that scene is so important to me was to try to contextualise that.
:24:04. > :24:11.Just before he does that, he's told that his hero, essentially, has
:24:11. > :24:16.died. And he goes abs light ballistic. Has this d Absolutely
:24:16. > :24:25.ballistic. Has this version brought a new take on the Bard, or is it
:24:25. > :24:29.once too often on to the breach. Very unfortunately the BBC did
:24:29. > :24:33.Shakespeare with the studio and none of those restraints, can you
:24:33. > :24:38.bring Shakespeare successfully to television? Absolutely, as with
:24:38. > :24:44.Killer Joe, these are stage plays, all shot on location, that is the
:24:44. > :24:49.key. There was the wobbly sets and actors not the right age for the
:24:49. > :24:55.previous Shakespeares. I thought they were stunning, terrifically
:24:55. > :25:01.directed, I would have thought that Richard II took bigger risks, Ben
:25:01. > :25:06.Whishaw, who was Henry, was channelling Michael Jackson down to
:25:07. > :25:10.the monkey he had, was one of the most outrageous and stunning
:25:10. > :25:14.performances of Shakespeare that I have seen. They will not make a
:25:14. > :25:17.film of Richard II, it won't be a crowd pleaser, this is the best you
:25:17. > :25:25.will see on television. The best film of Richard II on television,
:25:25. > :25:28.you will see. To stick with the Richard II point, the Ben Whishaw
:25:29. > :25:33.performance of mad and dangerous, it was just brilliant? You know,
:25:33. > :25:37.you realise he's actually very bright, but he plays the fool, the
:25:37. > :25:46.Christian martyr, he plays the camp, at one point he plays Lawrence of
:25:46. > :25:51.Arabia, there is a scene on the beach, it is Lawrence of Arabia.
:25:51. > :25:56.The good point is they looked great, they made the dullest plays seem
:25:56. > :25:58.great. The acting is amazing, Patrick Stewart there, who delivers
:25:58. > :26:04.that speech about this precious stone and the silver sea, it puts
:26:04. > :26:11.the hair ones the back of your neck up, it is great. But there was this
:26:11. > :26:17.real sort of sub-Peter greenaway feel to the whole thing that really
:26:17. > :26:24.annoyed me. The whole idea that Richard II was this loving
:26:24. > :26:30.homomartyr was nuts. You have to have a taken to it. Why You have to
:26:30. > :26:35.have a take on it. Why not the one in the play. One of the things was
:26:35. > :26:44.so great, you basically have major stage actors, playing, and you also
:26:44. > :26:48.have essentially, stage director, obviously ear ear ear has done
:26:48. > :26:55.everything. It was so sure-footed the way they were doing this thing.
:26:55. > :27:00.There was a filmic style to them. I'm on Kerry's side with the Ben
:27:00. > :27:04.Whishaw's performance, I really don't like the play, I was dreading
:27:04. > :27:10.it. He was like quick silver, he made me dislike him and sympathise
:27:10. > :27:13.with him. The way they handed the crown over, that was astonishing.
:27:13. > :27:18.The performance is great, but the direction is crass. There are
:27:18. > :27:22.moments when you see Richard's wife, and she's represented by an egg
:27:22. > :27:26.yolk, this broken egg yolk of a barren woman. You see this all
:27:26. > :27:30.thing of St Sebastian, why is he a martyr about his sexuality, you
:27:30. > :27:35.make the battlelines about sexuality, rather than his vanity
:27:35. > :27:39.and stupidity, this idea of the divine right to rule, versus this
:27:39. > :27:44.more real politic approach you don't really get a sense of him
:27:44. > :27:48.bringing about his own downfall through his stupid mistakes. Oh you
:27:49. > :27:52.do. I think that throw it is away. This is clearer to me than any
:27:52. > :27:57.stage production I have seen. It was crystal clear. Physically the
:27:57. > :28:00.clarity, often you are in the theatre and you are quite getting
:28:00. > :28:04.everybody. It was naturalistic compared to what you were getting
:28:04. > :28:14.in the theatre, those words were crystal clear. There is a brilliant
:28:14. > :28:15.
:28:15. > :28:21.scene between Balingbrook and Montague, you have Pure foy and
:28:21. > :28:26.Rory Kinnear together, you got it straight away and it was so simple.
:28:26. > :28:33.With TV you can think that is the person you are concentrating on and
:28:33. > :28:38.zoom in, on stage it is all mullets. You do it on theatre with everyone
:28:38. > :28:41.making a speech and everyone has to stand around and look. What I
:28:41. > :28:46.thought was interesting is why choose these plays now, why go for
:28:46. > :28:50.the play about the monarchy in the year of the Jubilee, and with the
:28:50. > :28:54.Cultural Olympiad, and Shakespeare being our brand leader for culture.
