Tony Palmer Made the Original Behind the Music

Published Dec 7, 2021, 5:00 AM

(Recorded in June 2021) Filmmaker Tony Palmer’s more than 100 documentaries have featured everyone from Cream to Stravinsky; Jimi Hendrix to Yehudi Menuhin; Leonard Cohen to Richard Wagner. He collaborated with Frank Zappa on the surreal cult-classic 200 Motels and with his friend, John Lennon on All You Need is Love, a multipart series on the early days of rock n roll. He’s made three films about British composer Benjamin Britten. Tony Palmer’s work has been recognized with over forty international awards; not bad, for someone who fell into filmmaking. 

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I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing from My Heart Radio my guest today. Filmmaker Tony Palmer knows how to tell a story, particularly when it involves musicians. He's made more than one hundred films, featuring everyone from Cream to Stravinsky, Jimmy Hendrix to Yehudi menu In, Leonard Khne to Richard Wagner. He collaborated with Frank Zappa on the surreal cult classic Two Hundred Motels, and with his friend John Lennon on All You Need Is Love, a multi part series on the early days of rock and roll. Tony Palmer's work has been recognized with over forty international awards, not bad for someone who fell into filmmaking. Well, if I tell you the true story, I inclined to believe that you won't take it at my word, but I promise you this is what happened. I was at Cambridge University and had ambitions to be a minor academic. We're talking about October and I went to a press conference given by the Beatles, who were then famous, but not intergalactically or so as they became later on, and I went representing the university newspaper, and at the press conference held in the then Regal cinema at lunchtime they were giving a concert that night. I just thought the whole thing was rather silly. And as we were milling around afterwards, this rather scruffy lad came up to me and he said, you didn't ask any questions, and I said, no, that's perfectly true. Why not? Well, I thought it was all rather silly. Yes, it was very silly. He said, very silly, because it was very typical of those early Beatles conferences where they were sort of just laughing about. And then he said what do you do? And I said, well, I'm I'm a student? What of? And I was doing something called moral sciences don't be confused by that had nothing to do with morality, little owned science. And then it surprised me and said would you take me around the University of this afternoon? And I first said no, why not? Well you'll be mobbed and that's not my idea of fun. And he he said, well, how about if I come in disguise? So I was having my bluff called at every turn, so finally I agreed. So I met him outside the hotel where he was staying an hour or so later, and sure enough this chap turned up, and this enormous fedora had a completely stupid, straggly beard, and if I say it was a dirty Macintosh, that's about right. And we both just fell around laughing, and he said he took the disguise off, and I managed to take him into King's College Chapel, which is that famous Henry the Eighth Chapel where the carols come from at Christmas time. But rather more importantly, I got him into the library at Trinity College, which is designed by Christopher Wren is always known as the Ren Library. Now, strictly speaking, we were trespassing because I wasn't supposed to be there, because I wasn't at that college, and he certainly wasn't supposed to be there. But having got him in, I mean he was just taking books of every shelf he could see. I couldn't get him out of there. And it occurred to me that this was an essential moment in John's life, as he later told me many times, that he suddenly realized, as you said, being a war baby, that he'd had no formal education, and that having been carried away in this sort of wave of Beatlemania, so young comparatively speaking, that he realized what he had missed. Eventually I got him out of there and he just he said, come to the concert. I was going to the concert anyway, and he scribbled a telephone number on a piece of paper and said, call me when you're coming to London. I said, well, I'm actually not coming to London, staying here and hope we will be some sort of completely minor and insignificant academic. Well well, well, he said. So. Three years later I eventually joined the BBC, still having absolutely no ambitions to make films that let alone get involved in any kind of documentary making. And I still had this bit of paper with this phone number, so I thought, well, nothing ventioned, nothing gained. So I telephoned the number, and to my absolute astonishment, somebody answered the phone and it was clear from the girl's tone of voice that I was the four hundredth person who'd rung up that morning. Said John Lennon said to call, and I said, well he really did, but don't worry about it. This is my phone number, and put the phone down. Half an hour later, a guy called Derek Taylor. You will know of Derek Taylor, he was the beg famous publicity. Yeah, rang me up and said I've got a message for you from John. So at this point I'm kind of in a state of shriveled excitement because now they were intergalactically fame us. And I kept thinking, what the hell is this