Trendy But Casual

Packing, and Playing with Dolls

 

We’re packing up in preparation for the move from Glasgow to Sheffield, interspersed with showing prospective tenants around the flat and obsessive readings of the IKEA catalogue. Also, on Friday evening, we went to see the film ARGO, which I enjoyed very much. (And the setting inspired me to read a particular short story on Saturday - #54 in the list.)

The story-reading goes on, of course, despite all the distractions.

Story #49: ‘Pornography’ by Ian McEwan (1978)

Story #50: ‘Starring Gary Cooper’ by William Gay (2013)

Story #51: ‘Angel Baby Blues’ by Wanda Coleman (1987)

Story #52: ‘Only the Dead Know Brooklyn’ by Thomas Wolfe (1935)

Story #53: ‘The Pedestrian’ by Ray Bradbury (1953)

Story #54: ‘Tehran Calling’ by Nam Le (2008)

Story #55: “Grand Froid’ by Paul Emond (2011)

Today we were sorting through tubs and boxes, and packing things to take down to Sheffield this week when I go down for work. Of course, while TMiddy laboured and cleaned and packed, I was concerned with the most important things.

There was a short interruption so I could do some remedial hair-brushing (of  dolls’ hair, not my own), and a bout of dressing-up.

 

These dresses were made for my dolls by my great-aunt, Auntie Violet, sometime in 1980, when I was fourteen. The white dress was made with scraps from my sister’s wedding dress; the pink dress was made with leftover pieces from my own bridesmaid dress.

Those dresses that Auntie made, and the clothes my grandmother made seven or so years earlier for my then-new Barbie, are among my most treasured things. I was so delighted to get these, and conscious – even then – of how much time and care had gone into them. What I didn’t realize, I think, was the love that went into them as well.

If you’re wondering why I was still playing with dolls when I was fourteen, you should know that I continued for some years after that. I should never have given them up.

Casual Colonialism

It’s been a long time since I lived in the UK. I left in December 1993, eight and a bit years after arriving in the misleadingly sunny September of 1985. 

In 1985 Thatcher was Prime Minister; by 1993 John Major had taken her place, and I arrived back in 2010 to the joy that is Cameron's Tory/Lib-Dem coalition. (I missed the Blair and Brown years altogether.) When I left, SURPRISE SURPRISE and NOEL’S HOUSE PARTY were still on TV. My fondest memory of SURPRISE SURPRISE is Cilla Black singing and marching her way through ‘In the Navy’ on board an actual ship. Sadly, this is not available on YouTube, though at least we can still see/hear the wonder that was the closing credits.

But I digress. Things change, things stay the same. One thing I had forgotten about: the casual colonialism. In the US, I got out of the habit of experiencing this. When Americans find out you’re from New Zealand, they are various things – delighted, curious, intrigued, envious. Sometimes they are confused, and think that you might have said Venezuela. But mostly they are positive. I heard the words ‘I love your accent’ at least once a week. (This was good, because nobody else anywhere – including anywhere in New Zealand – loves my accent.)

The casual colonialism isn’t as bad here in the UK as it used to be, but this is relative. It’s like saying service in Britain isn’t so bad these days either, or it hasn’t rained that much in Glasgow this week. An example: arriving in the mail recently, a copy of Scotland in Trust magazine. We get this as members of the National Trust. (The National Trust for Scotland, to be precise, because Scotland has to be separate and different. It has to contend with casual colonialism issues of its own.)

In the ‘From the Archive’ section there’s a black-and-white photograph of a kapa haka group standing in a walled garden. The headline reads: ‘Maori dance at Pittmedden 1978.’ Pitmedden Garden is a National Trust property in Aberdeenshire.

Don Currie, author of the short article, describes what we can see in the photo – the fountain, the yew trees, the audience, the ‘dancers’ who had just appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. He makes specific mention of the two guitar players standing behind the group. These guys, both young, wear shirts, blazers, and what people used to call slacks. The ‘elaborate attire’ of the other performers, notes Currie, stands out against the formality of the garden, ‘and even the musicians’ jackets and wide-collared shirts.’ Clearly, he deduces, ‘Maori culture did not go untouched by Seventies fashion.’

Um, what? There's a glimmer here of patronising smugness that – to give the writer the benefit of the doubt – was probably unintentional. Why would anyone Maori living in New Zealand in 1978 – let alone gadding about the world – be ‘untouched’ by the fashion of the day? Without the startling evidence of this photograph, would we readers of Scotland in Trust assume that, back home in the Land of Exotica, Maori walk around wearing piupiu, busily untangling poi or lowering kete of food into hot pools?

