This week Chris Deacy is joined in the studio by William France to discuss the films; Children of Men, War of the Worlds, Baby Driver, and Civil War.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club. I'm Chris Deasy and each week I'll be joined
00:18by a guest from Kent to dive deep into the impact certain films have had on their life.
00:23Each guest will reflect on the films which have meant the most to them over the years.
00:28And every week there will be a Kent Film Trivia where we quiz you at home about a film that
00:32has a connection to the county.
00:34And now let me introduce you to my guest for this week. He is a proud neurodivergent camera
00:39trainee and sports enthusiast. He is William France. Great to have you on the programme
00:46William.
00:47Great for you to have me Chris, I'm lucky to be here.
00:48Absolutely now, I don't know your films in advance but I can see that you've gone for
00:51oh this is a great film which I know was filmed not too far from here, Children of Men.
00:56Yes, yes, so Children of Men I discovered in a bit of a weird way to be honest. I watch
01:01a lot of YouTube at home as most people of my age normally would and a little channel
01:06called Corridor Crew did a VFX breakdown of one of the scenes in this film which was of
01:10the car, which was of that 360 degree shot in the car where they, it was a whole one
01:16shot thing and I thought it was spectacular and I found it through that weirdly enough
01:20and it was just something that stuck with me. It's one of those films where I've remembered
01:24the scenes but not necessarily the plot or the narrative so much of but it stayed with
01:27me.
01:28Yeah, because this was sort of like 2006, 2007, certainly when I saw it and do you want
01:32to say a little bit about the impact that had on you because obviously you work, you're
01:35a camera trainee, are you looking at this film largely from the way in which it was
01:39shot or is it very much in terms of the content, the very sort of apocalyptic scenario that
01:44the film delineates?
01:45No, absolutely, I was looking at it more in the way that it was shot rather than anything
01:48else because obviously Alfonso Cuaron is a massive, he's a fantastic director and before
01:53this he just did Prisoner of Azkaban which I thought was the best looking Harry Potter
01:57film out of all of them in my honest opinion and the way that he shot this was fantastic,
02:03the combination of one is where they're doing long one take shots on a steadicam with not
02:10tripod shots but like shaky shots and documentarian style, it was really impactful to me.
02:15And he made a few years before that Great Expectations, the Robert De Niro and Bancroft
02:20version which I thought was extraordinary.
02:22I remember going to the cinema with my mother to see that and she was like, but I know Great
02:26Expectations, I said you don't know this version but a very evocative filmmaker, very good
02:32at conjuring up sort of childhood.
02:34Yeah, absolutely and I haven't seen Great Expectations but the scene I remember from
02:38this film particularly was in the climax when he's navigating the pregnant women through
02:44the war zone and then you just hear the baby cry and then all the fighting just stops and
02:48the way that they racketed up the tension in that moment and then it was just a release
02:52and everyone just thinking there's a crying baby around and we haven't heard that in years
02:55and years and years and that was what was really impactful to me is that something like
02:59that can bring together two conflicts and make it one.
03:04Yeah and the film is very good at that sort of idea that there is this future where I
03:08think no one is able to have children and there's one pregnant woman and effectively
03:13the future of humanity rests on her and as I remember it, it's a few years since I watched
03:19it but it's a very kind of credible scenario in terms of the way that it shows a world
03:24not entirely different from our own and set not necessarily in the future very far from
03:28our own.
03:29Yeah, absolutely and actually I was doing a bit of background research on this before
03:31I came in and the setting of the book was set in 2021 which is quite interesting but
03:38then the setting of the film is 2027 so there's minor differences in the text which I haven't
03:42read myself but I've only seen the film but yeah, minor differences which I definitely
03:46think make it a lot more plausible that it could happen scarily enough.
03:50And certainly filmmakers, Hollywood particularly in the late 90s around the time of the millennium
03:54were good at playing with a lot of these tropes.
03:56The idea is what does the future have in store and in some ways some of these films looking
04:02back particularly in the light of the pandemic, people were looking back at things like Outbreak
04:07and saying gosh, in a way what we saw as just good popcorn entertainment a few decades ago
04:11doesn't seem all that far removed from reality so I don't know if you've watched Children
04:14of Men in recent years and whether you've changed your apprehension of it in the light
04:19of Covid.
