Kent Film Club - Ian Reeves (Thursday 18th July 2024)
This week Chris Deacy is joined in the studio by Ian Reeves to discuss the films; The Insider. When We Were Kings, Delicatessen, and Blood Simple.
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TVTranscript
00:00Hello, and welcome to Kent Film Club. I'm Chris DC, and each week I'll be joined by
00:18a guest from Kent to dive deep into the impact certain films have had on their life. Each
00:23guest will reflect on the films which have meant the most to them over the years. And
00:27every 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. And now, let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:38He is a professor of journalism, the founding chair of the Houghton Arts Centre, and former
00:43editor of the magazine Press Gazette. He is Ian Reeves. Welcome Ian, great to have you
00:50on the programme. Good to be here, Chris. Now I don't know your choices in advance,
00:54but I can see you've gone for, well actually as a journalist, I can see why you've gone
00:58for The Insider. Yes, I did want there to be a journalism movie on my list, and for
01:04me this is the top of that tree. It's a fascinating study, it's a real story, a fascinating study
01:14into that key relationship between a journalist and their source, in this case a whistleblower.
01:23But it's also about the power that journalism has to make change and to make big difference
01:31in society. And it's also about the challenge that journalism faces in getting stories like
01:39this, which is about big tobacco, onto the air. And so yeah, this is my top choice.
01:46Well when I saw this, it would have been early-ish 2000, around the time of the Oscars, and what
01:51really surprised me is that it could have been made in the 70s. I think there's one
01:55scene, I think maybe one or two scenes where somebody had a mobile phone, but they were
01:59still going to public phone boxes, and it had that real feel of a good, it's very much
02:04up there with all the President's men I think, in terms of peeling away the layers of conspiracy.
02:11And did you sort of feel then that it's a good sort of accurate portrayal of what it's
02:15like to be a journalist?
02:18Yes, and I've been in and around journalism newsrooms all my working life. And I used
02:29this as a kind of case study for my student journalists as well, in how the importance
02:38of developing and nurturing trust in your sources is so fundamental to the craft of
02:46journalism. And this is a movie about trust. This is a movie about a TV producer, Loll
02:55Bergman, and that's also my personal connection slightly to the film, is that I was lucky
03:01enough to introduce Loll Bergman for Press Gazette when the movie came out. Now he's
03:06a producer at the time, he was a producer for CBS 60 Minutes, which is the granddaddy
03:15of investigative journalism on TV in the United States, so it's kind of Newsnight Panorama
03:22kind of combined. So I had a personal connection to him, and talking to him about the importance
03:35of establishing, and the amount of time it took him to establish the trust with Jeffrey
03:41Weigand, who is the whistleblower from Brandon Williamson, the big tobacco company. And as
03:47you say, it has that sort of late 90s feel to it. The point at which he's trying to establish
03:52contact with him, he's actually faxing him through messages to his home, because he won't
03:58pick up the phone. And he realises his one way to get to him is actually write handwritten
04:03notes and fax them through to his personal office. So yes, you do get that fascinating
04:09sort of timepiece element to it as well.
04:13Yeah, because it is contemporary set, isn't it? That was my recollection, because I was
04:18convinced that it was sort of 1970s, and it was such a wonderful throwback to some of
04:23those great conspiracy theories, investigative journalism films of that era. And tell me
04:29a little bit about the performances in this as well, because you've got Al Pacino, you've
04:32got Russell Crowe, obviously Russell Crowe nominated, I think he was three consecutive
04:36years nominated for the Best Actor Oscar that year. And in watching this, do you kind of
04:42feel, you mentioned that you use it with your students, is this the sort of thing, is it
04:46the aspiration, is this what a good journalist should be like, or is this really the sort
04:49of the Hollywood version that we all enjoy, but it doesn't really fit with the day-to-day
04:54world of what it's like to be a journalist?
