:00:06. > :00:15.millions of users under the age of Now on BBC News it is time for
:00:15. > :00:19.HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. My guess to
:00:19. > :00:26.today is one of Britain's most experienced and successful film
:00:26. > :00:33.directors. -- guest. He is so Alan Parker. It is hard to find another
:00:33. > :00:37.film-maker who can make feet -- match the range of his work. Alan
:00:37. > :00:43.Parker never cared much for film critics and has always held strong
:00:43. > :00:49.views on the future of the film industry. But in this digital age,
:00:49. > :00:59.our movies at as essential to our courtyard as they used to be.
:00:59. > :01:19.
:01:19. > :01:24.Welcome to HARDtalk. Good to be here. You had pretty much spend all
:01:24. > :01:32.your life steeped in the movies. Are you areas excited by films and
:01:32. > :01:38.film-making today as you ever work? -- as excited. Overall, no. There
:01:38. > :01:45.is nothing more exciting than going to the movies and seeing something
:01:45. > :01:49.that is fantastic. And when that happens, it is the most beautiful,
:01:49. > :01:54.wonderful experience. Those experiences are getting more and
:01:54. > :02:01.more rare. Do you think that is because movies are not as good, or
:02:02. > :02:07.the place they have in your life is different? A little bit of both.
:02:07. > :02:10.When I was making a film per year, and spending most of my life on
:02:10. > :02:19.location, you do not really know what is going on in the outside
:02:19. > :02:24.world. You start to live a life in order to make films about life, so
:02:24. > :02:33.you look at it a bit differently. Film has changed drastically since
:02:33. > :02:37.I started, with regards... it is ultimately dominated by it American
:02:38. > :02:43.cinema, escapism and digital effects. It is the not kind of
:02:43. > :02:48.political film-making that I sort of enjoy. Not that I have always
:02:48. > :02:52.made a serious or political films, but I always thought that films
:02:52. > :02:57.meant something and could affect people's lives and now they don't.
:02:57. > :03:02.I want to latch on to some of those thoughts. At the very beginning, I
:03:02. > :03:07.want to go back to you as a boy, growing up as a working-class kid
:03:07. > :03:14.in north London, in an age of austerity after the Second World
:03:14. > :03:19.War, in Britain. What did the cinema mean to you as a kid? Why
:03:19. > :03:25.did it seem so attractive? It was basically all we had been much that
:03:25. > :03:31.the television was pretty horrible even if you had one. The first
:03:31. > :03:36.thing that I saw on television, Coronation Street. The first time
:03:36. > :03:44.that people realised that everyone else had television. Going to the
:03:44. > :03:47.cinema was the place where we could go. We see a different world. From
:03:47. > :03:54.whatever country of the film might have been about, predominantly
:03:54. > :04:00.American cinema, and British film, but it was a magical place in the
:04:00. > :04:06.dark. I cannot think of anything in my childhood that actually excited
:04:06. > :04:10.me more than going to the movies. place to dream. It gets you away
:04:10. > :04:16.from the life that you are living, being brought up in a council flat,
:04:16. > :04:22.it showed you a different kind of world. Immediately after the war,
:04:22. > :04:26.when I grew up, much of London had been bombed so severely, everywhere
:04:26. > :04:34.was bomb sites. They were boarded up and you were not allowed to go
:04:34. > :04:39.inside. There was nothing more exciting for a kit... there was an
:04:39. > :04:44.old cinema that had been bombed and it was our favoured place. We used
:04:44. > :04:50.to go and sit in the seats. There was no screen, in fact there was no
:04:50. > :04:52.war at the end of the room. became a key to that went to the
:04:52. > :04:58.movies and crowd your mates at school to re-enact some of the
:04:58. > :05:03.fight scenes. I'm thinking of the epic moments in your movies that
:05:03. > :05:12.came later. It started when you were a child, the desire to do the
:05:12. > :05:17.crowd scenes. I did not know at the time. We had been to see a film
:05:17. > :05:23.called... I came back to the school, and I divided the entire school
:05:23. > :05:32.into Romans and hunts. I did not say action, but I gave the order
:05:32. > :05:42.for everybody to charge. And I got into terrible trouble. The word the
:05:42. > :05:44.