04:21I think I watched it during the pandemic, the first time I watched it was during the
04:23pandemic which is quite an interesting watch because by then I'm in my bedroom, I've got
04:29my TV on my wall and I'm just watching it on my own in isolation on Netflix and I don't
04:35know if that added to the emotional impact it had on me but it was certainly a realisation
04:41of it could be worse, we could not be able to carry on as a species.
04:46Yeah and I'm just thinking in terms of the technical side as well because you saw this
04:50on the small screen but would the big screen be a good way for you to watch a film, does
04:57it matter to you the format in which you watch a film, are you a big screen cinema person
05:02or would watching something on the small screen sort of do the job satisfactorily for you?
05:07Absolutely, I think I always prefer cinema over small screen, most of the films I've
05:11watched and most of the memories of films I've watched have been in the cinema as I
05:15think I will allude to in a couple of the other choices I've got coming up but no I'd
05:21always go big screen over small screen if I had the choice.
05:24But of course you're talking about, and that was the interesting thing, watching a film
05:26like this during lockdown when you had no choice but to watch it on the small screen
05:30and that whole art meets life scenario, did you sort of feel while you were watching it
05:35that this was something that felt frighteningly sort of very much of its time?
05:39Yes weirdly enough because everyone in the film is conscious of each other but in a more
05:43like hesitant way, you could tell in the film that no one trusted each other, it was just
05:47like they were bonded together by the single purpose of getting this refugee to safety
05:51so it felt very much like Covid in the weirdest sense, yeah.
05:55Okay, well thank you very much William, it's now time to move on to your second chosen
05:59film and you've gone for perhaps not necessarily dissimilar, War of the Worlds.
06:06Yeah not too dissimilar is it and again I have a bit of a weird story with this one.
06:11So my mum and my dad used to listen to the Geoff Wayne War of the Worlds album in the
06:16car whenever we went on a long road trip it was in the car and it absolutely terrified
06:20me, absolutely terrified me.
06:22And I remember watching a film when I was quite young and there was a scene in it where
06:27a train was on fire and it was just going through a station and it was just whole people
06:31everywhere and then there was another scene with a car and people breaking into a car
06:35because it was the only car that was actually working and I didn't actually know what that
06:38film was until I rediscovered the album in university and it led me to this.
06:43So this is not the Spielberg version from 2005, do you want to talk through which version
06:49of the film this is?
06:50No it is the 2005 version from Spielberg but yeah it's interesting, I definitely, I liked
06:58it but as someone who's read the book and quite a snob for having things being authentic
07:03to the text it's not the most authentic take on the book you could say.
07:07And also Spielberg is very good at dealing with those tropes around family and what I
07:12saw when I watched this actually on the big screen in an adjacent county here in East
07:17Sussex back in 2005 was that sense in which you've got the apocalyptic scenario but it's
07:23very much grounded, perhaps in a way that Children of Men is also but very much in that
07:28sort of context about what is the nature of family and the way that there may be a broken
07:32family that can be put together again.
07:34Yes absolutely, I mean Tom Cruise and the two children he has in this are the absolute
07:40core of the film and I think it's quite apt that he chose Tom Cruise to lead it because
07:45he just seems so versatile in doing everything.
07:47You look at his filmography and he's like minority, he did Minority Report before this
07:52and then just went straight into it like the pre-production for this was less than a year
07:56I think I remember it being.
07:59Yes because there was a big thing wasn't there, yes you're right for Minority Report that
08:02they haven't worked together Spielberg and Cruise and yes of course so this was what
08:07three years later.
08:08Yeah, yeah and it was so interesting.
08:12I don't think it's the best film I've ever watched but it's certainly the two scenes
08:16I pointed out at the beginning with the train on fire, with the car being broken into and
08:20actually the ferry, the ferry being toppled over by the Martians really stuck with me.
08:25And is there anything, because I haven't seen it since that initial viewing but is this
08:30something you know in terms of the whole Spielberg canon of films, where would you place this
08:35one?
08:36What would make you, what has made you pick this one in particular because obviously it's
08:40clear from your first choice as well that this is a genre of films that appeals but
08:44why did you go for War of the Worlds?
08:47I think I went for it for sentimental reasons to be honest because I remember the album
08:51so well and I've listened to it so many times, I've listened to nearly every version of it
08:55under the sun and just this is just part of that canon of media for me in that particular
09:01sphere that I just really seem to enjoy and I think it is those three scenes and the whole
09:06idea of the red weed later on when they die and it's the whole idea of the story which
09:12I love is the idea that humanity has brought its birthright to the earth just through millions
09:17and millions and millions of years of evolution and that's what the Martians couldn't deal
09:20with.