04:55No, I think this is a great question. I think Lowell Burnham is about as good as it gets
05:01as a role model, because he's a producer. The other thing I like about it is the producer
05:07is the unsung role in TV journalism usually, because you don't get to see them on camera.
05:15So Mike Wallace is the front man for 60 Minutes. His depiction in this film is quite damaging
05:24actually to his reputation. But Lowell Bergman is the guy behind the scenes who does the
05:29hard yards, who brings the stories to life, who makes everything happen, and who doesn't
05:40back down. This is also a movie about resisting corporate pressure. So it's not only that
05:49he works the story through and gets the guy on camera. The big difference between All
05:55The President's Men and The Insider is All The President's Men is a print story, and
06:01their big source is Deep Throat. They have to stand all of that up. What they don't have
06:05to do is get Deep Throat sat in a TV studio with his face on the camera talking to the
06:11world, which is what Lowell Bergman has to do with Jeffrey Weigand. The story doesn't
06:17work unless he's sat in a TV studio. And as much as anything, this is the story about
06:20how he gets that to happen.
06:22Brilliant. Well, thank you Ian. It's time now to move on to your second chosen film,
06:26and you've gone for When We Were Kings.
06:31So this is my documentary choice. I'm a big sports fan. I'm not a big boxing fan at all.
06:41But for me, this is the best sports documentary that's been made, because it actually isn't
06:48a sports documentary. It's a documentary about many things that happens to have a focus
06:54of a boxing match, the famous Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between Muhammad Ali and
06:58George Foreman in 1974. And it happens in Zaire, what was then Zaire. And it's an extraordinary
07:05thing. It's an extraordinarily historic moment, a cultural moment. In so many ways, looking
07:10back, an astonishing thing that this ever happened. And this film tells the story not
07:16just of the fight, but of how the fight comes to be and the panoply of stuff that's going
07:24on around it, including a music festival. And actually, the film starts its life with
07:31Leon Gast being commissioned to do a film about the music festival that is being staged
07:38in Kinshasa across the same weekend that the fight is supposed to happen. And then the
07:44fight gets delayed, so they all end up having to stay much longer in Zaire than was anticipated.
07:51And then the film tells that story of all of the stuff that's going on. And so there's
07:58an incredible political aspect to it. There's an incredible cultural aspect to it of two
08:07black American sportsmen going into Africa and how they are seen by the people who are
08:15the African community of Zaire and what they stand for. So yeah, it has so many different
08:22extraordinary elements to it.
08:24And that's the myth, isn't it, of a sports film or documentary. Because if it's about
08:29baseball or Field of Dreams, it's not really about sport, or sport is the way in. And I
08:34was put on, I think this came out probably around the time, funny if you mentioned, obviously,
08:37The Insider. So it's from that era. And I didn't watch this at the time, but I remember
08:41it was really well celebrated and received all sorts of awards and nominations. So from
08:45what you're saying, it's the context around it that is as important as the fight itself.
08:51Absolutely. It came out in, I think, towards the end of the 90s. And I think it did win
08:56an Oscar. But the fight was 20 plus years before then. And so the journey to the film's
09:03release is almost as fascinating as the film itself. The fight got delayed because George
09:07Foreman had a cut in training. And so they had to wait until a cut was healed. And President
09:11Mobutu, the despotic leader of Zaire, who'd been instrumental in making this sort of circus
09:17happen. In some ways, it's the first sports-washing event that ever happened. He's sort of making
09:23this happen on Zairean sort of soil. So anyway, they're there for six weeks. And in that six
09:28weeks, Leon Gass shoots something like 400 hours of footage, 40 hours of which are interviews
09:33with Muhammad Ali. And then nothing happens for more than 20 years because it then gets
09:40mired in legal disputes, in the lack of finance. So he doesn't have the money to turn the footage
09:48into the film. And it's not till some finances come along in the late 90s that he can actually
09:54make that stuff happen. And then he has people looking back retrospectively. So he has Norman
09:58Mayler, who wrote the definitive book about the fight, on camera, George Plimpton, a couple
10:02of other sporting journalists, reflecting on their view of what happened from ringside,
10:07but also across that period of, that incredible period of time while they're preparing for
10:11the fight.