:05:44. > :05:49.Cecil B De mayo of Islington. 10. I want to discuss the Ritz you
:05:49. > :05:53.had in Moving Image, in advertising. -- the roots. A very number of
:05:53. > :05:57.successful British designers came out of advertising, when television
:05:57. > :06:03.advertising was really taking off. Do you think you learned a lot
:06:03. > :06:12.about how to tell a story, Hawk and audience? Certainly. It could only
:06:12. > :06:18.last a maximum of 60 seconds so it is very different. But you kind of
:06:18. > :06:23.learn that every single moment matters. It is something that you
:06:23. > :06:27.learn from commercials. But for us it was our film school. It was a
:06:27. > :06:33.very depressed a film industry. I made a commercial every week for a
:06:33. > :06:38.good few weeks, myself and people like Ridley Scott. It was the
:06:38. > :06:45.beginnings of commercials in this country. It was very exciting, and
:06:45. > :06:50.experimental time. We learned a great deal from that. You need a
:06:50. > :06:55.lot of arrogance to be a film director. Your first film was no
:06:55. > :07:04.small undertaking, Bugsy Malone. It was quite a dramatic departure for
:07:04. > :07:10.a movie. It was a mock again and Chicago movie, but cast with kids
:07:10. > :07:16.and for entertainment. -- Anand. Pretty risky. Did you think you
:07:16. > :07:20.could pull it off? Other people may have said I was. I said that
:07:20. > :07:24.directing is a crash course in megalomania. You. In a direction
:07:24. > :07:29.and people run in that direction. And sometimes it is the right
:07:29. > :07:34.direction and sometimes it is the wrong direction. It was a totally
:07:34. > :07:39.pragmatic exercise. I had written a lot of British screenplays which I
:07:39. > :07:47.could not get made because of the depressed film industry. I thought
:07:47. > :07:51.I would write an American movie. I was sitting in the cinema in
:07:51. > :07:55.Islington, I would see loads and loads of American movies. That is
:07:55. > :08:00.what Bugsy Malone is. It is a pastiche of all the movies, or
:08:00. > :08:06.watching American gangster films, American musical films and I have
:08:06. > :08:14.used to being together. Because I had children at the time, I passed
:08:15. > :08:19.all the children. You know it is really difficult to do. Including
:08:19. > :08:23.stars like Jodie Foster. Was it clear to you that some of the
:08:23. > :08:29.children you cast were going to be brilliant actors. Some of them,
:08:29. > :08:33.definitely. Jodie was 12 and she had more movies than I had. If I
:08:33. > :08:38.got sick she could have easily taking over. She told me how to do
:08:38. > :08:44.certain things. She was head and shoulders above everyone else.
:08:44. > :08:47.is what fascinates me. You set out your stall with a fantastically
:08:47. > :08:52.successful entertaining movie, but some of the movies that you are
:08:53. > :08:58.most identified with, they are pretty grim, a sort of dirty
:08:58. > :09:02.realist, hard to watch in a way. I'm thinking of Midnight Express.
:09:02. > :09:08.Maybe Mississippi burden as well. There is pretty graphic violence in
:09:08. > :09:13.them. The stories are about bad men doing bad things and suffering the
:09:13. > :09:19.consequences. Were those movies direct to your heart than the
:09:20. > :09:24.entertainment movies? -- closer to your heart. When you go back to the
:09:24. > :09:29.beginning, I did Bugsy Malone to get started, and it was quite
:09:29. > :09:34.successful. American studios started to offer me things.
:09:34. > :09:41.Midnight Express was one of those. I did not think that Bugsy Malone
:09:41. > :09:46.represented to I was as a person or a film-maker. So I reacted against
:09:46. > :09:51.that. In Midnight Express. The moment that I did that, critics
:09:51. > :09:56.like to put you into pigeon holes, and suddenly... I continued into
:09:56. > :10:03.always choose to do different things. By doing different things,
:10:03. > :10:06.it kept me fraiche and to get the work of regional. Because too many
:10:06. > :10:10.film-makers, and the director makes 20 versions of the same film
:10:10. > :10:16.through their career, and I have always wanted to do different
:10:16. > :10:21.things. The serious work is usually a reaction. You said earlier in
:10:21. > :10:25.this conversation that you did not like the effect of corporate
:10:25. > :10:32.America, commercialised cinema making, what that has had on UK
:10:32. > :10:37.film-making. Does that mean in the end, you believe that movies should
:10:37. > :10:40.have a message? I think they should be about something. When you have
:10:41. > :10:49.seen it, you should not forget it the moment you leave the cinema.
