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| Terence Davies at the Sodankylä Morning Discussion with Peter von Bagh, 18 June 2010. Foto Laila Alanen |
The Sodankylä School, 18 June 2010. Terence Davies was born in 1945.
Which was the first film you saw? - Singin' in the Rain.
Early days - I was the youngest of ten, an atmosphere of terror surrounded my father who died. After that there were happy years in a warm, loving family. - After WWII the country was bankrupt. - Ours were among the worst slums in Europe. There was often literally no money. - Charity was truly awful. - But there was a sense of community. - We had been an imperial power, and we still think we are one. - The radio was wonderful. They spoke beautiful, mesmerizing English. It was almost erotic. The weather forecasts were exotic. - I got beaten up for four years. No one had told me I had an accent. - I was lucky enough to discover Dylan Thomas and Under Milk Wood.
British comedy - Margaret Rutherford did a lot of comedies. - British comedies were the main pictures. - Victoria Wood. - Comedy is the most difficult to export. In translation, the first casualty is humour. - Joan Greenwood. - Alec Guinness, based on inexpressiveness, he can also be very dull (A Passage to India).
Music - For me it was popular music for most of the time. - Sammy Davis, Jr, - Cole Porter was still alive - then came the dreadful pop singers, The Beatles was awful - classical music was a revelation.
Your road to film - I visited the drama school, and applied to the film school, which saved my life - I knew that this is what I want to do. - Alexander Mackendrick came and saw a rough cut of Madonna and Child - He taught a class on The Third Man - you'd seen it but never looked - the eyelines - crossing the lines - the invisible line.
The Long Day Closes (the beginning screened) - Roses slowly decay: from T.S. Eliot - the banal Boccherini menuet is from The Ladykillers - The Robe: 20th Century Fox fanfare - Alec Guinness - Margaret Rutherford - Stardust - echoes of the people that lived there
People greeting us - there is melancholy, remembering I loved that street - a child's eyes at the age of ten - Dante: there is nothing more terrible than the recollection of happiness in tranquillity - I am now more aware of mortality - my mother died 13 years ago - musical allusions: Stardust, Firebird, Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee "I only miss him when I think of him / and I think of him all the time"
Distant Voices. Still Lives - was made with a very small amount of money - bleaching out silver nitrate - warm up with sepia filter - to catch a certain texture - the wallpaper with the little rosebuds - took me back to my childhood instantly - after The Long Day Closes I never had final cut - it was exhausting to fight for the cut, to fight for the poster
Painting - Vermeer - Liverpool Art Gallery - I don't know academic painting - I do look all the time - abroad I love to listen to people - Distant Voices. Still Lives was a succees - made no difference at all in Hollywood - the phone never rang
The House of Mirth - there was a play based on Edith Wharton's novel - Americans want tragedy with a happy ending - "why has she got to die" - "it's really complex" - Americans don't eat properly, they are not allowed to drink coffee - depressing with the awful lunches
Distant Voices - T.S. Eliot: children laughing in the shrubbery
Still Lives - don't act - if you be it's much more interesting - words that are meant stop being manneristic - I can detect mannerism with my eyes closed
Victim - Dirk Bogarde - when homosexuality was against the law
Carrie - Laurence Olivier's suicide scene - when Olivier underplays he's very good - The Entertainer is wonderful
Distant Voices. Still Lives: private moments intensified - the poetry of the ordinary, as in Chekhov - people sang in those days - be truthful to what you remember - we did a lot of tests for that bleached bi-pack process
The Long Day Closes: we had 46 items of music
My private life is dull. I don't go out much.
The colour of the furniture from the 1920: dark, polished mahogany - depressing, awful - awful furniture - it had to last - rooms almost Victorian - suffocating - generally dark
You present moments that are trivial and sublime at the same time, high moments in everyday life - Small things are big - the rhythm of life was slower - it could be measured with the cycle of the curtains, as there was only one set of them, and Wednesday was the washing day -
Cinema is wonderful - British comedies - Love Is a Many Splendored Thing: everyone was crying - All That Heaven Allows, Magnificent Obsession: I believed it was absolutely true, very profound - cinema was like religion, we were much more naive then - Doris Day in Young at Heart: everything was beautiful, the kitchens were very big - Jay Robinson in The Robe - now they have no idea how to frame, no close-ups
What about Sibelius - The symphonies, the songs, the two part documentary on Sibelius - the last five beats of the 5. Symphony - Salonen, Saraste - Colin Davis: couldn't listen to it - Sibelius is a giant - I couldn't live without Bruckner, Sibelius, Shostakovich
Excerpt of Of Time and the City - in 8 years I just couldn't get any work - it is embarrasing to see a British actor with a gun
Poetry - it gives me solace - I don't like being gay, it's ruining my life - poetry, music and work keep me going - I couldn't live without The Four Quartets (T.S. Eliot), Emily Dickinson, and Shakespeare: they are balm to my soul - John Beechman's Love Song
You are not easy to classify - the problem is always money
Do you have soulmates? - no, never, I was always an outsider - I look like an accountant - I don't like sex - I don't like rock, or drugs - what's left?
How about the older generation? - Robert Hamer: It Always Rains on Sunday - Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen - Kurosawa, Ozu: always one or two films - Hitchcock's Psycho is not frightening, it's disquieting: when Vera Miles goes to Bates' room: an object can be terrifying
Which film would you take to the desert island? - Kind Hearts and Coronets
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