message going to be? Is? Who the hell is this? What does he want? Why doesn't he leave me alone? So nervously finally I said, well, what is the message? Quick as a flash, Derek came back with the reply, well, John wants to know why it's taking you three years to call him. And that was the beginning of a rather bizarre relationship between the two of us. Interesting you mentioned that about Lennon and his yearning from for greater education. I worked with an actress, one who shall remain nameless. I don't want to embarrass anybody, but this actress was someone who we were talking about the scenes and there was an historical component, and the director was there and we're having a meeting, and then we went into her trailer and we talked a little bit more about the film and some aspect of history that informed the project. And I was going on and on and holding forth on some of the research. I don't mentioning this in this book, and so forth. And she started sobbing. She burst out sobbing, and I said, what's the matter, And she said, she said, I didn't go to college. And she goes, I regretted every day of my life. She goes, how I wish I'd gone to college. And she was a beauty queen who was a gorgeous a woman when she was young, and it was all modeling and advertising and then right into Hollywood. And she said, I never went to school. And she said, and I consider it one of the most staggering acts of self robbery you could imagine. I wish I had. And you think about what Lennon might have men as a writer had he and he had a more of a formal education post high school. I think that's absolutely true. I mean, he was a man of such enormous imagination and energy and enterprise and creativity and courage that, as you said, I mean, how had he benefited. On the other hand, you know, once you start benefiting quotes and quotes from a formal education, to some extent, it restricts you and to some extent it prevents you from these huge leaps of imagination that you might otherwise have when you make a film, and you've made quite a few films, when you're doing research about Wagner, it's different when you're relying on what other people said about that person, and you're having to sift through their conclusions and assertions about someone who you don't get a chance to meet, and then you meet the person and you write your own film based on your observations. Can you describe the difference between the two involved. The thing I've learned about making films about people who are alive or appear to be alive, I think is more accurate is that practically everybody you talk to doesn't tell you the truth. They want their footnote in the major story, as it were. I mean, I can give you no I think about the perfect example of this. I made a film about Stevinsky at the request of Stevinsky's widow, and it was hoped to be the definitive film about Stevinsky. And one of the people I wanted to interview was a choreographer called sergeley Far. He was it was the Aguilev's last great choreographer, and he wants to be interviewed in French, which is fine, but he also wants to be interviewed at the hotel in Montre where Nabakov lived. And I later discovered that he had never been to that hotel before, but he thought it would be good for his image if I interviewed him in the same hotel where Nabakov lived. Interesting, Interesting, the bonkers. Anyway, the interview went well, but suddenly towards the end of the interview he started to tell this story, and he said, I arrived in Venice, I went over to the leader. I looked up at the hotel where Sergey Pavlovitch was de Aguilev was staying. He looked very ill to me. I went back across the lagoon. I found a doctor. We came, etcetera, etcetera, and then the concluding remarks were And then in my arms on the night of August twenty nine, and I was remember the date because it happens to be my birthday. In my arms, Sergey Pavlovitch Agilev died, and as he said died, tears were pouring down his cheeks, I mean literally sobbing. And I thought, but I don't say anything. I'll wait I'll pause and see what it said. The problem with the story is there's not a word of truth in it. He wasn't he wasn't Do you do when you're recording someone who's lying to you, just to just to hold their just to hold their seat at the table of history? Well exactly. But then the question is I knew that the story was not true, but do I include it in the film or do I not include it in the film? Now, all of my films, without exception, have no narration, so I can't have a narrator, even as distinguished narrator as you, to say, well, actually, Chaps, that story is not true. But it's a good story, isn't it. Like what do you do? Eventually I included it knowing it wasn't true, because you could see this that was filmed in nineteen Diaguilefford died in so here we are fifty some our years later, and you can still see the pact that that extraordinary man Diagilev had on someone like Surgeley far by the fact he's bursting into tears. I mean, I got fed up with a number of people I've met over the years in whose arms x Y and Zai have died. I mean Rostropovich, the great Cellis once told me in my arms procoffeev died completely forgetting to mention that that couldn't possibly been true, because when Procoffee have died, he died the same day as Stalin, and the entire center