10:12Yeah. And also, when you consider what documentary can do, because when you have a documentary,
10:17or it can happen to a film as well, but when the gestation of that, the making of it, is
10:21almost as thrilling as the thing itself. You almost want the documentary of the documentary.
10:26A bit like Francis Coppola did, with Heart of Darkness. But is this something that you
10:32can go back to time and time again?
10:34It is. It absolutely is. Because it's reflective of a time. Ali is an extraordinarily charismatic
10:41figure. So anything with him on it is box office. Somebody describes him, not in the
10:46film actually, I think it's Wyclef Jean from the Fugees, describes him as the first rapper.
10:52He does these kind of rhyming couplet type things, he does them off the cuff, and he's
10:56an extraordinary charismatic figure. But then you see, you also get to reflect on what's
11:03happened with the country since then, and the true nature of the Mobutu regime comes
11:08into relief with seeing this. They're fighting in a stadium where, in the previous six months,
11:14people have been shot and killed because they're counter to the Mobutu regime. So there's an
11:18extraordinary political element to it too. But as well as the drama of the fight itself,
11:23and the drama of, as I say, the extraordinary music festival, which has some great names
11:28in it, you get those performances as well. It's a fantastic re-watch.
11:32Yeah, well thank you Ian. Well that's about all the time we have for this first half of
11:35the show. However, before we go to the break, we have a Kent Film trivia question for you
11:40at home. Which of these films features Canterbury Cathedral? Is it A, Atonement, B, King Arthur,
11:48or C, Last Orders? We'll reveal the answer right after this break. Don't go away.
12:06Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club. Just before the ad break, we asked you at
12:11home a Kent Film trivia question. Which of these films features Canterbury Cathedral?
12:17I asked, is it A, Atonement, B, King Arthur, or C, Last Orders? And now I can reveal to
12:23you that the answer was in fact C, Last Orders. On their way to Margate to honour their past
12:29friend's last wish, the lead characters of the film make a detour to visit Canterbury
12:33Cathedral. Did you get the answer right? Well it is time now Ian to move on to your next
12:39chosen film, and you've gone for Delicatessen. I have, yes.
12:48For no other reason than I was so compelled by this film. This is I think an early 90s
12:54film. And I sort of find it quite hard to categorise. I see it gets described in some
12:59places as a sci-fi film, which seems completely wrong to me. So it's post-apocalyptic, but
13:07it has this very peculiarly sort of World War II time feel to it as well. And I think
13:14there's a good reason for that that we might come to. But it has such a kind of clear visual
13:21characteristic to it. There's a very sort of specific colour somehow, and I'm not enough
13:29of a sort of film aficionado to know how that's done exactly. But the way that it's designed
13:33I think is beautiful. And it's a French film with not a huge amount of dialogue in it.
13:40So the storytelling is extremely visual, and there are some absolutely exceptionally
13:47good I think sequences in here, which we might get to discuss, that are sort of set-piece
13:57bits of filmmaking, which I just think are absolutely extraordinary. So yes, I'm just
14:01really compelled by, as a piece of storytelling, it's that visual aspect to it that I really like.
14:10And it gets to the heart of what cinema is all about, and what we get out of cinema.
14:15Because obviously one could argue that with your first choice, The Insider, there's almost
14:18like the busman's holiday element. You're going to the cinema to watch something that
14:21relates to your day job. But sometimes when you're taken out of yourself, or you're taken
14:25somewhere and you're not quite sure what you're being confronted with, and there's something
14:29visceral that's being experienced. But it sounds here that it's that sort of journey
14:34which we're happy to accept, to follow, to dissect, and to return to.
