i n
t e r v i e w
spotlight may / june / july 1999
Reflections
Alan Bates interviewed by Gordon Gow in 1971
"... They're quite an
odd selection
of films, in some ways."
PART ONE (of
three). TRANQUIL RECOLLECTIONS
are usually to be drawn from those who are fairly long in the
tooth. But it is possible, on occasion, to catch an actor in
midstream and ask him to reflect objectively upon his progress.
Alan Bates was born in 1936 [sic - actually 1934 - kr] in Derbyshire.
He had a grammar school education, followed by a period at the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and some experience
of stage acting before he broached the cinema in 1960. Since
then, he has given consistently good performances, and often
very perceptive ones, in films of considerable variety.
 "They're quite an odd selection of films,
in some ways. Not all commercially successful by any means. But
I have always tried to work according to what affects me, to
a script that I like because it touches me in some way, without
deliberately pursuing a commercial career or a particular image."
 The first film he made was "The Entertainer,"
directed by Tony Richardson from the John Osborne play. His name
appeared just ahead of Daniel Massey and Albert Finney in the
cast list; and although everybody was secondary to the impact
of Laurence Olivier as the music hall comic, symbolic of an era
in ruins, Bates was usefully cast as his pacifist brother [sic
- Bates plays Oliver's son in the film - kr]. He followed this
with the role of the killer on the run in "Whistle Down
the Wind," that difficult and effective little parable
which marked the debut as director of Bryan Forbes.  In
the key scene, Bates was disturbed in his hiding place by a child
who asked himwho he was and gave him such a shock that he uttered
the expletive "Jesus Christ" and was taken literally.
The implications of a social victim were delicate, and cleverly
ambiguous: at his ultimate arrest for murder, he assumed a crucifixion
pose. This was strong, but the acting success belonged primarily
to Hayley Mills as the little girl whose disillusion was so touchingly
expressed.
"That was really the children's film
-- but mine was a good part nevertheless, a mysterious and strange
part. One had to create some credibility somehow when it came
to the point of saying "Jesus Christ" -- hoping to
God that the audience would not laugh -- and I did get a bit
hung up about that."
 Equally demanding, for a different reason,
was his portrait of a disgruntled Lancashire lad, hastily married
to a pretty but tedious girl and brow-beaten by her mother. Adapted
from Stan Barstow's novel and directed by John Schlesinger, "A
Kind of Loving" gave Bates a central role quite early
in his cinema career. The danger resided in its familiar northern
locale and kitchen-sink connotations, which had been so prevalent
in British cinema at the beginning of the 1960s. Schlesinger
overcame the hazard of inevitable comparisons, judging his effects
to a nicety, and obviously gaining a big advantage from the talent
Bates has for thinking himself into a character. Indicative of
this was the long wordless closeup as he stood on a railway platform,
trying to decide between the alternatives of leaving a home life
he could no longer stomach or making one more stab at a tolerable
compromise with his wife's restricted attitude.
"Looking back on it, I think it's a
very honest and pure film. It has a very real sense about it.
It's not theatrical or over-glamorised. It's not full of cross-cuts
or fancy photography. It's the best kind of film to me. Of course,
it's absolutely true that ti came towards the end of a vogue,
and this hurt it slightly. It was a huge success in Britain,
but not in America. I don't know why -- probably it was badly
sold. But even here people did tend to think it was just another
of the same school -- sort of "When are we going to come
to the end of it?" But in fact I find it really a very different
film. The difference it had for me was that it was about very
ordinary people. This was unique. "Saturday Night and Sunday
Morning" and "A Taste of Honey" were about extraordinary
people. And nobody seemed to realise this. Just because they
saw a council house and a kitchen sink, they thought it was the
same. One gets a bit depressed at that -- people not seeing beneath
obvious surfaces. And I suppose I mean critics, as much as anybody."
 More removed from conventional reality, veering
towards enigma, was his role in Harold Pinter's "The
Caretaker," which he had played already onthe stage.
This remains one of the most notable of his performances, in
both media.
"That was essentially a piece of theatre.
But I don't want to call it filmed theatre, because I think Clive
Donner's direction got far beyond that. Nevertheless, the speeches
and the conception of the characters are to a certain extent
stylised, although the treatment was very simple and realistic.
Since I'd done it in the theatre, there was some necessary adjustment
for the film, particularly in my part -- because the scenes with
Donald Pleasence can be almost music hall, the word play between
them. In the theatre you can play it straight out like a revue.
