The McGann Library

[emay]

Paul McGann touched a nerve in aging flower children everywhere with his portrayal of a down-at-heel ‘resting’ actor in Withnail And I. Here he gives Campbell Stevenson his pick of the films, music and books that mean the most to him.

Paul McGann’s ‘short and half meaningless film career’ has taken a leap forward with Withnail And I, Bruce Robinson’s acutely funny, autobiographical study of decadence in London at the tail end of the ‘60s.

Withnail resonates with the mood of films and music of the time, and McGann jumped at the chance to make some comparisons, throw in some personal gems and, perhaps, tease a little more out of the film’s ingredients.

“I’m quite serious really. Not as a person, because I’m quite vague and flippant, but about films, I’m as much for Bambi as the next man, but there must be something bit harder and deeper. Maybe I’m displaying a conservative streak, and I am pretty paranoid generally, but I think soapy films and TV are frivolous and a bit sinister. They know what they are about and it’s gullibility. You can defend individual examples on grounds of entertainment, but overall I think they’re dangerous.

“I hope we’re all wary of films, books, anything that does your thinking for you, that has such an ego of its own. I think Withnail’s done all right on that count."

Withnail’s extremely English and Paul likes current British film makers who don’t play to the American gallery.

“Take Derek Jarman. Maybe he’s a bit too clever for me, but I agree with him on principles. It’s not just laudable, but imperative that someone should have the nous, heart and mind to make such films. I was in Italy last year and people over there can’t understand why Jarman and Peter Greenaway and those people haven’t been knighted. You go abroad and it gives you a broad sense of the crude appreciation the Brits have for films generally. Do people here really want films like Last of England, political pictures, even messy ones like The Ploughman’s Lunch? The Brits just seem to turn off to all of that. Dreamchild even, that was a great picture, brilliant script, but it didn’t do anything, did it?”

McGANN’S FILMS

Movies from the early ‘70s also hold an allure for Paul.

“I love Nicholson in 5 Easy Pieces (1970). That was the first one in which he was Jack Nicholson: hard and soft, and that wicked glint. When he bullshits a piece of Chopin, Karen Black sits there and falls for it instantly, he finishes and says “You were faking a little bit of love, I was faking a little bit of Chopin.” And that’s the only bit of piano I can play, I taught myself that instantly! Look at that and then that bit in Fatal Attraction where she’s got ‘Madame Butterfly’ playing, that’s so cheap. It’s the same moment as 5 Easy Pieces, the same crumminess which Nicholson then tore apart. But in Fatal Attraction it’s just a calculated effort to elevate all this nonsense into something a bit arty.

"Performance, again from 1970. I still haven’t understood it all and I’ve seen it four or five times. I’ve got the record somewhere, I love the music. And because it was 1970, it’s a bit like Withnail in the rites of passage thing and the decadence, except it’s opulent decadence when in Withnail…well, I’ve squatted a few time, and I wouldn’t even consider paying rent on that flat. Jagger was brilliant, sitting on the bed, strumming ‘Memo From Turner’. And it’s weird to think that film caused James Fox to crack up. Nicholas Roeg really drags performances out of people, even on Castaway, a lot of which was dreary; he demands the minutiae, the real concentration out of actors. I’d love to work with him..

"Alfie (1966), that’s so inseparable from its time. It’s like records, that strong feeling you get of knowing where you were, who you were with, when you hear a song. Michael Caine created Alfie, but it also created him. And that line about women. “Make ‘em laugh? If you do, you won’t get nothing else.” Great. Can you imagine if Up Against It had been made? Joe Orton and John Lennon together. Knowing what we know now, maybe I’m romanticizing a bit, but that would have been great, the film of 1965.”

McGANN’S ACTORS

When it comes to great performances, McGann’s in no doubt of what lies at their heart.

“It’s all about sex. I’m completely obsessed with sex, I can’t help it, but I guess most people are. Sex is where the power is. Brando in Streetcar Named Desire (1951); Anne Bancroft in The Pumpkin Eater (1964); it wasn’t that brilliant a film, but she’s so coolly sexual, you can keep your Meryl Streep’s as far as I’m concerned. And Nicholson, even people’s mums who like him don’t really know why. There’s something devilishly sexual about him, a darkness, a …humanity.