14:39Yes, and I think it's interesting that you say that, because I think I've read, it's
14:45a pair of directors, Caro and Junot. Junot went on to do Amélie, I think, and Mark Caro
14:52went slightly more mainstream, did one of the later Alien franchises.
14:57Yes, he did, yes.
14:59But I think I've read somewhere that they, and this was the first feature film that they'd
15:05done together, but they borrowed, or they were quite heavily influenced by some of those
15:10really early film pioneers, including a French director. Melies, is it, Georges Melies?
15:16Oh yes.
15:17So, you know, there is obviously a sort of nod back to, you know, this, yes, this is
15:23what cinema is all about, is this extraordinary kind of visual treat.
15:27Yeah, and yes, I think he went on to make Alien Resurrection.
15:31Ah, yes.
15:32And that's the thing, isn't it, when you've got a filmmaker who can sort of go mainstream,
15:38but they're drawing on those roots, which the mainstream cinema wouldn't normally, perhaps,
15:43countenance. So again, that in itself, it's like you were talking about the documentary
15:47of how something took 25 years to be made, but also filmmakers who want to stamp their
15:51vision on something, but also know that they have to do so by perhaps, you know, fitting
15:55into a particular mould that isn't really for them. But Delicatessen is kind of like
16:00the origin story of that.
16:01Yes, yes, I think so. And it's also, you see the characters that crop up in some of
16:11their subsequent films. They seem to choose these extremely expressive actors. So I think
16:18it's Dominic Pino who plays the main, or one of the main characters in this film. He's
16:23that most extraordinarily sort of almost rubbery face. And he plays an ex-clown. I mean, the
16:35plot of it is ridiculous, but brilliant. He plays an ex-clown. So we have this sort of
16:41post-apocalyptic environment in a town in France, and it's all set in an apartment block.
16:47And the bottom floor is a butcher's shop, hence the Delicatessen bit of it. And the
16:51various characters who live in the flats above the butcher's shop. And he comes in as a handyman.
16:56He answers an ad in the paper to come in as a handyman. But it becomes quite clear that
17:01there's food is extremely short in this post-apocalyptic world. And the reason that the butcher is
17:08placing the ads is to essentially to butcher the recipients of the ads and serve them up
17:15as meat to the rest of the denizens of this apartment. And so it's these character studies
17:23of all the people in the different apartments, but centred on him. And yeah, as I say, there's
17:31one sequence which I think was the original trailer for the film, where you visit each
17:38of the apartments in turn, and everything is happening in synchronicity. So the sound
17:43is travelling down through the pipe work of the flats. And there's bed springs going
17:50up and down. There's somebody pumping up a bike. There's somebody beating a carpet.
17:54There's somebody making little things that make the noises of a cow. And all of these
18:01things are sort of synchronised. It's sort of two and a half minutes of absolutely spectacular
18:08filmmaking, I think.
18:09Well, fantastic, Ian. Well, it's time now to move on to your final chosen film. And
18:13you've gone for, this is the Coen Brothers, of course, Blood Simple.
18:17The first of the Coen Brothers films. And yes, I think there's such a force in filmmaking.
18:27And this is their origin story. You know, this is their first film. And I love it as
18:32a film, but I also love it because of the story behind how they made it, how they brought
18:38it together, and how they kicked off their own career, really. So yeah, that's why I've
18:44chosen it.
18:45And the Coen Brothers, of course, every film they do seems to not just be of a different
18:50genre, but it gets underneath each of those genres. So tell me a bit about why you've
18:54chosen Blood Simple, because you could have gone for Fargo, you could have gone for The
18:58Man Who Wasn't There, but Blood Simple.
