Flipside 019: Deep End

[MichaelB]

Following the revelation in Shindig! magazine (of all places), I'm very happy to be able to confirm that the BFI is indeed working on Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End - which has to be one of the most-requested cult titles ever.

That's literally all I know for now - more details when I get them.

2010 looks like being a bumper year for UK-based Skolimowski fans, if Second Run's plans for Barrier and Hands Up! bear fruit too. And not before time - even eighteen months ago he was possibly my first choice for the dubious accolade of most important director most poorly represented on DVD. And while the recent Polish box filled major gaps, the transfers and especially subtitles left a lot to be desired.

[menthymenthy]

Excellent. =D> It seems Criterion are working on this film too, so, let the race begin.

Additionally to Deep End, as well as the Second Run DVDs, Skolimowski's latest (The Essence of Killing) should complete and release this year too, hopefully. It will be a good year for fans.

[MichaelB]

I had dinner with Skolimowski just under a year ago (as one does), and he told me that his ambition for The Essence of Killing was to make a film with even less dialogue than Four Nights with Anna - which has precious little to begin with.

[davidprice]

Essence should be done pretty quickly. Scheduled to finish shooting the end of February - if it is any indication, Moonlighting was shot in January of '81 and was done in time for Cannes that year (May).

[MichaelB]

'82, not '81 - Skolimowski would have been scarily prophetic if he'd done it in '81!

As far as I remember the chronology was:

December 81: tanks in Warsaw
January 82: script finished, finance found in record time.
Feb-Mar: production.
April: post-production
May: Cannes premiere.

It still must be one of the fastest professional 35mm features ever shot, and by all accounts Four Nights with Anna didn't take much longer.

[davidprice]

Yes, '82 NOT '81 - point taken!

Remarkably fast production. I don't know if this is correct, but according to the Guardian in this article, Moonlighting was "Conceived in December 1981, Moonlighting was scripted in four days, financed in a few weeks, shot in 18 days in January - and premiered at Cannes in May."

Four Nights with Anna was done quite quickly. Wonderful film.

BTW: in this article (in Polish), Skolimowski says Jeremy Thomas will be "a distributor" of Essence so, hopefully, it will be easier to see than Four Nights with Anna.

Speaking of these films being done quickly, Skolimowski said he (and his wife) wrote Four Nights in six days. Pity that movie has not been more accessible as it is not overly Polish specific in terms of cultural references, etc.
One can easily see his background as a painter in that movie.

Sorry to have derailed this from Deep End.

[MichaelB]

Moonlighting was "Conceived in December 1981, Moonlighting was scripted in four days, financed in a few weeks, shot in 18 days in January - and premiered at Cannes in May."

Well, you've goaded me into looking up my source, and according to producer Mark Shivas (interviewed alongside Skolimowski in the Monthly Film Bulletin, September 1982):

12 December 1981: Tanks roll into Warsaw; Skolimowski immediately inspired to write four-page treatment under the title Blackout;

6 January 1982: Skolimowski shows treatment to Mark Shivas, who agrees to produce. National Film Finance Corporation keen, but requires script. National Film Development Fund puts up £11,500 to fund script.

22 January: Script completed.

25 January: Shivas approaches numerous companies, including majors like Rank and EMI. Channel 4 first to say yes, agreeing to contribute half the budget.

early February: Skolimowski's tennis partner, stage producer Michael White, agrees to put up the other half. In the meantime, Jeremy Irons agrees to play the lead, but his window of availability closes in mid-March.

12 February: Shooting starts, using Skolimowski's own house as the primary location.

Mid-March: Shooting ends after roughly four weeks.

March-April: Post-production, during which the title is changed because Blackout is deemed too depressing. Poles Apart is considered, but mainly as a joke. Dubbing editor Alan Bell proposes Moonlighting.

20 May: World premiere at Cannes, complete with ropey French subtitles (they called it Au Clair de la lune, which was such a dreadful mistranslation that Skolimowski urged the projectionist to rack down the main title so that the subtitle was cut off).

So it's still amazingly fast, but I'd be more inclined to trust a mid-1982 interview with the producer than a 25-year-old reminiscence by a director who (as I know from my own experience of interviewing him) is a great one for printing legends when facts don't fit!