:10:49. > :10:54.They call it car park movies. People stand around in the car park
:10:54. > :11:01.discussing what they had seen. It should not be totally frivolous.
:11:01. > :11:06.There is room for all kinds of film, but I think that cinema at the
:11:06. > :11:11.moment is dominated by the lighter fare, and the more serious movies
:11:11. > :11:17.are not so obvious. I want to talk to in detail about Mississippi
:11:17. > :11:22.burning. It raises some issues that have become very relevant with the
:11:22. > :11:28.fury over the veracity of Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow's movie
:11:28. > :11:32.about the hunt and killing of Osama Bin Laden. Remembering back to Mrs
:11:32. > :11:37.CP, there was a great deal of controversy about the way you
:11:37. > :11:41.presented it. -- Mississippi. It was about three civil rights
:11:41. > :11:46.campaigners who were murdered in the Deep South by group likes clan
:11:46. > :11:52.members. In retrospect, you think the criticism that you
:11:52. > :11:58.misrepresented the nature of the civil rights movement was fair?
:11:58. > :12:04.do not. What was interesting, I was making a film about racism in the
:12:04. > :12:09.United States. Every single time you switch on the TV, there was a
:12:09. > :12:14.person discussing the movie in order to discuss racism. You were
:12:14. > :12:18.going into territory that was so sensitive, so important to the US,
:12:18. > :12:23.long before Barack Obama and some of the achievements that we say
:12:23. > :12:28.today have been achieved. You knew it was a live issue. I am looking
:12:28. > :12:34.at some of the critics. J quite in Time magazine, he said that your
:12:34. > :12:39.version of history was so distorted, it amounts to a cinematic lynching.
:12:39. > :12:46.Powerful words. I R. They are stupid words as well. The film is
:12:46. > :12:51.not that. In the film, why didn't you focus much more on the way in
:12:51. > :12:56.which African Americans were leading the civil rights movement?
:12:56. > :13:02.Martin Luther King, for example. There is an entire film industry.
:13:02. > :13:07.There are people who give you money to make films. At the time, if the
:13:07. > :13:11.two heroes of that story had been black and not white, the film would
:13:11. > :13:16.not have been made at that moment in time. Maybe it shouldn't have
:13:16. > :13:21.been made. It is a very powerful film that would have allowed lots
:13:21. > :13:27.of other films to be made on the same subject. I cannot tell the
:13:27. > :13:30.entire story of the American civil rights in two hours. It is about
:13:30. > :13:36.two white detectives going down to Mississippi and solving a crime.
:13:36. > :13:44.Why it if it was a misrepresentation? It is not. And
:13:44. > :13:48.it is a movie. It is not journalism. It is based on a true story.
:13:48. > :13:52.Doesn't that confuse The Audience? It comes to a head in Zero Dark
:13:52. > :13:56.Thirty, where they begin with the movie with some real audio from
:13:56. > :14:01.9/11, which tells you something about the commitment from this film
:14:01. > :14:06.about veracity, real events and the inside account, but then it turns
:14:06. > :14:13.out there is a huge dispute of how much truth is in the movie. I did
:14:13. > :14:16.not make that young. You should be asking Kathryn Bigelow. The problem
:14:16. > :14:23.with Mississippi burning, everyone thought of it as more important
:14:23. > :14:26.than it actually was. It was one movie. It lasted two hours and six
:14:26. > :14:31.minutes and it is not the entire story of the black American civil
:14:31. > :14:36.rights struggle. There have been wonderful documentaries that went
:14:37. > :14:46.on for 20 hours of television time to tell that story. Mine is a
:14:47. > :14:51.