“That’s what I like about Louise Brooks. It’s become quite fashionable to adore her. She was in silents but she was probably the most eloquent and certainly the sexiest actress I’ve ever seen. She was a true hedonist, a sensualist, and she shunned all the Hollywood stuff, she saw through the whole façade and couldn’t take the frivolity and the plastic nature of it all seriously, so she left, she just got out. She played Lulu in Pabst’s Pandora’s Box (1928) and I guess he thought you need someone who can live that part. Kenneth Tynan said she was the most stunning, luminously sexual person to hit the screen—most men have their own idea of the incandescent woman, she was just so unconsciously alluring.

"When Tynan discovered her living in Rochester, she’d been living alone for about 30 years. She’d hit the bottle, but it hadn’t ravaged her, she just seemed to be living off the sugar in the alcohol. And she wrote a book Lulu in Hollywood, she’s an amazing writer too.

“And Brando, I know these people are all obvious, but he’s a true original with knowledge, bravery and sheer nerve. I love Last Tango in Paris (1973). It wasn’t until those later pictures that he could bring out the real darkness, because it was a different age. It was the ‘70s and all the optimism had evaporated so it was possible for him to exploit all those qualities within him, especially working with European directors like Bertolucci.

McGANN’S MUSIC

Another feature of Withnail is the marriage of music and visual.

“Those are all songs Robinson was listening to at the time. Some of his contemporaries watch the movie and cry when they hear those songs. You mentioned the Hendrix bit, but I love that King Curtis version of ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ at the start. I mean, how many films do you know that open with an anxiety attack? Not many. And the music’s perfect, it’s haunting. Do you know that he was dead four hours after recording that? He was coming out of the show and he was shot getting into his car.”

“Paris, Texas had got to be a favourite score ‘cos the music doesn’t aid and abet the film or detract from it, it’s part of it. Take away the score and it wouldn’t be the same piece of work, and that must be what you’re aiming for. Ry Cooder’s great but has Willie Nelson ever done a soundtrack? Or The Neville Brothers? Lowell George, he never did one, and he should have. It’s always, you know Mark Knopfler or Brian May that get the film jobs.

“I think that the more we move towards Fairlights and expedient ways of producing film scores, the more danger there is of forgetting that if you want to make films of passion and guts, you’re going to have to go back to roots music. Like Down By Law (1987) that’s a great example where the music makes sense to those of us who haven’t experienced America in all its vastness and spiritual hugeness.

"And Nashville (1975)…that’s Karen Black again, she’s singing her heart out at the end and these guys just want her to take clothes off. It’s so moving. Country music, for me, is the music of America. I don’t know if that’s something to do with coming from Liverpool, but it’s true, all human life is there. God! I’m dying to be in a western."

Roots/reggae is another of Paul’s big loves. Before we start the interview he sits gobstruck by ‘Catch a Fire’ (in its original sleeve, of course), and then expounds on the awesome tension, rhythm and anger of the first Wallers line-up.

“I’ll tell you my favourite ever music movie. It’s got to be Rockers (1978), that soundtrack would be a deffo desert island disc. It’s a remarkably silly film, but if you’re a rockers buff, it’s essential. It’s got a really flimsy story line, Robin Hood kind of thing, but everybody’s in it…Joe Gibbs, Sly and Robbie, Jacob Miller…it’s like a Jamaican Summer Holiday—‘hey! We can do the show right here!'—and it’s fascinating to see your heroes making complete twats of themselves. Burning Spear, he obviously so dread that he refused to play a gangster, so they drag him out to sing on a hill, and that’s the hardest thing in the film It’s a must, if only as a novelty.

“The best use of music I can think of is in Deliverance (1972) when they stumble into the cajun village and that zydeco music just hits you. It seems like the most exciting thing in the world, the naturalness of it. It’s not a diversion from the story, I don’t know why it’s there. You can talk about counterpoint and all that bollocks, but it just works. You know these people aren’t just mad hoorays, in the Jonathan Swift sense. That music, it just makes you think you’re going to get shot through the head, then get shot by your elders and betters.”