:28:54. > :29:01.Actually, these were good, these were good, but would it have been
:29:01. > :29:04.more interesting if they had said, instead of going ra-ra-ra to the
:29:05. > :29:10.Jubilee, why not look at the State of the Union falling apart and do
:29:10. > :29:13.King Lear. I did see it as a great advert for the monarchy. Tom
:29:13. > :29:17.Hiddleston as Henry V? This is a very interesting thing,
:29:17. > :29:23.particularly, this sounds crass, but having England just crash out
:29:24. > :29:27.of the euros, Henry V for me, there is elements of it that just drive
:29:27. > :29:32.me mad. There is that idea we have to be noble, we can always win
:29:32. > :29:37.because we are English, and follow me. That, you know, has been the
:29:37. > :29:42.downfall of England from time immemorial. When you see that and
:29:42. > :29:49.the way that his charm and charisma is used in that way to gather
:29:49. > :29:53.everyone up, to, essentially, pretty futile endeavours, although
:29:53. > :29:59.they do win. That is absolutely all the way through, all our sporting
:29:59. > :30:03.endeavours, ever since, through England, it drives me mad. Where
:30:03. > :30:07.there is great modernity in the treatment of it, Henry V with
:30:07. > :30:11.Katherine, in the scene where he's wooing her. Brilliant modernty. A
:30:11. > :30:15.sexuality you wouldn't have got, it wouldn't have come across
:30:15. > :30:21.particularly on stage. I thought the playing of that was very
:30:21. > :30:25.different? And very clear. The whole thing is so clear and clean,
:30:25. > :30:29.I have never understood it. It is an easy play to hate, there was a
:30:29. > :30:32.time I thought I would never see Henry V again, because I had it,
:30:32. > :30:39.and I was done with it. This one brought scenes out, and things in
:30:39. > :30:43.scenes you never thought you would see. The Hollow Crown begins with
:30:43. > :30:48.Richard II tomorrow. In May, one of four versions of Edvard Munch's,
:30:48. > :30:53.the scheme scheme, went under the hammer for just $120 million,
:30:53. > :31:01.becoming the most expensive artwork sold at auction. The notoriety of
:31:01. > :31:08.that image, and for once the word "iconic" is deserved, outshadows
:31:08. > :31:14.other artists. The exbuegs at the Tate Modern aims to set him in a
:31:14. > :31:19.different context. When we think of Munch, we think of The Scream, and
:31:20. > :31:25.other paintings he painted in the late 19th century. He died in 1944,
:31:25. > :31:29.so we wanted to look at the 20th century works, and how he works in
:31:29. > :31:34.film and photography, and how that influences paper. There is no
:31:34. > :31:43.screen on view in Tate Modern, but interptations of that work have led
:31:43. > :31:51.Munch to be viewed as a lonely and traumaed big. The traumas he
:31:51. > :31:56.suffered did influence his work? was very sparing in displaying his
:31:56. > :32:01.traumas, his sister died young, there was ill-health, tumultuous
:32:01. > :32:06.love affairs. He was brutal about depicting those events in his life.
:32:06. > :32:11.He's not writing a diary entry, but using his own life to point to
:32:11. > :32:16.universal truths. Munch was fascinated by the advent of
:32:16. > :32:21.photography, and used the camera to turn the gaze on himself.
:32:21. > :32:26.striking how he photographs himself with the camera held at arm's
:32:26. > :32:32.length, it is a gesture we are film with iPhones and social media sites.
:32:32. > :32:36.Munch was doing this 100 years ago. Throughout his career, Munch
:32:36. > :32:43.reworked certain images time and time again. What was behind this
:32:43. > :32:49.obsessive repetition. This competing theories, one that
:32:49. > :32:54.perhaps he was a canny businessman, and he knew which motifs sold, if
:32:54. > :32:58.it sold he would make a replacement. When he had an exhibition the
:32:58. > :33:02.famous works could be included. The other idea is he's working through
:33:02. > :33:10.some psychological trauma. Munch said one painting wasn't enough, he
:33:10. > :33:17.had to go back and excavate the truth behind the painting. Few art'
:33:17. > :33:23.life is revealed in so many artworks. Does this reveal Munch to
:33:23. > :33:27.be a significant modern master. Mark, if the only image you knew of
:33:27. > :33:31.Munch is The Scream, would this confirm or confound your view of
:33:31. > :33:36.the artist? I think it would confirm the fact that he should be
:33:36. > :33:39.up there. It would confound your view of the narrow perspective that
:33:39. > :33:43.you might have of him. I thought this was a great, really
:33:43. > :33:48.interesting exhibition. It is the body of work that is exciting.
