Director Alan Parker gifts archive of his work to BFI
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Version 0 of 1. Alan Parker, who went from making TV commercials to creating some of the most loved and highly regarded movies of their time, is to leave his huge working archive to the British Film Institute. Parker’s archive covers all his films – including Bugsy Malone, Midnight Express and The Commitments – and includes photographs, production stills, letters, diaries, scripts and promotional materials spanning five decades of film-making. Donating it to the BFI was an easy decision, he said. “As a past chairman of the BFI I spent some time at the archive out at Berkhamstead and was always impressed with how they meticulously care for everything. “It really is one of the world’s great film archives, so it’s nice to know that it will be available for future students of film.” Parker admitted he had accumulated “an awful lot of stuff” and went through the collection before giving it to the BFI. There are probably more than 100,000 photographs, bringing back many memories, he said. “We’ve been blessed with great photographers on our sets, so our films were incredibly well documented. “I’ve always said that filmmaking is rarely glamorous: being up to your knees in pig poo is more the norm and the photos bear that out. Film crews are an eccentric, masochistic bunch and the photos and the mountain of paper that document a movie’s creation often show a less than sane bunch.” Parker said he enjoyed coming across the letters he wrote to the crew before each film. On Midnight Express, the harrowing story of torture and abuse in a Turkish jail, he talked about “exploring the nearer verges of insanity”. “I was referring to the script, but it would have been a good description of the rather crazed film-making process.” Reading the many callsheets reminded Parker of the ridiculous hours people put in. In the case of Eva’s funeral on Evita, for example, a callsheet reads: “4,000 extras will start being dressed at 3am for a 9am camera start.” One photograph from the set of Fame shows Parker and cinematographer Michael Seresin on 46th Street in New York after a set visit from the militant film union threatening to close the film down just before the big number. “The pain on our faces is scary.” Parker said he was lucky enough to make films during a period when directors had complete control. “These days, that control and single-mindedness is hardly possible because the director-led approach has given way to the era of studio executives. The technologies have changed and the studio execs see everything almost immediately at their desks and expect to affect the film while it’s shooting. “Most of my films were made in the middle of nowhere, so the studio never knew what we were up to. They saw stuff once a week, so it was too late to change anything.” The archive will also cover the film-makers early years of making TV adverts, including everything from Leonard Rossiter continually pouring Cinzano Rose over Joan Collins to Supersoft’s lemon and vinegar cream rinse conditioner for greasy hair. Related: Alan Parker: 'I like the craziness of the film set' Parker said adverts gave him a start because the British film industry was pretty dormant. “Making commercials became my film school. I would shoot continuously, one every week and learned my craft. It was the early days of commercials so we were the first, inventing it as we went along.” Parker got the best scripts and generous budgets. “It’s so different now because, for a start, people avoid watching the commercials, which are mostly made by committees and so the standard has dropped drastically. Our mantra was that the commercial had to be better than the programmes surrounding it. The BFI said Parker’s archive, comprising about 70 large document boxes, would become “a hugely important resource for students of film and television”. Nathalie Morris, the senior curator of special collections at the BFI called it an “exceptionally rich” archive. “Alan Parker is one of several distinctive talents to emerge from a very particular place and moment – the British advertising industry of the late 60s and early 70s.” To celebrate the donation the BFI will hold a Focus on Sir Alan Parker series of screenings and events from 24 September-4 October including a stage discussion with Parker and his friend, the producer David Puttnam. There are many treasures in the archive but a few things have been kept back, Parker admitted, including the six-page letter Madonna wrote to him explaining why she should be cast as Evita. “I paused for a moment pondering whether to toss it in the box for the BFI, but re-read it and decided to keep it as it brought back very vivid memories. It’s one of the few things I kept. Madonna worked her socks off on Evita and she delivered everything she promised in the letter although, true, there were times when we wanted to throttle her.” |