McGANN’S PAGES

A lot of people have seen fragments of Hunter Thompson in Withnail, and its director Bruce Robinson recognized the similarities in his NME interview. McGann’s a lot more scathing and less likely to suffer opinions which he thinks are based on ignorance.

"I’ve never read On The Road or much Hunter Thompson. Withnail is such a British film that those comparisons just don’t come into it. It’s not a road film, or a buddy movie, it plainly isn’t. There’s more Baudelaire than Burroughs, more Fleure Du Mal than Fear and Loathing. At the end when Marwood is packing his stuff there’s a copy of J Huyssman’s Against Nature on the shelf and that’s what the film is more about. That book the prosecution wanted to cite it at Oscar Wilde’s trial, it was seen as crucial to understanding his decadent nature; he thought it was the strangest thing he’d read. And it is, it’s amazing. It was written, I dunno, about 1835, and it’s the ultimate study in decadence.

“I’ve talked to people in the States about Withnail and none of them even mentioned those American writers or films that people think it’s like. It never occurred to them. They think it’s European, and they’re right.

“Robinson and his mates were getting into European films at the time, Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Romeo And Juliet, and they give you a better understanding of what it was all about. They’re astoundingly beautiful and decadent those films, and that’s how it was in London at that time. Robinson used to walk around London in a full length white fur coat. It’s a European brand of decadence, much more Czarist Russia and red wine than jumping in a car and taking drugs. Draw the American comparisons, and you’ve lost the point of the film. If you want to get really daft, it’s more like Pilgrims Progress, or ha, ha!, Chaucer’s unwritten 'Drunkard’s Tale'…!"

Now that we’re in top gear for finding comparisons, McGann whips Marvin Gaye’s ‘Inner City Blues’ onto the CD and declares that it’s the exact source for another favourite record, ‘Sign ‘O’ The Times’.

And he’s right, no question. He’s sound.

[This article is in real need of annotation, I think.]

Estelle

[Grace]

Wow, what a crazy article! Was he on speed??? Very entertaining and interesting, but I thought my brain was going to capsize. I've heard about him talking and talking really fast and not taking a breath until you think he's going to hyperventilate and pass out and that's what it felt like reading this article because I just wanted to say "Slow down and breathe!"

[emay]

[Paulgirl]

Jeez! How much sugar did the dear boy consume before giving this interview?

I keep picturing him doing the McGann fidget-thing, rubbing his forehead and all that wiry stuff he does. It must have been ten times worse when he was in his twenties.

[emay]

[Teri]

[Rollyb]

It probably comes from that mystical, magical hard drive of that computer of hers.........

Rollande

[emay]

[emay]

[Rollyb]

[Down East]

What an incredible article.

I knew most of the films, except some of the British references. never saw the Jagger film he mentioned and the James Fox film he first saw him in.

>Lowell George, he never did one, and he should have. It’s always, you know Mark Knopfler or Brian May that get the film jobs.<<

I loved Lowell George. He was with the band, "Little Feat" and wrote a bunch of great tunes, like "Willin'".

>---that if you want to make films of passion and guts, you’re going to have to go back to roots music. Like Down By Law (1987) that’s a great example where the music makes sense to those of us who haven’t experienced America in all its vastness and spiritual hugeness.<

Oh, that's a Jim Jarmusch film. I love his film, like Stranger than Paradise. He usually shoots in Black and White. Down by Law has Tom Waits in it, and the Italian actor Bernini...funny, he was one of the directors I wrote to, suggesting he cast Paul in one of his films...



This is a lot of thoughts to digest. Good thoughts.
Finding the darkness, the loss of hope in the 70's, the despair, you know, that's how people felt after the 60's was over and with Vietnamn, the assasinations...and then again his remark about Nashville, with Karen Black...

>It’s all about sex. I’m completely obsessed with sex, I can’t help it, but I guess most people are. Sex is where the power is.<

So true.