Earlier this month I was reminded of how a colonial notion of distance – cultural and physical – persists here. Robert McCrum’s column on books in the Observer mentioned the attention-seeking remarks made by VS Naipaul about female writers (it's all 'feminine tosh', apparently'), and cited the reaction by New Zealand writer – and Booker Prize winner – Keri Hulme. Hulme lives, McCrum advises, ‘amid sheep and fisher folk’ on New Zealand’s South Island. In other words, in some fairy-tale land, a place of yokels and delightful simplicity. (Try asking someone on the West Coast to point you in the direction of some ‘fisher folk’ and see what they have to say.)

According to McCrum, not only is Hulme buried deep in a Tolkienesque idyll, she ‘has been silent for decades.’ This news will surprise many New Zealanders. Is this the silent Keri Hulme who actively comments (sometimes under the moniker Islander) on literary blogs like the late, lamented Leaf Salon, and the lively forum managed by the indefatigable Bookman Beattie? Is this silent Keri Hulme the writer who was published in Landfall last year? The Keri Hulme who was the fiction advisor to the Montana Prize judges the year my first novel won a prize? The Keri Hulme who has edited a Huia Short Stories anthology, and this year is serving once again as a judge in their Pikihuia writing competition?

Hulme herself was unimpressed by the label ‘silent’ and told Bookman Beattie exactly what she thought here.

I suppose what McCrum is really saying is this: Here in London we haven’t heard anything from Keri Hulme for decades, so she MUST be silent. Whatever she’s up to in the distant colonies – ‘noises off,’ as it were – doesn’t count.

The patronising swipes don't stop there. Hulme, McCrum says, ‘told her New Zealand audience …’ – hang on, which audience? Is she the Queen of New Zealand, perhaps? Do we all assemble, amid the sheep and the fisher folk, at a weekly audience? Or perhaps she was speaking to a physical audience at some kind of festival event in New Zealand. No. Actually, she was commenting online on a blog post by Bookman Beattie. I guess McCrum doesn’t want to mention the source, or give a context for the discussion.

In her comment, Hulme calls Naipaul ‘a misogynist prick.’ This permits more smug colonialism from McCrum. ‘The language of literary criticism,’ he observes, ‘clearly has a different register in the Antipodes.’

This might be a more useful observation if Hulme had been engaging in literary criticism – say, writing a long essay on Naipaul for the New York Review of Books. But she was commenting online, responding to a blog post. Anyone reading various online Guardian/Observer articles will soon discover that the ‘language of literary criticism’ in online comments is pretty much the same all over the world. Here’s a selection from Guardian and Observer readers on the topic of Naipaul: he is a ‘total tool’, a ‘silly old fart’, a ‘mega-misogynist’, an ‘old git’, a ‘wife beating’ writer, an ‘oaf’, ‘a prize berk’, and a ‘sexist a**hole.’

A Guardian online article a few years ago posed the question: ‘is VS Naipaul simply the grumpiest, most conceited writer alive?’ In a print article about literary prizes in the Guardian earlier this month, writer and critic Bidisha alleged that a ‘man does a s**t in a potty and it is called a work of genius; a woman produces a work of genius and it's treated like a s**t in a potty.’ (You can read the whole feature here.) Gee, the language of literary criticism clearly has a different register in the UK, doesn’t it?

This is what I mean by casual colonialism: dismissive, smug, and a little patronising, with no sense that one’s own ignorance and/or parochialism might be informing an interpretation – of a picture, of remarks, of another culture, of another part of the world. It’s amazing to me that it still exists here.

This week, when I'm not puzzling over such absurdities, I'm thinking of two of my family members who are in strange places right now - strange to them, at any rate. My mother is in hospital in Auckland, and my niece has just arrived in Paris, where she'll be spending the next two months. I hope my mother will be able to come home soon. I hope my niece has the most wonderful, wonderful time.

Frank Cottrell Boyce: 20 Questions

This is the first in a new series of mini-interviews, in which I ask twenty conceived-in-haste questions of some extremely generous famous person.

Frank Cottrell Boyce is an acclaimed screenwriter and dramatist. He wrote seven of Michael Winterbottom's films, including BUTTERFLY KISS, WELCOME TO SARAJEVO,  THE CLAIM, and 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE.  Other screenplays include PANDAEMONIUM (directed by Julien Temple); HILARY AND JACKIE (Anand Tucker; the screenplay was nominated for a BAFTA); REVENGERS TRAGEDY (Alex Cox); and MILLIONS (Danny Boyle.) 

 

Photo: © Macmillan Children's Books

Frank was born in Liverpool, and still lives and works in Northwest England. The father of seven children, he's recently turned his hand to children's books, including Millions, which won the 2004 Carnegie Medal; Framed; and Cosmic.

Because I am a slavish fan of his work – obsessed, in particular, with 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE – and because (surprise!) one of my screenwriting classes is studying his writing this semester, I asked him for an interview. He kindly agreed to answer the following questions, via email, on March 4, 2010.