As for Four Nights with Anna, I don't know the production schedule, but the script was written in about three days because Skolimowski was contractually obliged to deliver one, and he forgot about it until almost the last minute.

[davidprice]

Thanks for that. Certainly more authoritative than what was in the Guardian piece.

On the Four Nights script that sounds about right. I heard him say "6 days" but that may have meant he realized it was due in 6 days and it was likely written in less.

BTW: my previous post may be a bit out of context as there is the delay in posting given my newbie status on this forum and my comments needing to be approved (longtime lurker).

[tajmahal]

Moonlighting was "Conceived in December 1981, Moonlighting was scripted in four days, financed in a few weeks, shot in 18 days in January - and premiered at Cannes in May."

Well, you've goaded me into looking up my source, and according to producer Mark Shivas (interviewed alongside Skolimowski in the Monthly Film Bulletin, September 1982) ...

Nothing to add to this discussion, but it reminds me of a story retold in Australian Davis Stratton's memoirs, I Peed on Fellini.

I recall it was Skolimowski, in Australia for a film festival, who asked to borrow money off Stratton to fly to somewhere(or buy film for his next film... I don't have the book handy), having bedded a few local lovelies while he was here. It wasn't an insignificant amount (for a film reviewer, anyway), and as of the release of the memoir (a couple of years ago) Skolimowski hadn't attempted to pay the money back.

I could have my wires crossed, but I recall Davis Stratton's recollections of Skolimowski, a personal friend of Stratton's, as a bit of a rogue. As my recollection of Davis Stratton's recollections are hazy, I'm happy to stand corrected.

[MichaelB]

I could have my wires crossed, but I recall Davis Stratton's recollections of Skolimowski, a personal friend of Stratton's, as a bit of a rogue. As my recollection of Davis Stratton's recollections are hazy, I'm happy to stand corrected.

No correction from me - that's very much the impression I got! But irresistibly charming with it, so it's easy to see how he gets away with it.

And Christ, what a talent - I'd been a passionate fan since my teens (I can date this precisely from seeing Moonlighting and Deep End back to back in mid-1983), but watching the bulk of his output a year or so ago in preparation for the interview really underscored what a truly amazing filmmaker he is. The early Polish stuff in particular even makes 1960s Godard look plodding and pedantic - and even his 1970s-80s British period turned out three near-masterpieces (Deep End, The Shout, Moonlighting) and a fascinating, deeply personal, wildly inventive but inevitably uneven misfire (Success is the Best Revenge).

[RossyG]

A magazine at the time of the film's release (see below) had an interview with the male lead of Deep End. He mentions an alternate ending where his character runs naked from the baths and down a street. Aparently a crowd of 300 East-Enders had gathered to watch the filming and he was profoundly embarrassed at having to streak past them. And after all that, the scene was cut anyway.

Does anyone know if this potential extra still exists? I fear not, but it'd be a fun addition to the BD/DVD, especially if introduced by the actor concerned.

Correction: The interview actually appeared in a magazine called Scarlet Street on 9/9/92, not near the film's original release. Written by Jim Knusch, the piece was called "Former Wild Child, an Interview with John Moulder-Brown". Apologies for the error.

[kneelzod]

Fascinating. Would love to read that interview. What is John Moulder-Brown up to these days, I wonder. It appears, via IMDb, that there's an occasional acting gig here and there.

The things an actor will do...and then to have the scene cut.

[zedz]

20 May: World premiere at Cannes, complete with ropey French subtitles (they called it Au Clair de la lune, which was such a dreadful mistranslation that Skolimowski urged the projectionist to rack down the main title so that the subtitle was cut off).

That has to be the gem of the day. Those pesky idioms!

[davidprice]

Still not on-topic relative to Deep End but relevant to some of the earlier posts about Essence of Killing

[HarryLong]

Fascinating. Would love to read that interview.

I could scrounge through my collection of Scarlet Street to see if I could find it & make you a photocopy.

[kneelzod]

Fascinating. Would love to read that interview.

I could scrounge through my collection of Scarlet Street to see if I could find it & make you a photocopy.

HarryLong, Thanks so much for the offer. I wouldn't want you to go too far out of your way...if you found it would you be able to scan and upload?