>Brando in Streetcar Named Desire (1951); ---And Nicholson, even people’s mums who like him don’t really know why. There’s something devilishly sexual about him, a darkness, a …humanity<

In that, there's no denial of being...you know, what and who you are kind of thing. It's all there and people pick it up, because it's hard wired.

Oh my goodness, great article. So much more to say.

[PiscesSiren]

All Hail Estelle, Queen of the Mighty Hard Drive(s)!

This was beyond cool. And he references Prince!

Dude was on a serious caffeine binge! I have a problem with my Thyroid, so the talking at the speed of sound & fidgeting could be that?

[emay]

[Down East]

I keep thinking of the early Jim Jarmusch films. He was doing "Indy" and "Dogme" style before it became fashionable, yet without any rules. Probably because he didn't have the bucks to do otherwise. One of his more recent films I really liked, "Deadman" with Johnny Depp, John Hurt, Robert Mitchum, and oh my, what a cast of others. I believe they all worked for just scale.

Here's an exerpt from an interview done with The Gaurdian:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/Guardian_NFT/interview/0,,110607,00.html

GA: With Strangers in Paradise and Down By Law, you cast John Lurie and you were quite involved in the music scene before you started making films?

JJ: It was a really interesting time in New York in the late 70s and early 80s, and the music scene was really, really interesting because you didn't have to be a virtuoso to make music, it was more about your desire to express things. That period was really, really important, because there were a lot of different artists - musicians, film-makers - that had this "make-it-in-the-garage" aesthetic that was really inspiring and really good. It was not about trying to be famous or have a career, or be a virtuoso, or be flashy. It was more like having real emotional feelings that you expressed through whatever form, mostly by picking up guitars you didn't really know how to play and bashing away on them.

That gave way to a lot of interesting things. I always think the Sex Pistols and the Ramones as very, very important because they stripped things down. Dogme 95 owes some debt to the purity of so-called punk rock. But I also love The Clash because they were the opposite, they were into synthesis in that they said: "Bring us reggae, rockabilly, R&B, we'll take all that and charge it up with our feelings." Two opposite aesthetics which appealed to me and inspired me. Still do.

GA: You talk about these musicians making music in an emotionally expressive way, but when Strangers in Paradise came out some people didn't quite understand your attitude towards the John Lurie character, who is anything but emotionally expressive; he's very concerned about his own self-image. And also in Down By Law so is Tom Waits. You do seem to have this interest in puncturing their self-image and pretensions to coolness and showing that much more innocent, straightforward people can transform those people. Would you say that's a valid interpretation of those films, and if so what is your interest in that?

JJ: In what? Sorry, I drifted off. (Laughter) To me, John Lurie's character is not non-emotional. He tries to be not emotional, he tries to be cool, but it's transparent. I have to tell everyone that when I finish a film and it goes out and is released, I never look at my films again. I don't like looking back. I don't even like talking about 'em! (Laughter) So I'm really digging back in my memory because I don't like to sit and look at my films again.

GA: You do seem to have written roles with specific actors in mind and you trade off their personalities a little bit in the film. How do you decide to work with a certain person and do you consult with them about their dialogue?

JJ: I started working with friends of mine and that, to some degree, continues. I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films - although I think they do have plots - but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are. I start with actors that I know personally or I know their work, and there are things about their work or their presence or their own personality that make a character, that exaggerates some qualities and suppresses other qualities. It's always a real collaboration for me.

What I like to do also is to rehearse with the actors scenes that are not in the script and will not be in the film because what we're really doing is trying to establish their character, and good acting to me is about reacting. I'm not a big fan of the theatre because, often, I know what their intention is. They know what the intention of the scene is and they're following a line to achieve that intention, but that's acting, and in real life, if you're at a table with four people, you don't know which one is going to speak next, it's not scripted in that way, so if you can work with the actor to get to a place where they are confident in their character, then you let their character react to the scene that you're filming.