09:21It's a horrifying allegory for like for an actual selection you could argue for a Dickensian
09:28way of telling a story.
09:30Yeah and I'm just thinking as well as you mentioned the Geoff Wayne War of the Worlds
09:34and listening to that on the radio in the 80s certainly when I was at university in
09:39the early 90s that would often be played on radio too for example and it's haunting and
09:44just listen to that and the dum dum dum and suddenly and of course that kind of hasn't
09:49lost its ability to send a shiver down the spine so did you sort of go in with a lot
09:54of apprehension when you watched this film having been exposed to that particular musical
09:58score?
09:59I did go in with a bit of apprehension because I absolutely I love the story of Geoff Wayne's
10:03War of the Worlds.
10:04The whole story of it is absolutely fantastic and the way it's told is such a unique way
10:08to use the medium so when I saw this and you know you see the key differences like the
10:13Martians the pods were already in the earth but then like the lightning bolt that comes
10:16down is actually the Martian arriving in their pod.
10:19It takes a bit of a while to wrap your head around especially when you know the original
10:22story so well so there are some changes you have to get used to but it still works, still
10:27really effectively works.
10:28And I have to ask you because I've already given away that I saw this on the big screen.
10:33Did you see this I'm guessing maybe not at the time but have you ever seen this on the
10:37big screen?
10:38No I haven't.
10:39No I haven't ever seen it on the screen.
10:41I remember seeing I remember watching it like I said earlier I remember watching a film
10:44with this train on fire with the cars breaking into and everything like that but I never
10:48connected that it was this until I listened to the album almost religiously during my
10:53university years.
10:55And is this a film that you've returned to a number of times?
10:58Is it the sort of film that you can rewatch?
11:00I think so.
11:01It's not it's not the best in Spielberg and I definitely I I'd rank it around the same
11:07areas like Ready Player One that sort of that sort of nice story but not necessarily not
11:13necessarily too deep you could argue.
11:15I think the book is deeper than this film and so is the album but it's it's certainly
11:20but mid-tier Spielberg is still good Spielberg it's just who he is.
11:26Well that's about all the time we have for this first half of the show however before
11:31we go to the break we have a Kent Film Trivia question for you at home.
11:37Which film features scenes at Dover Castle showcasing Emily Blunt and Meryl Streep?
11:43Is it A. Into the Woods B. The Devil Wears Prada or C. Little Women?
11:51We'll reveal the answer right after this break don't go away.
12:06Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club.
12:09Just before the ad break we asked you at home a Kent Film Trivia question.
12:14Which film features scenes at Dover Castle showcasing Emily Blunt and Meryl Streep?
12:19I asked is it A. Into the Woods B. The Devil Wears Prada or C. Little Women?
12:25And now I can reveal to you that the answer was in fact A. Into the Woods.
12:29This film was actually the second collaboration between the two actresses the first being
12:34The Devil Wears Prada.
12:36Did you get the answer right?
12:39Well it is time now William to move on to your next chosen film and you've gone for
12:45Baby Driver which I saw and enjoyed at the cinema in what 2017?
12:54This was one where I heard about the hype surrounding it from the film festivals leading
12:58up to the release and it was one where I bought the soundtrack the week before it released
13:02and listened to it almost constantly constantly constantly so I was more than ready to love
13:07this film.
13:08Do you want to say what it is because that's the thing you've just highlighted the hype
13:12so the idea that you know before it and sometimes I've gone into a film and you're thinking
13:16oh okay this actually isn't what I was expecting but there was a good vibe about this and I
13:20remember seeing I had to sit in the very back row of a very large multiplex in Westwood
13:25Cross I wanted to see it at the Carlton in Westgate-on-Sea but there was one seat left
13:30in the front row and I thought I think this might be a back row film.
13:34Well funny enough I saw it in view at Westwood Cross so not too far away from you but no
13:38The thing that really the thing that I got from the trailers is that it's going to be
13:41highly edited it's highly conceptual you know the whole idea of a heist film set to music
13:46is something that only Edgar Wright could really do and some people have called him
13:49a budget Tarantino but I think this is absolutely the film that separates him from Tarantino
13:54I think it's a brilliant representation of his own cinematic voice.
13:58Do you want to tell me a little bit about so remind anyone who has seen it or like me
14:03to be honest who hasn't seen it in a few years or anybody who hasn't watched it what is Baby
14:07Driver about?