[Jeff]

David Thompson describing his cinematic highlights of 2010 in his contribution to Sight & Sound's year-end poll:

Eavesdropping at a filming session for a behind-the-scenes documentary on Skolimowski’s 1970 masterpiece Deep End, I witnessed the 40-year reunion of its stars John Moulder-Brown and Jane Asher, who talked as though it had been just yesterday, joshing each other like kindlier versions of their screen personae.

[MichaelB]

Yes, this release is very much on the cards, and I'm as keen on seeing it as anyone. No actual date yet, but I'll let you know the second it's confirmed.

Incidentally, I should probably make it clear that this is David Thompson the former BBC arts documentary director and Polish cinema buff, not David Thomson the Biographical Dictionary of Film author and name-dropper.

[tavernier]

Just announced by the Film Society of Lincoln Center:

An Evening with Jerzy Skolimowski, December 20

Ever the iconoclast, filmmaker, boxer, poet and painter Jerzy Skolimowski began his career in Poland in the 1960s as a screenwriter for Andrzej Wajda and Roman Polanski, before directing a series of radical, highly personal films (IDENTIFICATION MARKS Identification Marks: None, Walkover, Barrier) that established him as one of the major figures of the new Polish cinema.

In the 1970s and '80s, he worked prodigiously as an expat in Europe and America (including Cannes prize winners The Shout and Moonlighting), followed by an extended hiatus from movies to concentrate on his figurative expressionist painting. Having triumphantly returned with the acclaimed FOUR NIGHTS WITH ANNA (presented at the 2008 New York Film Festival), Skolimowski continues his filmmaking renaissance apace with ESSENTIAL KILLING, winner of the Best Actor (for Vincent Gallo) and Special Jury Prize awards from Quentin Tarantino's jury at this year's Venice Film Festival.

SNEAK PREVIEW!
ESSENTIAL KILLING - 6:15PM
Poland/Norway/Ireland/Hungary, 35mm; 83m
Skolimowski's latest reworks the director's twin career-ranging themes, individualism and obsession, into a provocative meditation on the politics of terror in the wake of Afghanistan and Iraq. In a mesmerizing, wordless performance, Vincent Gallo plays a bearded insurgent, captured by American soldiers in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, waterboarded, interrogated and finally transported to another unnamed country somewhere in Eastern Europe. En route, the battered man makes a daring escape into a harsh snowbound landscape, where, barefoot and starving, pursued by helicopters, he is forced to survive on his most basic instincts.
Q&A with Jerzy Skolimowski will follow the screening.


40TH ANNIVERSARY SCREENING!
DEEP END (1970) - 8:30PM
West Germany/UK, 35mm; 90m
Skolimowski's second film made outside of Poland-and one of his greatest-centers on Mike (John Moulder-Brown), a shy, 15-year-old high-school dropout who takes a job as the male attendant at a London public bathhouse. There, he learns the ropes-and the predilections of the sex-starved clientele-from beautiful, red-haired Susan (Jane Asher), for whom he soon develops a dangerous, deeply obsessive infatuation. A Swinging Sixties Vertigo, shot through with perverse dark humor (including former "it" girl Diana Dors memorably burying Mike's head in her breasts while fantasizing about Manchester United winger George Best) and accompanied by a Cat Stevens song score, Deep End remains a signature Skolimowski triumph. Not on DVD.
Screening will be introduced by Jerzy Skolimowski.

[perkizitore]

Incidentally, I should probably make it clear that this is David Thompson the former BBC arts documentary director and Polish cinema buff, not David Thomson the Biographical Dictionary of Film author and name-dropper.

Is this the same Thompson that is also a BFI Governor?

[Duncan Hopper]

Elected member Governor, yes.

[lachenay]

Here's a picture of Jane Asher and John Moulder-Brown (both looking gorgeous!) made during the above mentioned interview for the new documentary on DEEP END

[kneelzod]

Asher and Moulder-Brown sure do look fantastic for 57 and 64 or thereabouts!

[nolanoe]

BRAVO!!

More cult films like that should be released by you guys. I am still crossing my fingers for you to do some Alberto Cavallone and Fascination.

So looking forward to this.

[RossyG]

Out July, according to the latest BFI Flipside press release.