PM: Before you were writing for film, you were a television writer, writing for Coronation Street and Brookside. What did you do when you first graduated from university, and how did you get into writing? Your career in film always seems to be presented as a straight line beginning with Living Marxism, followed by radio plays.

FCB: I was writing all the time at university – putting on my own plays with a group of friends. I started selling bits and bobs to the radio and to comedians, which is how I got the soap opera gig.  The stuff about Living Marxism is daft. It was just a favour and it had no career impact. They put it up on Wikipedia and I can’t be bothered working out how to take it down.

PM: I read that two films that had a big impact on you were THE GREAT ROCK ‘N’ ROLL SWINDLE and GREGORY’S GIRL What engaged/attracted you?

FCB: Well, GREGORY’S GIRL was set on a big, pleasantly dull housing estate and in a big comprehensive state school and I swear it was like looking in a mirror. 

I’d never seen my life on film before.  Until then I was imagining you could only be a writer if you went to fight in the Spanish Civil War or shot big game or something. It never occurred to me that my kind of life could be material till then.

And THE GREAT ROCK ‘N’ ROLL SWINDLE was just this great, swaggering call to arms. I just watched it till my eyes dropped out. It didn’t make me want to make films. It made me want to rule the world.

PM: In an interview on your TV drama, GOD ON TRIAL, you said: “People start to write because they think they can change the world for the better. In the end, you find that it’s hard enough to make your writing better.” Why did you start to write?

FCB: Actually because when I was eleven my teacher read a piece I wrote out to the class and I was at the back of the class when she read it. And everyone laughed and it was just delicious getting laughs without stepping into the limelight.  One of my favourite ever days. Thank you, Sister Mary Paul.

PM: Would you talk about the differences in writing drama for TV and film – and also about the demands of writing for shows like Coronation St, where you’re part of a large team?

FCB: You’re part of a team when you write a movie, of course, even if you’re the only writer. Directors, producers, even (goddamnit) actors get their say. TV drama is very dialogue-driven, which film shouldn’t be. It’s also, in a strange way, not plot-driven because the world of the show has to stay intact. If Homer wins the lottery, he has to lose the money by the end of the episode.

I guess the big difference is that you have to invent the world of the film, whereas the world already exists on TV – you can go and visit it before you start. You don’t have that gut-chilling feeling that it’s all melting to nothing as you work on it.

PM: Your first film was FORGET ABOUT ME (1990) – also your first collaboration with Michael Winterbottom. You were both working in television: what made you decide to work together on a film?

FCB: We were only working in TV because we wanted to make films. There was no stable British film industry to employ us. Michael in particular just talked in movies.

PM: You wrote a spec script for him: what was it about?

FCB: It was about stealing cars to order and it was based on the story of someone I went to school with but the true story was mixed up with ideas we nicked from that genius movie PEPE LE MOKO (1937).

PM: I read that an adaptation of Laurence Sterne’s novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy was the first idea you ever pitched to MW – and that only later did it became a film about making a film. What attracted you to the novel in the first place? It took such a long time to get the film made – how do you sustain a project that stretches out over so many years?

FCB: My wife and I had just had our first baby and it seemed to me that this book – which has a scary intellectual reputation – was the most tender, moving thing, a story about a man trying to imagine and create a perfect world for his son. It was so long ago – home video cameras were just getting fashionable and I thought it would be great to do is as a kind of home-birth video diary. It’s the only novel I know that goes into so much detail about babies and labour and that was my life at the time.

I didn’t sustain the project. I just kept teasing and pleading with MW about it and occasionally writing little bits. It was hard to write, in that the idea became so obvious to me that I could barely write it down – it seemed so obvious.

PM: You've collaborated with Michael Winterbottom, Alex Cox, and Danny Boyle, among others. Is it important for writers to be able to adapt to different styles of working?

FCB: I know I’m versatile but I’m not sure that versatility is a great quality in a screenwriter – it’s a bit like gymnastic ability in a waiter. It would be nice to see it for a few minutes but basically you want him to shut up and give you the food.

All of those people you mentioned are more or less collaborative. The most collaborative and open by miles was Danny, which is just part of his general courtesy and amazing good manners. These are qualities that bring out the best in people around him. He’s one of those people you want to impress.

PM: In WELCOME TO SARAJEVO, you were adapting a non-fiction book. Would you talk a little about the challenges of adapting someone else’s work?  What are your first steps?

FCB: I think you find that the thing in there that you identify with most clearly and you use that like Theseus’ ball of cotton to guide you through the labyrinth.

PM: You’ve described the script for this film as “rough and ready” – does that mean you wrote it quickly?

FCB: I’m not sure now. I really threw myself at it, I remember that. We were very keen to get it made fast because the war was still happening and the situation  was far from stable. It’s strange to think now but what we wanted was Western military intervention – something that’s been very discredited since Iraq.  