:33:48. > :33:53.Given that you have taken out The Scream o the as director, we have
:33:53. > :33:57.called it Norway's Mona Lisa, and it wasn't there. This is a stadia
:33:57. > :34:01.tour, this exhibition has been in Frankfurt, Paris, this is stadia
:34:01. > :34:04.art. A lot of the big blockbusters go around? You think what do you do
:34:04. > :34:08.when you haven't got the greatest hit, you haven't got The Scream
:34:08. > :34:12.there, what they have done is something really interesting. Which,
:34:12. > :34:17.instead of doing a chronological story, they have prevented,
:34:17. > :34:20.presented a series of ideas. Each room you go into, you have to
:34:20. > :34:29.engage with the idea they are presenting, and show Munch as
:34:29. > :34:34.someone who lived. Born at the time and went through to 1944. He covers
:34:34. > :34:39.all that era. This idea of repetition, first it was memory art,
:34:39. > :34:43.and then a commercial proposition. Lots of artists, Monet, Cezanne,
:34:43. > :34:49.repeated things as well, for him it is almost repeating the anguish in
:34:49. > :34:54.some of the images? It is very particular images, it is not a
:34:54. > :34:59.lovely water Lily scene, it is the opposite of that. It is a modern
:34:59. > :35:04.thing n my head when I was watching t I was thinking an old fashioned
:35:04. > :35:08.idea, you want one I will do you one, and you. If you look at the
:35:08. > :35:12.contemporary artists a lot of them worry away on the same ideas. He
:35:12. > :35:18.does that. They are bleak images that he just keeps working.
:35:18. > :35:21.Spinning, spots? That is what it made me think of. It is the
:35:21. > :35:29.simultaneously commercial and artistic decision. He needed to
:35:29. > :35:34.live as deeply as possible. I read that he said deVinci dissected
:35:34. > :35:38.corpses, he dissected souls. He was always going back, he was one of
:35:38. > :35:43.those artists who needs on himself. I also read that there was a
:35:43. > :35:46.painting called On The Operating Table, which is him on the
:35:46. > :35:51.operating table, having lost a finger because one of his lovers
:35:51. > :35:54.shot it off. What I didn't know, until I heard the commentary, is he
:35:54. > :36:00.refused anaesthetic, so he could experience is more fully. That is
:36:00. > :36:05.the sort of stuff he's painting. Real, deep, physical and mental
:36:05. > :36:11.pain. There is a series of paintings where his eye goes wonky,
:36:11. > :36:16.he investigates that. There is part of the investigation where I went e
:36:16. > :36:19.oh no, I I have seen a few exhibitions where they say
:36:19. > :36:23.photography completely undermined his approach, there is an argument
:36:24. > :36:27.for that. One of the strongest rooms there is a big almost
:36:27. > :36:32.foreshadowed and a massive perspective going back. It did come
:36:32. > :36:38.out of photographs. You go into a room where there is a film, they
:36:38. > :36:43.are really glad there is a film he made. It is like the two-year-old
:36:43. > :36:47.got an iPhone. He was an amateur photographer and professional
:36:48. > :36:51.painter. A lot of the photographs I didn't find interesting, the stuff
:36:51. > :36:55.about his eye and what he painted when he was ill, wasn't that
:36:56. > :36:59.interesting. What is good is the drama in the paint, it is exciting
:36:59. > :37:04.to see. We have to talk about the final painting. Let's talk about
:37:04. > :37:07.the whole idea of the self- portraits there this idea of
:37:07. > :37:11.excavating yourself, is not really internal horror and pain, it is
:37:11. > :37:16.external. He actually charts his life, doesn't he. He goes from the
:37:16. > :37:22.first. He has a gap. The very first time you see him, he was very good
:37:22. > :37:26.looking. And always looked haughty and arrogant. That is one of the
:37:26. > :37:31.later more tortured towards the end. We are getting more towards the end,
:37:31. > :37:36.and we finally get to the end, he has no eyes, between the clock and
:37:36. > :37:38.the bed. That is the most amazing picture, I think, in the entire
:37:38. > :37:43.exhibition. All of us thought that final painting was stunning. There
:37:43. > :37:48.you have the journey there as you go through it. It is interesting,
:37:48. > :37:52.because it is not very Munch-like. It hoosn't got that massive
:37:52. > :37:56.perspective going back. The figure sin credibly compelling, but he's
:37:56. > :37:59.surrounded by things within a room, rather than it be amazing
:37:59. > :38:08.perspective going back. Finally at the end, I don't know if that was
:38:08. > :38:15.his last painting? It was. It looked it too. It was almost like
:38:15. > :38:18.I'm done now? It is amazingly contemporary. You could imagine
:38:18. > :38:22.someone like Hockney doing something with with the colour and
:38:22. > :38:27.compositions. You go through the exhibition and you have one of the
:38:27. > :38:31.girls, delightful, their back is to you, there is always the unknowing,
:38:31. > :38:35.never a clarity? There is a great sense of humour in some of the
:38:35. > :38:39.paintings as well, the fight and the uninvited guest, people
:38:39. > :38:44.appearing at the window and he's putting up the gun in the hunter
:38:44. > :38:50.period. The faces at the people turning up at the winder have a
:38:50. > :38:55.crazed clown look to them. He's cartoony, I like good cartoon, you
:38:55. > :39:01.can do a lot with splodges of paint. The exhibition continues at Tate
:39:01. > :39:09.Modern until the 14th of October. He created one of the most
:39:09. > :39:19.memorable album covers of all time, the Beatles, Sergeant Pepper Lonely
:39:19. > :39:19.