of Moscow was cordoned off. So how have Rostropovich smuggled himself in in order that Procoffee could very conveniently die in his arms? Was a question which I don't think he was prepared to answer. As you well know. You know documentary filmmaking stories that involved the past. You're going back and talking to rock and roll stars about wood stuck. It doesn't matter what it is. You know, memory becomes this watercolor, it becomes this very very blurry, undeveloped polaroid, and that's how they remember it. That's absolutely true. I made a film with great English composer William Walton, and Walton arguably is most famous for having written coronation marches for various queens and kings, and the first big hit he had was for the coronation of George the Six, Queen Elizabeth's father, for which he wrote Crown Imperial Right. So I now go to it. I'm now interviewing Walton, who very old but very articulately. So also spoke very very slowly, so I won't do that. But he said, you know, I wrote that thing called Crown Imperial for whatever he was called. It's called George the six. William, Oh, yeah, yes, George is something or other. And then I wrote another one for his daughter, what was she called, Queen Elizabeth the Second? Oh? Yes, yes, and that was called orb and Scepter. And now I'm writing another one for the next king, Charles something or other, and that's called the Bed Majestical. So I it, William, Wait a second, where'd you get these wonderful titles from, Oh, dear boy, don't be so silly? Crown Imperial Orban Sceptor bed Majestical. It's a line from Henry the Five. There's no line at all, but it's just a great thought, you know that the three Since he wrote the music for Lawrence Olivier's film version of Henry the Fifth, you're beginning to terrify me. That should be down in all the British history, now which it's been recounted by the Brits. How much of it is true well British history very little filmmaker Tony Palmer. If you love hearing stories of how directors approached their work, be sure to check out my conversation with Stephen Daldry. His films include Billy Elliott, The Hours, The Reader and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I love editing you do. It's my favorite bit of pressure. Is a film is written three times. You write it to start it, and you rewrite it as you make it, and then you do the final and proper right as you put it all together. And it's like a jigsaw puzzle. And I would imagine that the experience of editing makes anyone a better filmmaker in terms of teaching you what you need to have in the can people say to me, you know, what should I do to learn how to make a film? Just getting by final clup pro and just start shooting stuff and then just start editing, and you'll learn everything you need to know about making a movie from editing. Here more of my conversation with Stephen Daldry at Here's the Thing dot Org. After the Break, Tony Palmer talks about the enduring trait he believes all great artists possess. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing. Tony Palmer's prolific work includes not one or two, but three films about British composer Benjamin britt Britain was the subject of Palmer's very first film, which was released in nineteen sixty seven. He was in his mid twenties then and making his way up the ranks at the BBC. Now, the very first film I made I actually inherited. I had worked with my boss Humphrey Burton, who was biographer of Lenard Burnstein, amongst others. He and I were developing a film about Benjamin Britain. Britain had always resisted having a film made about him at home. He didn't mind coming into a studio, he didn't mind being filmed in a concert, but no way was anybody going to get anywhere near his home. You know why he wanted privacy, Yeah, absolutely, I mean he was already in a classical world, incredibly famous, especially after the war requim and he just didn't need it, didn't want it. I was also told, interestingly enough, I should never ever mentioned to Britain the name of john S Lessingship wonderful director John S Lessingshire, because he had made a ten minute little film about Britain and I think eight or fifty nine, which Britain apparently had absolutely hated, and every time I looked at the film, I couldn't see why he hated it. Many years later, Peter Pears, Britain's lover and the great tenor, said to me, well, he's not sure whether Ben made a pass at Lessinger or Slessinger made a pass at Ben, but it had gone wrong, so that's why you can't there was something afoot anyway, Humphrey Burton had spent years trying to set up a film about Benjamin Britain. Seven was the opening of the big new concert hall, which is now one of the great concert halls of the world, and it was going to be what is in effect state occasion. The Queen was coming members of the royal family and it was going to be the grand inauguration of this wonderful, wonderful concert or so Britain was eventually persuaded that we'd be there filming the Queen anyway, so you might as well go along with this and give us a bit of help. As it were so was all set up and then we were due to start filming on a Monday, and on the previous Wednesday, Humphrey Burton, who was making the film, he got fired by the BBC. And he got fired because it had been leaked to London Evening Press that