14:08So Baby Driver is about a baby who has a hum and a drum as they like to put it in the film
14:13which means he has tinnitus so what he does to drown it out is listen to music on his
14:18various different iPods while he does heist jobs and heist driving because I think he
14:23saved Doc at some point in his past and he owes him a debt essentially so the film is
14:28about him paying off the debt and trying to get out of crime in Atlanta and I just love
14:33it because it's cinematography is so clean so precise but the editing the way they edit
14:38the cuts on so many different beats and they do it consistently through the film I honestly
14:41think if you want my hot take I think this should have won best editing at the Oscars
14:45over Dunkirk.
14:46Yes that's right yes because they were both out in that sort of period summerish of 2017
14:51and also the use of music now as I recall because you know Scorsese with Mean Streets
14:54in the 70s and Tarantino with Pop Fiction and Jackie Brown was very good at making the
14:58music almost a character in the film but that is what I remember standing out in Baby
15:04Driver.
15:05I absolutely agree with you the soundtrack for this is nothing like I've heard with
15:07Tarantino or Scorsese and you know especially with Goodfellas in Scorsese you know there's
15:12very much a 1950s 60s vibe with the music there of if I'd only been a millionaire that
15:18sort of thing but this is the soundtrack for this feels so modern compared to the soundtracks
15:23of Tarantino and Scorsese and everyone else so I think that's what really stands it apart
15:28I listen to Radar Love nearly every day because of this.
15:31Yeah it has that sort of pulse and you're sort of watching a film where it may be about
15:35a heist because I in a way I asked you almost a misleading question when I said what it's
15:39about because in a way the film is about the tone it's about the use of music it's about
15:45the mood that's evoked rather than plot I mean the plot is is kind of up there with
15:50all the other sort of categories and it's a film that's very much about style.
15:54Yeah absolutely and the scene that really stands out for me is the climatic scene where
15:58they're playing Brighton Rock by Queen as they're having a fight with cars and it just
16:02peaks at that point but also the opening sequence of a whole five minute sequence set to bell
16:08bottoms by the jazz Spencer's Blues Explosion or something like that and it's very reminiscent
16:13of the music video he did with Mint Royale it's so the music is so makes the film so
16:19kinetic and it just gives it a beat to put everything to.
16:23And in terms of subsequent viewings because so it's wonderful that there was this hype
16:29and it lived up to the hype but have you been able to watch it many times since has it grown
16:34with you have you grown with the film?
16:35I've watched it so many times since I've had it on DVD and it's probably the most watched
16:39DVD I've had over the last few years it's um I think it's that good and I made a university
16:44essay about this film as well in its use of sound against the Revenant and it was you
16:49know that's the most chalk and cheese comparison you could probably get but I got a first so
16:55but yeah no it's I just think it's so clever and I remember watching behind the scenes
16:58and watching all the work they did and it was absolutely my favorite film of the 2010s.
17:04Absolutely I've seen other Edgar Wright films but they've even been picked on this on this
17:09very program but is this do you think this is up there in its own class do you think
17:17that any of the other Edgar Wright films sort of come close to this do you think that
17:22he's ever going to beat this one?
17:23I think that's a great question um in terms of the Cornetto trilogy I think that's in
17:27it that's in the class of its own you know you think about the consistency in them like
17:31Shaun of the Dead, Ed Hot Fuzz everyone says the World's End is the black sheep of that
17:35trilogy, I quite like it um but I as an individual piece of art that I think this stands above
17:42Last Night in Soho I think is also fantastic but I love this so much more than Last Night
17:46in Soho.
17:47I saw Last Night in Soho and I was really that was sort of went into a completely different
17:51you know genre in the second half but brilliant stuff okay well it's time now to move on to
17:55your final chosen film and I'm pausing as I'm saying this because I have seen Civil
18:03War twice at the cinema including most recently two nights ago the second time one of the
18:08most visceral shocking films I've seen where the cinema auditorium might as well have been
18:13a war zone.