:39:19. > :39:23.Hearts Club, Peter Blake had a birthday this weekend, 70, and we
:39:23. > :39:27.celebrate. Peter Blake's audacious use of Popstars and glamorous
:39:27. > :39:33.actors as subject matter, made him a major force in the Pop Art
:39:33. > :39:41.movement in the 1960s. This is a Kim Novak wall, I have done other
:39:41. > :39:47.walls, the Everly Brothers, Superman, Levone, Baker, they are
:39:47. > :39:50.usually entertainers. Blake studied at the Royal College
:39:50. > :39:54.of Art, a marked contrast with his working-class home life, where, he
:39:55. > :39:58.was as interested in football and wrestling, as he was in the
:39:58. > :40:02.classics. However, it was this contrast that shaped his creativity,
:40:02. > :40:06.and liberated him to consider figures from pop culture as
:40:06. > :40:11.appropriate subjects for fine art. This is the love wall. It is like a
:40:11. > :40:16.love shop, really. All the postcards are in the windows. When
:40:16. > :40:20.I did this picture, people said, why do you stick the things on, why
:40:20. > :40:23.don't you paint them? When I do paint them, they say why did you
:40:23. > :40:27.bother to paint them, why didn't you just stick them on. You just
:40:27. > :40:33.can't win. Throughout his career, Blake has
:40:33. > :40:40.been closely associated with pop music, from "that" Beatles album
:40:40. > :40:47.cover, to Paul Weller's Stanly Road. This exhibition is a timely
:40:47. > :40:53.reminder of his skills as painter and accolade of Godfather of Pop
:40:53. > :40:57.Art. Blake and pop music is in Chichester until the 13th of
:40:57. > :41:01.October. That takes us almost to the end of the night's show. Thank
:41:01. > :41:05.you to my guests and all of you for watching and tweeting if you did.
:41:05. > :41:09.Check out the website for more details and everything we have
:41:09. > :41:17.discussed, next week Tim Marlow will be here to look at the Amazing
:41:17. > :41:23.Spiderman, and a new album from Michael Palin, we leave you with
:41:23. > :41:33.who Time Out called, the finest jazz singer we have, Ian Shaw is
:41:33. > :41:41.
:41:41. > :41:46.# It's the space between the houses # Where the sky is showing blue
:41:46. > :41:51.It's a look across a room # You didn't think was really you
:41:51. > :41:57.# A glance from a man # That you never really know
:41:57. > :42:03.# It's a shadow in July # It's a whisper
:42:03. > :42:09.# It's a show # On a day like any other
:42:09. > :42:15.# In a half remembered friend # It's the table in the corner
:42:16. > :42:20.# It's the song without an end # It's a quarrel over something
:42:20. > :42:27.# That you really didn't say # It's a moment
:42:27. > :42:34.# Within a moment # It's a play within a play
:42:34. > :42:41.# Some things can you hold # Tight in your hand
:42:41. > :42:47.# Some things some things are planned
:42:48. > :42:55.# Sometimes beyond # Sometimes above
:42:55. > :42:59.# Always for you # Somewhere to what's love
:42:59. > :43:06.# For the heart that's growing darker
:43:06. > :43:12.# With the passing of the years # But there are blessings to be
:43:12. > :43:17.counted at the end of all the tears # It's the one who wouldn't leave
:43:17. > :43:26.# It's the one that got away # It's the child you couldn't
:43:26. > :43:34.father # The things you couldn't say
:43:34. > :43:42.# Some things you can hold # Tight in your hand
:43:42. > :43:47.# Some things unfold # Some things are planned
:43:47. > :43:55.# Some times beyond # Some times above
:43:55. > :44:01.# Always for you # Somewhere towards love
:44:01. > :44:07.# Some things you can hold # Tight in your hand
:44:07. > :44:16.# Some things unfold # Some things are planned