19:01Yes. As I say, I think, you know, there's very few Coen Brothers films I've seen and
19:08haven't absolutely loved. And all of those that you mentioned, The Big Lebowski's right
19:12there, absolutely sensational film. But yeah, this one appeals, as I say, partly because
19:16of the story behind it, but also, you know, I was a teenager when this came out. And it
19:20had a, you know, it did have a big impact on me, because there's, again, there's just
19:24two or three scenes in here, which are still there and, you know, I can go back to in my
19:28mind very quickly. There's one, which I think is the, almost their starting point for, you
19:33know, to build the movie around was this scene where one of the characters is driving what
19:38he thinks is a dead body in the back of his car, out into the middle of nowhere to bury
19:42it. And he walks around to the back of the car, lifts up the trunk to get out his spade,
19:48and by the time he comes back round, the body is gone. And so there's this amazing sort
19:53of moment, which then leads to all sorts of other sort of horrors. So it's a sort of
20:00film noir-ish story, but it's, you know, it's a twist and turny plot. It's one of those
20:06plots where nobody in the film knows what's going on, even pretty much to the final frame,
20:12which I think is really, you know, is really compelling. So, you know, for story making
20:17in its own right, it's up there. But also because of how they put the thing together.
20:24And, you know, they had no track record. They were completely new to the filmmaking world.
20:30They'd worked on some sort of horror, kind of B-movie type things. I think The Evil Dead
20:36possibly. And they wanted to find a way of making their own film. So they made a trailer
20:41with no actors. And I've seen this trailer. So it has this sort of visual feel for Blood
20:46Simple, but you'd never see anybody's face in it. And then they took this trailer around,
20:50local business people, to get them to put in 5,000 here, 10,000 there, to get the film
20:55financed. There's a great story they tell of them sending a script out to a local doctor.
21:00The script was then sent back to them with $5,000 splattered with blood. So, you know,
21:05their sort of determination to, you know, I think it was less than a million pounds
21:09it cost to make this movie. But it's, you know, and I love that aspect of it, that you
21:14can swim against that kind of tide of big money films and make something under your
21:19own kind of steam.
21:21And what works so well with their films is that there's something very local, very regional
21:25in terms of the accents. You think of Francis McDormand in Fargo. And that they speak with
21:30them with a particular vernacular. And there's that sense that they're often very exaggerated
21:34as well. So there's the sense that there's something sardonic going on, that there's
21:38a sort of parody. But there's also something very sort of representative at the same time.
21:41So they sort of really get something. But they go somewhere with it that no other filmmaker
21:47would possibly take.
21:49And then with this one, it's Texas. This is a movie about Texas. And Emmet Walsh, who
21:55plays the private investigator, really seedy kind of character, exactly kind of embodies
22:05that really kind of seedy downside to that state. And yeah, this is a film that has that
22:13place, absolutely has that place. And it also has one of the most kind of compelling endings
22:19to any kind of thriller that I've seen. Again, I could go right back to remembering seeing
22:26that for the first time. And there's a particularly horrific element to it, which I think is just
22:31outstanding.
22:33And do you think that other Coen Brothers films sort of stand up to this? Because I'm
22:37thinking of The Hudsucker Proxy, which had poor Newman in it. But again, that was set
22:41in an age of journalism as well, going back to I think the 1950s and in Chicago. But again,
22:48playing very well with all these sort of archetypes about what it is to be American or what it
22:53is to be somebody who wants to follow the dream. But of course, the heroes here are
22:57always following a very sort of film noir-ish, very wrong, very deluded path.
23:01Yes. And as I understand, they were criticised at one point for this being an anti-American
23:06film. I think in the sort of voiceover intro, Emmet Walsh's character says something about
23:12the Russians and makes the sort of the comparison that in Texas, you're on your own. That's
23:17the kind of the sort of thought behind it. But yes, it's exactly that. It's an absolutely
23:25American film and embodies a particular slice and time of American life in a very impressive
23:32way. Well, I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today. Many thanks to Ian Reeves
23:37for joining us and being such a brilliant guest. And many thanks to you all for tuning
23:41in. Be sure to come back and join us again at the same time next week. Until then, that's
23:46all from us. Goodbye.
23:54Goodbye.