he was off to set up a commercial radio station. Now, if you'd worked for the BBC, the notion that you were going to abandon ship and go and set up a commercial radio station, television station, that was anathema and there were cries of betrayal, betrayal, betrayal. So I'm sort of sitting in Oldboro and Suffolk, where Britain lived, thinking what the hell do I do. Humphrey Burton, my boss to them out is going to make the film is fine? And I was also in a hotel that had no phone in the room, so there was an endless knocks on the door. There's a phone call for you come downstairs, and then it was a man probably doesn't mean too much of your American listeners, but the man called Hugh Weldon was one of the greats of public service broadcasting, and it was Hugh Olden on the phone. Now, apart from Hugh Weldon, being the head of television. Effectively, he was also a military cross. I mean, he was a very distinguished soldier. So the conversation went a bit like this, partner, Yes, sir, don't panic, I said, no, I'm not panicking. He said, the cavalry are coming, and then slammed the phone down. I had no idea what that do. So I go back upstairs, still now in a state of real panic. Twenty minutes later, knock knock on the door, and I said, to the poor manager of the hotel, who kept running up downstairs, I said, I don't care who it is, but I'm not coming. He said, I think you'll want to take this call. I said, why, who is it? It's Mr Brittain on the phone. So I go, I knew Britain by now. Yeah, I knew him by now, but so, I mean, I wasn't thrown by that, but I thought of having to explain myself. And when he comes on the phone, he says, Tony always called me. Tony said, don't worry, We've heard nothing to worry about. I think you should come up and have tea in our house with me and Peter and we'll discuss what we do. And I remember two things from from that t One he couldn't sit still. He was cutting this really beautiful fruitcake, which I remember I can taste it even today. And then the second thing was the two of them were giggling all the time while telling me, don't worry, we'll get you through it. We'll get you through it. So I said fine. Years and years later, after Britain had died and I began to make other films about Britain, especially with Peter Peers, and I asked, Peter, remember that occasion. Why were you giggling? You know? Was it something I was wearing, something I said, or did I smell wrong? He said no, he said, you missed the point. He said. We never wanted to make that film. Humphrey had talked us into it, and we thought, now we're stout with you and you're clearly an idiot and have no idea what you're doing. We'll go along with it. We stuck with We stuck with the B squad. Here, B squad, the D s. God absolutely, So this is your Bruno Walter moment at the Carnegie Hall. You get summoned to conduct, you step up. This is your Leonard Bernstein moment to step into the sunlight and take over. How did it go? What was the experience like for you? Well, I mean direct. It was, in fact the first color film of the BBC ever to be networked in America. It went out as a Bell Telephone Hour, which was a tremendous thrill, and I mean it was not unsuccessful, but unfortunately it came to the attention of one John Lennon who summoned me again and said now then, he said, now that you're well established at the BBC, I just made one quite short films about fifty five minutes. Now you're going to do something serious. And I said, right, what? And he said, there are all these musicians who ought to appear on the BBC. Either they refused to appear on the BBC or they don't like the idea of appearing on the BBCO and Morris the same, And I said, like who. He said, well, can you imagine Jimmie Hendrix appearing on the BBC? And I said, tell me what the problem is. He said, well, you know, you're the camera and over there is Jimmie Hendrix playing as wonderfully as he does. But between the camera and Jimmie Hendrix. There are an awful lot of gyrating new biles who are in the ways, and that's insulting to Hendrix as a man and also more particularly as a musician. And for that reason, a great list of musicians said John, will not appear on the BBC's your job to get them on there without the gyrating new biles. And he gave me this extraordinary list. Hendrix was one, Cream was another, Frank Zappa was another. There's a story in a half, Eric Byrdon and the animals Donovan. Now, at that point none of these people had appeared on television on the BBC. So we made a film Pink Floyd. It was the first time Pink Floyd had he appeared on television. And oddly enough I was at school with Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, but he was the only one I knew personally what year was this. So John said, well, I will make the introductions, you make the film. So I said fine. So I went back to the BBC slightly riding the crest of a very small wave as a result of the Benjamin Britten film, and said, now I'm going to make a film called All My Loving which is about the Beatles, I said, lying, It wasn't just about the Beatles. It was about what that group of people represented great musicians, great musicians, but also people who were articulate and had something to say and wanted to say it clearly and loudly on the BBC. So we made the film. The BBC absolutely hated