PM: The Variety review of this film said this was "clearly a movie by British filmmakers, in which much is left unsaid and unshown.” Do you think of your writing in that way – that there’s a difference in approach because you’re British? (And beyond that – because you’re a Northerner?)

FCB: I guess that’s a Northern thing. I hate hearing people in films talk about their feelings. Not least because it’s a wasted opportunity to find something true and funny or moving. No one ever really fights about their marriage explicitly, do they? It’s always about who puts the bins out.

PM: You’re not bound by received wisdom on how to write a screenplay – ie you’re not obsessed with strictures on the three-act structure. You played with point of view in HILARY AND JACKIE, for example, showing us events again from a different perspective; you admitted other perspectives into WELCOME TO SARAJEVO. And 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE disrupts and subverts its own narrative, with direct addresses to the audience and discussions of different versions of the story. You’re willing to explore different stories within the same film – that seems to be one of the hallmarks of your style. How do you counter the pressure to follow “rules”?

FCB: Well, one thing is that by writing about real people and events you have a court of appeal, don’t you.  You can say, I’m afraid this lady’s life never did have a third act.

I love playing with structures and shapes.  I don’t think three acts is the only game in town.  But it is a good game and there’s nothing wrong with the three acts.  What I really hate is that idea of characters who grow and learn and hug and whose lives all look like therapy journeys.

PM: I read this quote from you: “If you’re making a generic film, you generally know what the ending is going to be: the crime will be solved, the lovers will kiss, the sequel will be suggested. But if you’re writing away from the formula it’s a lot harder to set up the ending. If you can come up with something in the last few minutes that makes the audience see the whole film in a new light, you’re onto a winner.” Is that what you’re doing – writing “away from the formula”?

FCB: Yes, absolutely.  

PM: Re: 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE: was your original “in” to this material the time and the place, the music, or the story of Tony Wilson?

FCB: I think Michael was keen to make a film about the music and musicians. But it was clear from the first that Tony was actually much more romantic and rebellious than any of the musos. By and large musos have rebellious youths and then go off and use the money to collect classic cars or something, like retired dentists. Tony was still restless, still searching, still gloriously wrong.

PM: When you were interviewing all the people involved in the story, did your original focus drastically change? What different approaches did you try with such a sprawling story? Did you always plan to have the character of Tony Wilson address the camera directly?

FCB: Honestly from the first meeting. He just talked so much! He was unstoppable. It was part of his generosity. I thought quite consciously – Tony is Tristram Shandy. He’s got all these plans and opinions and they’re all wrong but he won’t stop talking about them. Really 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE was my first shot at adapting Tristram Shandy.

PM: You write (acclaimed) novels for children; you write for theatre and TV and radio and film. How do you balance multiple projects going at once? How does your approach to writing a screenplay differ from writing a novel?

FCB: I don’t balance them. It’s chaotic, plate-spinning, headache-y.  Novels are hard because you’ve got to have total faith in yourself and no one is going to reassure you till you’ve finished. You start getting feedback from your screenplay before you start writing. With a book, you’re on your own.

PM:  You move between different genres in an admirably fluent way. How have you resisted getting pigeonholed as a writer?

FCB: No one ever offered me a hole to pigeon myself into.

PM: Are there screenplays – or particular writers – you really like?

FCB: I really admire all the usual suspects – Pixar people,  Billy Wilder,  Izzy Diamond, Ben Hecht. I think one of the best "screenwriters" around is Paul Greengrass,  though I’m not sure what physical form the script has. Yes, tons of people. I get all fired up about movies about once every two months.

PM: Are you especially proud or fond of one of your own screenplays?

FCB: I love 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE because it's got so much swagger. I love MILLIONS because it was such a joy working with Danny, and because he got me writing for children, which is when I finally found something I was good at. I'm also fierce proud of a TV play I did, GOD ON TRIAL. But I think MILLIONS above all, because it was like coming home.

PM: What is a typical day for FCB?

FCB: There isn’t one. Not since becoming a children’s writer. You get asked to do such mad things. I went to Bristol today to judge a rocket-launching competition. The day before I was in Walton jail doing a reading group with prisoners. I’m working on a radio documentary. It’s all too unfocussed and a big mess. Don’t do it.

Frank's produced screenplays to date are:

FORGET ABOUT ME (1990)

BUTTERFLY KISS (1995)

SAINT-EX (1996)

WELCOME TO SARAJEVO (1997)

HILARY AND JACKIE (1998)

PANDAEMONIUM (2000)

THE CLAIM (2001)

24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE (2002)

REVENGERS TRAGEDY (2002)

CODE 46 (2003)

MILLIONS (2004)

A COCK AND BULL STORY (2006)

GROW YOUR OWN (2007)