In the cinema you just can't do that. So it took on a different
emphasis. Those scenes became more sinister than funny, I think.
The character is sinister anyway, of course, but I think the
closer you are the more sinister he is -- because you see much
more of his interior mind, whereas inthe theatre the emphasis
was on his funny lines."
 A decided
switch was his participaton in Carol Reed's thriller "The
Running Man," as the representative of an insurance
company who dogged the steps of Lee Remick and Laurence Harvey
when they had hoaxed his firm out of a great deal of money. "That's
the only time I've felt I was working for commercial reasons,
because it seemed a good thing to be with a famous director and
a famous actor and a famous actress. International promise of
success, you know. It was set up as a big film. It's really the
only time I've worked with that motive, and I didn't think it
was going to be very good, although I hoped it would be. It was
very strange -- although the script was by John Mortimer, I didn't
think it was good when I read it. And I didn't have a good feeling
about it when I was doing it. Then, when I saw the final cut,
I didn't think it was good at all. I saw it years later on television,
and was really rather impressed with it. I don't know why. It's
like reassessing something."
Listening to him, so soon after discussing
the same film with Lee Remick, I tried to restrain myself from
taking the stand of a lone defender of "The Running Man."
But I couldn't help asking if he didn't consider that such a
plot, for all its gimmicks, was valid in its observation of the
anxiety complex and the threat of the unknown factor which was
implicit in the character he played.
"Oh, yes. Actually, one consolation
of doing it was that it was the mysterious part. It was the best
part, because every time I came on they started wondering --
and that's always good. But still, it seemed to me predictable.
I'd read the novel by Shelley Smith and I was very sorry that
John Mortimer had cut out certain aspects. I think the film tried
to follow a conventional line. No film should try to follow a
trend, and do what film people think the public wants. There's
no such thing as knowing what the public wants."
"...You can't
always go by the book,
even in comedy..."
 Most difficult of all is to
judge what will make the public laugh at a given time, but Frederic
Raphael's amusing screenplay, "Nothing But the Best,"
directed by Clive Donner, was a jaunty attempt that hit its mark
by virtually bridging the gap between Ealing comedy and the latterday
satires at the expense of the establishment. "It's one of
the films I've most enjoyed while we were making it, simply because
it was on such a fantasy level. They were such extreme characters.
And then the situations were completely unpredictable. It was
compared to "Kind Hearts and Coronets" and also to
"Room at the Top," but it wasn't really like those
films at all. It was original. And I haven't done a great deal
of comedy -- I mean, "The Caretaker" was a comedy in
so far as you have to play comedy within it. It's serious comedy.
But I hadn't played comedy as such since I was a student. But
I always enjoy any comic section of any play or film that I do."
The mannered comedy required for "Nothing
But the Best" probably had an extra zest because it was
not associated with the new breed of actor who sprang to light,
initially in the British theatre with the advent of Osborne,
and in the cinema as well from "Saturday Night and Sunday
Morning" onwards. The pointing and timing of comic lines
was of an earlier vintage, harking back to Coward, and preserved
from time to time by Rex Harrison and one or two others.
"Of course, they did it all the time.
We don't. In this great search for realism, we don't get the
opportunity. And that's why "Nothing But the Best"
was such a real pleasure to do, because it was away from everything.
Some people say it was before its time -- I don't quite know
what they mean. Certainly it would still work now. Perhaps any
film that breaks new ground is always going to be regarded as
ahead of its time, whether it's a commercial success or not.
I don't think it was particularly successful commercially, but
it got better reviews than almost any film I've ever been in.
You require certain things for a comedy like that, of course.
You have to have a sense of comedy in your personality. You require
a technique for it, which to perfect needs experience. But once
an actor has these things, I don't think it is more difficult
to play comedy than something serious. An emotional performance
is usually more instinctive to an actor. What people mean when
they say a comedy style is more difficult is that you have to
go outside yourself and your own instincts, and you have to discover
a way of playing -- it's something you have to learn how to do.
As for the timing, that's no good unless it's combined with a
sense of what you are playing. You can time a part perfectly
and play it badly. And some people have very individual offbeat
timing, which is their own. It works simply because they are
who they are. You can't always go by the book, even in comedy."
From Films and Filming, June 1971 © 1971
by Hansom Books
Part 2:
"Zorba the Greek,"
"Georgy Girl," "King of Hearts," "Women
in Love."
Part 3: "Far from the Madding Crowd," "The
Fixer," "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg"
|