it. That was predictable to some extent. David Amber wrote me a memo which I've still got in which he said, this film is a disgrace. Over my dead body, will this film ever be shown on the BBC. He was then control of the BBC and we were kept waiting for nine months. We couldn't get it on the air. We were rescued nine months or so later by the new head of music, who was a man called John Culture who ran Decca Record Company with whom I had worked and have become a very good friend. And he looked at the film and said, well, we have to get this on. We have to get it on peak viewing our So we were then taken to see the man who was a controller of BBC one, I mean the main channel, who said he'd obviously been very well brief because as I went in He just waved his hand at me. I don't want his discussion. He said, I will trade you three fs to two pieces. In other words, if you get rid of three f's, I'll let you have to show the film. So that was that, and that caused, if I may say so, a sensation that film. Now, when you say that the BBC didn't want to show it, did they not want to show anything on that subject? They didn't want to show that. Did they offer you any explanation? Nothing on that subject, nothing from that uber, not those particular people. What was their reasoning. Their reasoning was that popular music on television at that time consisted of two shows, one of which was called Jukebox Jury, where four people sat in the line and played a new piece of music and they had to push a button one to five. That was it. And then the other thing was I mentioned the Top of the Pops where you had all these gyrating new birds and no real appreciation of the music itself. And what we had presented in all my loving was very articulate. People names I mentioned who had a lot to say about the world in which they lived. Don't forget that's the time of the Vietnam War. And other deeply divisive social issues. They wanted to talk about it. They wanted to talk about what they they thought their role as musicians was in that society, and they weren't going to be shut up. And that's what that film managed to express. And who, by your estimation, was among the most articulate of the subjects, well, I mean the two obvious ones who sweep to minded, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. And McCartney had a lot to say on that subject. But also the other one, from a slightly oblique angle, was Frank Zappa. Now you had you had a little bit of a lilt when you talked about him before. What was the story with Zappa that was amusing or interesting? Well, I mean I later made I think the worst film in the entire history of the universe, in spite of the fact that has a colossal cult following called two hundred Motels. I don't regret making Totels, but I mean I had a deeply upsetting experience. Not many years ago, the one hundredth anniversary of the premier of the Writers Spring caused me to be invited to numerous orchestral organizations on the West coast of America, mostly in California, which the most auspicious, I suppose, was for the music school in Los in u c. L A. And what did they perform? Right A spring firebird? What did they do well? This was a pure lecture. In most of the events, what happened was they played bits of Stravinsky in the first half. I then talked for twenty minutes, and then they play the writer spring. But on this occasion it was just purely a lecture, and I rambled on for about an hour about Stevinsky and procoffee f and Sakovich and what all the great Russian composer had undergone. Brachmaninov had suffered in the twentieth century, partly as a result of Stalin and others. So this was a very somber and serious address. I don't think there were too many jokes. There were three or four hundred, I can't remember, but that sort of size audience. And at the end of the one hour lecture, the interlocutor said, looking at the audience, said would anybody like to ask Mr Palmer a question? And one guy almost in the first row put his hand up straight away and he said, yes, sir can you tell me what Frank Zapple was? Like? I thought, I've just been talking about thirty million dead in the on all he wants to know Stalin tortured rockman enough and you want to hear about it? Yeah, exactly, Well, don't you go with the huskies? Go? Don't you eat that yellow snow? I remember from Zapples from my part smoking days. But when you've ex am in the world's the universes of classical the late grape maestros and composers of the repertoire and popular music, you know, there's nothing in my mind like popular music in terms of its ephemeral nature. There's many people who come up and they have that opportunity, they take the stage, they have that moment to capture the world's attention, and they go away. Most of them don't make it. Most of them don't go to Mount Olympus if you will. And the ones who do. I'm wondering what do Stravinsky and Wagner and the Beatles and the who have in common, meaning those that endure, What do they have in common? Is it the same in popular music as it is for classical music. Well I can answer the question. I think slightly a tan genital way. Initially, the thing that attracts me to all of these people that I've made films about, whether you're talking about Maria Carlos or Margot Fonte, Noor Stravinsky that you mentioned, or even