18:14Yeah I agree it's um so and I thought I'd pick a film for this year and this is the
18:19this is the film I was looking forward to this year and I think it's I think it's absolutely
18:23fantastic and as someone who loves photography and loves photojournalism I think it's such
18:28a good angle to go into with a war zone is to say here's a photojournalist here's what
18:32they're capturing but they can't have a point of view whatsoever that's what it felt like
18:35to me it's so it's so people have criticized it for being so centralist in a way but that's
18:41their job they have to be able to just capture the image and not be leaning towards either
18:46side and also what really stood out and it goes back to the conversation we had about
18:51your first chosen film as well that sense that you're watching something where it feels
18:57almost as though this could be now yeah in this case it's presenting a vision of America
19:03or version of America whereas it California and Texas have ceded from the union and there's
19:09a civil war and then you have a president who is bombing his own civilians and it might
19:14as well be anything that we're watching for example in the Middle East is happening in
19:17America and yet the film is doing it in that almost dispassionate way that leather journalists
19:21some of them a bit world weary they've got this real sense of vocation and yet they are
19:26quite literally put themselves on the line but they wouldn't do otherwise yeah absolutely
19:31and I think this I think there's no mistake this came out during election year in the
19:35United States of America I think that was I think it's a brilliant move by age 24 to
19:39actually do that because the synergy of it feels more relevant now than it ever does
19:43it's it could this is literally what if the plot of this film is what what would happen
19:48in the Middle East if it was set in the United States it is just what it is and it's I think
19:52it's so impactful for being that yes and the way in which as well it sort of shows that
19:57the journalists who are also interestingly of course using quite sort of analog forms
20:03of technology in that sense that they're not recording this with with a smartphone yeah
20:07they're not using video technology it's all about capturing the right shot and so it feels
20:12both prescient but also in a way it's sort of like a throwback to some of those great
20:18journalistic films of yesteryear yeah absolutely and there's been a joke that's been going
20:23around since that says that Jesse the young young woman in the film has the longest role
20:28of whom you could possibly imagine in the final scene but um no I think it is just in
20:33terms of photojournalism I love doing photography and it's such a great angle to go with
20:37just because you have to you have to evoke the characters but you know that they can't be
20:44letting their biases influence their work and the whole idea of that is really resonant with me
20:49and with I think with so many other people yeah and the thing as well that Kirsten Dunst who of
20:54course made a lot of films interview with the vampire when she was very young and what I thought
21:00is with the Jesse character that could almost have been played by Kirsten Dunst just a couple
21:04of decades ago and so that sense that Jesse is going to grow into her mentor and the mentor
21:09herself who doesn't want her on the trip but realizes that she would have been angling for
21:13that ride a few years ago and it's that sense in which they realize that actually if you have the
21:19drive to do something you have to go with it and and the film really sort of captured that
21:24intergenerational sort of sense of if you know you've got to do it you really nothing's going
21:29to stop you yes pass on and I remember watching this is going to be a real throwback I love
21:33Spider-Man 2 and I remember watching Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane in Spider-Man 2 and this is
21:38poles apart from what she did in that and I think it's so and I think it's so great that an actor
21:43can do work like this and especially with Alex Garland it's Alex Garland's one of my favorite
21:46directors I nearly chose X Machina as a choice of my films because I think his work is so
21:52fantastic and the fact that this could be the last film he directs not the last film he writes
21:56but directs is I think would be a bit of a travesty because I think it shows him just
22:00getting started with doing these unique sort of films yes and there was another film as well set
22:06in the context of the the Gulf War had Mark Wahlberg in it sort of the end of the late 1990s
22:12early 2000s very much the way in which you know we there are lots of war movies I saw this actually
22:18as part of my own double bill on Monday night this week with the Powell and Pressburger Life
22:23and Death of Colonel Blimp and I saw that at the Curzon Westgate and went over to Curzon Riverside
22:28to watch this two completely different films but I had a very interesting dreams that night but
22:33do you sort of feel that this film in a way is sort of almost through cinema it's reconfiguring
22:38what we understand about the essence of war and the delineation of war I think it does actually
22:43I think that's a that's a great angle to go out with I think it's I think what what it does it
22:48objectively shows war is bad which isn't hard for a war film to do but it shows it in a way that it's
22:56with the centralist idea of it is showing the sorrow and the showing the sorrow and the hurt
23:01and the grief that can happen on both sides in that sense and obviously America in this is
23:06obviously much more of a dictatorship obviously with the president bombing his own people and
23:11lying to his own people in the first scene he's talking through the speech with himself and he's
23:15trying to it feels like he's trying to make himself believe what he's saying and it's um it's
23:20so interesting that an informed minority is better than an uninformed majority okay brilliant well no
23:27thank you William and I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today many thanks to William
23:33France for joining us and being such a brilliant guest and many thanks to you all for tuning in
23:40be sure to come back and join us again at the same time next week
23:44until then that's all from us goodbye