:14:51. > :14:55.dramatic story that an American If you had presented the movie with
:14:55. > :15:01.two black protagonists, it would never have been made. As that point
:15:01. > :15:05.in time. Can do make it now?You could. One July to?I wouldn't want
:15:05. > :15:11.to be make anything I had already done. The importance of Mississippi
:15:11. > :15:16.burning was to allow 20 of the films to be made on the similar
:15:16. > :15:21.subject matter. It was the first one and therefore if I could allow
:15:21. > :15:25.other films to be made, then I am very proud of that. In a way, what
:15:25. > :15:29.I want to talk about has already come up in the conversation. I
:15:29. > :15:32.sense the passion that you feel that your Moody was misunderstood.
:15:32. > :15:37.You have always had a complex relationship with the critics. You
:15:37. > :15:43.once said they suck because they would love to be doing what you do.
:15:43. > :15:49.Is that really how you feel about them? When you start out as a young
:15:49. > :15:57.film-maker, which was probably when I said that, when you're 40 you
:15:57. > :16:00.don't have the same feelings. The thing is that you think your film
:16:00. > :16:05.is the only film that people are criticising. If you look at all the
:16:05. > :16:15.great films in history, they were criticised at some point. We have
:16:15. > :16:19.to put up with critics not just in the UK, but in the US as well.
:16:19. > :16:25.Every single country has film critics. There will be a lot of
:16:25. > :16:30.people who don't like what you do. As an artist you cannot be pushed
:16:30. > :16:36.out of the direction you're going in. It seems sometimes you will
:16:36. > :16:44.almost pushed off track. I don't know if it was personal for you.
:16:44. > :16:49.Pauline Cail, for example, you said of her, she destroyed careers with
:16:49. > :16:55.a straightforwardness and cruelty. Is it really true? She really did.
:16:55. > :17:00.She was a very cruel woman. When she died, so many people turned up
:17:00. > :17:05.at the funeral not out of respect, just to make sure she was dead. I
:17:05. > :17:10.think film makers truly hated her. Don't you think, when you say that,
:17:10. > :17:16.you come across as a very thin- skinned artist? The absolute right
:17:16. > :17:22.of any person, including a professional critic, is to go to a
:17:22. > :17:26.movie and not like it. There is a line, though. There is in line
:17:26. > :17:32.between doing what you just said and actually being cruel and
:17:32. > :17:39.vicious. What she did was to allow the popularity of that kind of
:17:39. > :17:46.criticism, which was unpleasant and did lead to a lot of film-makers
:17:46. > :17:51.not getting another job. She was influencing not just the studios
:17:51. > :17:56.but also the other film-makers and critics. In the end I think there
:17:56. > :17:59.is a line that no true artist should be worried about what other
:17:59. > :18:05.people are saying about their work because a custard pie comes with
:18:05. > :18:11.the job. You spent the best part of a decade, until quite recently,
:18:11. > :18:16.chairing the UK Film Council and making a lot of noise about the
:18:16. > :18:20.need for the film industry in this country to be an international hub.
:18:20. > :18:24.To get the right levels of investment and ambition to turn it
:18:24. > :18:31.into a really international force. The UK film council was then
:18:31. > :18:39.disbanded by the Government. This Government. How damaging to believe
:18:39. > :18:42.that was? I think it was a petulant political act. I'm terribly biased
:18:42. > :18:50.because I put a lot of time and effort into helping the creation of
:18:50. > :18:52.the Film Council. The Film Council was undoubtedly the best and most
:18:52. > :18:59.efficient support organisation the film industry ever had in this
:18:59. > :19:02.country and led to a decade of stability and growth. When you set
:19:02. > :19:07.out he did say it is time we recognise that our industry's
:19:07. > :19:13.obsession with public funding for production is taking us nowhere.
:19:13. > :19:18.is the thought that if you just rely on that. The film industry
:19:18. > :19:22.would not exist, the indigenous British film industry would not
:19:22. > :19:27.exist. The European film industry would not exist without public
:19:27. > :19:32.subsidy. There is no doubt about that. To think that is the only way
:19:32. > :19:36.we should look to getting films financed is what I was arguing for.