All actors are different. Nicholas Ray said to me: "There is no one way to work with all actors and anyone who tells you that is full of shit" - in his words, 'cause I don't talk like that myself. (Laughter) So what you do is work with each actor individually to find out "How can I work with this person, how can the two of us collaborate?" and it's always that there's a different way. Different actors have different strengths. Some are really brilliant at improvising, others want the dialogue set for them, they want a map.

I love rehearsing because in rehearsals there are no mistakes, nothing is wrong, some things apply or lead you to focus on the character and the things that don't apply are equally valuable because they lead you to towards what does. I'm not a director who says, "Say your line, hit your mark", that's not my style. I want them to work with me and everyone I choose to collaborate with elevates our work above what I could imagine on my own. Hopefully, if not it's not working right. I'm like a navigator and I try to encourage our collaboration and find the best way that will produce fruit. I like fruit. (Laughter)

Question 6: A lot of characters in your films are foreigners. Do you enjoy seeing films through the eyes of the foreigner?

JJ: It's several things. One is that America is made up of foreigners, and there are indigenous people that lived here for thousands of years, but then white Europeans tried to commit genocide against them all. I'm a mongrel, I have Irish blood, bohemian blood, some German blood, and all of America is a cultural mixture, and although America is very much in denial of this, that's really what America is.

GA: From sports to William Blake and Robert Frost, because in Down By Law, you have the Roberto Benigni character frequently quoting from Frost, and in Dead Man, you have references to William Blake. What is your interest in poetry, because it's not very often that we see characters in movies quoting and referring to poetry?

JJ: Yeah, if you go into a bar in most places in America and even say the word poetry, you'll probably get beaten up. (Laughter) But poetry is a really strong, beautiful form to me, and a lot of innovation in language comes from poetry. I think that Dante was hip-hop culture because he wrote in vernacular Italian, and at the time that was unheard of; people wrote in Latin or Petrach wrote in high Italian, and so Dante was talking street stuff. And so poets are always ahead of things in a certain way, their sense of language and their vision.

Language can be abstracted, language can be used as a very beautiful code in poetry, the nuances and the multiple meanings of things, it has a music to it. It has so many things in it. It is also reduced from prose and therefore can be both mathematical, or very, very abstract. A lot of poets too live on the margins of social acceptance, they certainly aren't in it for the money. William Blake - only his first book was legitimately published. For the rest of his life, he published everything himself and no one had any real interest in it during his lifetime, which is true of many, many poets, so I think of poets as outlaw visionaries in a way. I don't know. I like poetry. Dammit, I like poetry; anyone got a problem with that?! (Laughter)


Question 7: How do you get funding for your films while retaining creative control?

JJ: I'm really stubborn and I started out with an attitude that I was going to make films the way I and those people I chose to collaborate with want to make them and I've just stuck to that. I'm not seduced by money or the things that Hollywood tries to offer you, and in exchange you have to make the film the way some businessmen tell you to, and I just would not be good at that. So I have a system where I try to avoid having American money in my films, because with that comes a lot of strings attached and script meetings and casting consultations, and really I can't work that way because I don't tell the business people who finance the films how to run their business, so why should they tell me how to make a film? I've been very lucky to find people to collaborate with in that way.

Question 8: Do you have any comedic influences?

JJ: Certainly, many. My favourite director of all time is Buster Keaton, and it goes deeper than just being a comedian, because he is a great director and actor and funny in an extremely human way. I like Charlie Chaplin, but he's not on the same level as Buster Keaton, who is someone really I have a deep respect for.

Question 9: Are you trying to get away from 'The Jim Jarmusch Film'?

JJ: I'm not really very self-analytical. I don't really want to know what a Jim Jarmusch film is. I'm just a guy from Akron trying to learn films and I just move on to the next thing. It's not superstition in that case, it's not feeling comfortable looking backwards and the same in my life as well. I know Robert Altman and I know he likes to watch his old films over and show them to people, and I wish I could be like that because he really loves them, he's proud of them, they're like his children. And my films are like my children, but I send them off to military school. (Laughter)

*******
I just really like this guy's work.
Wish He and Paul would get together for a film sometime.
If you see any of his films, I'd recommend these:
Dead Man
Stranger Than Paradise
Down by Law