Politics

A couple of months ago I was fired. There, I said it. Not quite ‘My name’s the Red Pants of Justice and I’m an alcoholic’ or ‘I prefer the Sparklehorse version of Wish You Were Here,’ but like all brave statements to make in public, saying it feels somehow liberating. Furthermore, if you say it enough, it even starts to feel like a badge of honour. Yes I was fired. And for what it’s worth, I do prefer the Sparklehorse version of Wish You Were Here.

This is how it happened.

Last autumn, out of the blue, I got a call from a British TV company that occasionally makes very commendable films for charities and the voluntary sector. They had seen a series that I had made for the BBC and wanted me to come and make a one-off film for them, commissioned by the government, to help people suffering from a rare but very painful, untreatable, medical condition. Not a video, or one of those public service adverts they used to show on TV before close down (in the days when TV did close down), but a short film, with all the creative implications that word carries.

Either because I was flattered to have been asked, or perhaps to ease my nagging liberal conscience about a career choice that, while not entirely devoid of ethical worth, was nonetheless hardly saving the planet, I happily accepted. The usual period of endless meetings ensued, with budgets and treatments being passed back and forth like a form of creative currency. Until a couple of weeks before shooting, I got a call from the producer, sheepishly informing me that my services were no longer required.

“Oh!” I said with an unfortunate inarticulateness that has often been my first line of defence against unexpected news.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think you’re very talented, it’s just – well we need someone with fewer ideas. A safe pair of hands.”

“What exactly do you mean?” I said, the space into which my hackles should have risen staying frustratingly empty. I’ve never been very good at throwing a strop, even when it’s called for.

“It’s just, well, you’re approach is a little too creative. We really want more of a video than a film.”

I protested that this was precisely the reverse of what they started out by saying.

“I know, I know,” she continued, brightening in that false way that people do when trying to justify an awkward about turn of opinion. “But you don’t really want to be doing something like this anyway, do you?”

Well of course I wanted to do it, I thought. I said yes to the bloody thing, didn’t I? Still, she was right in a sense. No matter how worthy a subject I felt it to be, films for NHS patients were hardly what fuelled my burning ambition. Nonetheless, I’m sure that anyone who’s even been fired will recognise the particular feeling that (to paraphrase Douglas Coupland), left my stomach feeling quilted and acidic with pissed-offedness for a few days afterwards.

A few years ago I heard an interview with a former head of Fox Studios, who said that because he felt like he could be fired at any moment, he never compromised about anything he believed in. The logic went that if you have to be given the push, better that it be for something you are truly passionate about. He was eventually fired for making Fight Club.

I can hardly make such a lofty creative claim for my ignominious ousting, but I can certainly sympathise with the sentiment. In fact, now I come to think of it, something quite similar nearly got me fired from my very first professional directing job. It all started during my second year at university. I had made a documentary about a local outfit that existed solely to collect and preserve historic film material. I quickly fell in love with the stories they uncovered, and the zeal with which they did so, working out of what amounted to little more than a shed in a tiny seaside town. The film ended up winning a relatively prominent national award, which lead them to commission a ten-minute film from me, to play in cinemas nationwide – or rather, the much larger organisation that owned them did, and unfortunately decided to install one of their desk officers, a man who we shall call Martin, as producer.

Now I don’t want to make it sound like I have anything against producers. Some of the closest personal friendships I have formed in this business have been with producers. But Martin wasn’t a producer. No more than I belonged in the chorus line of Chicago did he belong in that uniquely complicated and misunderstood role. And to be fair to him, it was a little like the blind leading the blind. Although I was brimming with enthusiasm, I had yet to develop a proper understanding of what the job of directing entails in a practical sense. In other words, I had yet to experience the paradigm shift I now believe to be essential for anyone who wants to translate mere talent into actually being able to get a film made the way you want it to be.

It's all about politics.

Not real politics of course. The lovely Mata Hari has been working in real politics for much of the past year and she comes home with enough stories to prove the old adage that two things you never want to see being made are laws and sausages. No I'm talking about the politics of people; of playing the game to get what you want without shooting yourself in the foot. Nor anyone else, if you can help it.

I wanted to make something very creative, stylish, impressionistic even. This was to be shown in cinemas, after all. Martin, on the other hand, wanted something that ticked all the right boxes in terms of Getting The Message Out, and saw the creative side as entirely secondary to that aim. Alarm bells really started to ring when we were discussing how best to handle a lengthy section of old newsreel, showing, of all things, Adolf Hitler having tea with David Lloyd George at Berchetsgaden. It’s an extremely powerful piece of film, largely because of its apparent innocuousness. I was determined that it should be presented sensitively, maybe even in silence. Martin wanted to use a presenter to tell the audience all about where the film came from. Moreover, he wanted the presenter superimposed onto the film itself, to make it look like they, too, were having tea with Hitler.

Now, I don’t believe for one second that Martin was trying to be offensive. He just honestly thought it was a good idea. Unfortunately he was willing to force it through if necessary. In any case, I panicked. That wasn’t the only worrying incident, but it was by far the most symbolic. And so with a deep breath, I set about making the entire film how I wanted it, regardless of what anyone else wanted, and by clandestine means if needs be.

I blush with guilt now at the extreme lengths I would go to in order to conceal what I was doing – printing up fake shooting schedules, lining up some really quite famous actors to be interviewed and then ‘accidentally’ forgetting to bring the questions I had been allotted, forcing me to use my own, and so forth. I did all this firmly in the belief that it was right for both film and the purpose for which it was being made. In retrospect, dishonourable though it might have been, I was entirely right on that count.

By the time we reached the later stages of editing, the relationship between Martin and I had broken down to the point where I was forced to let certain elements of the film be cut in ways that were anathema to me. It was a terribly painful thing to watch, but of course he had every right to do so. He would have been quite within his rights to fire me. After all, his company was paying for my act of artistic bravado.

It wasn’t a bad film in the end, even if it wasn’t quite what I wanted. It did get a limited UK cinema release, and I still occasionally get sent nice reviews from various festivals around the world at which it is shown. And for the record, there was no presenter, no fake despotic tea parties, and I’ve since seen Martin socially. We’ve even laughed about the experience, albeit through slightly gritted teeth.

So you know what? My first experience of being fired – at the opposing bookend to my twenties from when I first expected it – really wasn’t that bad at all. It could have been worse. After all, I could have been a safe pair of hands.