:19:36. > :19:40.How does the film industry in Britain, in Europe, right now cope
:19:40. > :19:45.with the fact that the balance of market power in the movie industry
:19:45. > :19:50.seems to be moving very rapidly Eastwood. Jono very soon is going
:19:50. > :19:56.to be the second biggest movie market in the world. -- China. We
:19:56. > :20:01.see directors cutting films just for the Chinese market. That is
:20:01. > :20:07.terrible. Do not object to that as a journalist? It is not for me to
:20:07. > :20:14.comment on what directors are doing. I'll ask you what you think of
:20:14. > :20:20.James Cameron editing the film and are saying it is an important
:20:20. > :20:29.market. To in his case it was taking it nudity. Political
:20:29. > :20:34.censorship, more sensitive -- moral censorship, is it? For him it was a
:20:34. > :20:38.question of taking out some nudity. Do you think artistic values are
:20:38. > :20:43.being compromised? I am appalled that anyone cut one friend of my
:20:43. > :20:48.work as a director. In any country. I am very critical of the system.
:20:48. > :20:58.For them to recut i n n, as they just did in order for it to be
:20:58. > :21:08.
:21:08. > :21:12.accepted in China, to get the film into the market - the American film
:21:12. > :21:22.industry is about money and would regard anything in order to get
:21:22. > :21:23.
:21:23. > :21:28.more money. They do it in order to get their hands on the Chinese
:21:28. > :21:35.money. As a film-maker and as a writer and as a director, I am
:21:35. > :21:39.appalled that you should cut your work because of 40 party members
:21:39. > :21:46.who choose which films are shown in China. We have talked about China,
:21:46. > :21:51.what about the huge growth in alternative visual art forms, if
:21:51. > :21:55.you can call them that? I'm thinking of the video games, for
:21:56. > :21:59.example. According to the latest figures, $56 billion worth of video
:21:59. > :22:07.games industry in 2011. It is getting bigger much -- much bigger
:22:07. > :22:14.every year. It is extraordinary.Is it a threat to the movie industry?
:22:14. > :22:22.I don't know what threat means. In the end it is the audience that is
:22:22. > :22:26.telling you. Would you have in cinema, in American cinema,
:22:26. > :22:32.probably is that you have this confluence of the video game and
:22:32. > :22:35.the special effects. It doesn't necessarily lead to good, fresh,
:22:35. > :22:40.creative work. It is a different way to communicate to people and it
:22:40. > :22:44.is the audience who are telling us it is what they want. I must say,
:22:44. > :22:47.as we talk, the more I get a sense of your frustration of where the
:22:47. > :22:55.movie business is right now and the sorts of movies being made. I want
:22:55. > :23:00.to quote you the words of Stephen so the bird, he is thinking aloud
:23:00. > :23:03.about whether he wants to make another movie. He said, you have
:23:03. > :23:06.people in this business who don't know movies, who don't watch movies
:23:06. > :23:10.for pieces -- pleasure, and they are the ones who are deciding which
:23:10. > :23:17.movie they are going to allow you to make. Is that reflective of
:23:17. > :23:21.you're feeling? I agree totally. Stephen also said another thing,
:23:21. > :23:31.which was, when you get to a certain age doing what we do, we
:23:31. > :23:32.
:23:32. > :23:37.are expected to beat film directors until we die. He said that there is
:23:37. > :23:43.nothing worse than a really great sports player getting a little too
:23:43. > :23:48.wild and not playing too well. It is better to retire when you are at
:23:48. > :23:52.the best of what you can do. I share his thoughts entirely.
:23:52. > :23:57.you still write screenplays. You still have a very active artistic
:23:57. > :24:02.life. Are you saying you will not make another movie? I won't say
:24:02. > :24:06.that. I usually find reasons -- find reasons not to do them. I
:24:06. > :24:11.don't know why that is. I have written a number of screenplays
:24:11. > :24:17.that haven't been made, but I have made them in my head. I have an
:24:17. > :24:23.entire film festival in my head. A pretty good one too. It is hard
:24:23. > :24:28.making films. I always say, here we are up to my knees in Mississippi
:24:28. > :24:32.mud and making a film that got a number of Oscars and fantastic plot
:24:32. > :24:37.its, and all you can find is somewhat uncritical thing. You
:24:37. > :24:41.think, is it worth it? All that hard work and that's all you are