the Beatles, there's one element which they've all got, which is courage, whether you're talking about intellectual courage, or emotional courage, or artistic courage, or in some cases physical courage. I remember Margot Fontein trying to explain to me one day when she later in her life, when she was just on tour as a solo star artist, sometimes with area, sometimes not with neuro She'd say, you know, we'd go to a new theater which we didn't know it's a wooden stage, fine, but would moves and sometimes you have little nails sticking up out of the wood. Now, if they have not prepared the stage properly, or even if they have not swept the stage properly, I'm standing in the side of the stage and I'm hearing my music coming up, and then I hear my cue and I whoops off I go. If I land on one foot and that foot slips or gets on a nail because the stage has not been properly prepared. My career is over. So in that single moment, there is an act of physical courage which is beyond most of us. And I think all the people that I've dealt with exhibit that courage in one form or another, and that's something I'm in all of attracted to want to celebrate. I mean, I've sometimes been accused of making films where all I've chosen to do is any great if you see what I mean, I mean big film I made about Menu and got me into a hell of a lot of trouble. You're referring to the great violinist yr Whodi. Menu went correct? Correct? So you did? You did a film about Menu went and what happened? Well, in the end he didn't approve it. Why Well, in his autobiography he makes two for me or three fatal admissions. The one is he repeats over and over again, and this became a kind of mantra with him that I had this wonderfully idyllic childhood and I grew up thinking the world was lovely. Secondly, that if you look in the autobiography as published, you can find no reference to his first wife. If you know, her name was Nicholas, you can find Nicolas Nola, but not menu In Nola. That was an interesting admission. And the third thing was that I became very puzzled by the fact that if you asked man in Street, well you who he was still very active man in Street? Who's the most famous violinist alive? Most of them, especially in England, would say you who him? Anuin He was an extraordinary man. I'm not that if you asked musicians who is the greatest violinist of our time, I'm not sure you who he would get in the top fifty. So where was this? Yeah? So where was this disparity? What was the problem. I went to a particular concert where he and the leader of the particular orchestra he was playing with played a Mozart double concerto. He was making lots of wrong notes. I think he was almost making it up as he goes along. The other guy, who the leader of the orchestra, was of course absolutely spot on. But your eye and your ear went to Yehudi. Didn't matter who the other guy was, You went to Yehudi. But the thing that upset you who he was? That we found he had two sisters, one of whom was Hepsiba, who was a very good pianist, and she had died of cancer, and I discovered that he hadn't gone to her funeral, and in fact, he never mentioned it. Then I discovered that in his autobiography he talks about playing for displaced persons after the war, and through my Benjamin Britain connection, I knew and I was certain that Britain and Menuin had actually gone to play in the newly liberated concentration camps, not displaced persons, the actual concentration camps. There. They were in bergen Belson months or so after it was liberated. Now, Yehudi means the Jew, so you can imagine the shock that that had on him. But that's why he didn't mention it. But I thought it was important to try and understand the man who was in front of us. But then the fatal observation was to me, it was the fatal observation was that he had had this happy childhood. His two sisters, Hepster was dead, died of cancy, had another sister called Yalta who was the little one. And we'd tracked down Yalta and we interviewed her, and she told a totally different stories. She said, our childhood was a nightmare. You know, we were locked in cupboards, We were prevented from meeting other children because they weren't good enough for us. It was a horror story, she said, And she articulated this quite extensively. And ye who he had said, he didn't know that. He knew that we had interviewed his younger sister, but he obviously didn't know what she'd said. But he kept saying. At the end of the filming, I'm going to persuade my mother, who is only I think, to allow you to film her and me together. Are you happy about that? She lived in Los Gatos in California, So I said fine. So we dutifully trooped off to Lost Catos to film you HOODI. And there there this midget who was five foot arrived wearing black glasses, black clothes, looking really menacing, and she invited into her house for tea, and before anything had got going, luckily the camera was running by now she began to tell Yahudi off in front of us, don't do that. That's very silly. What who do you think you are? And you just saw it in one. So our portrait of Rhodimnuin was, if I say Watts and all, it wasn't there to diminish him in any way whatsoever. It was to celebrate the man. How had he managed to do this in this background? Margaret Fontein was the same. How did it come about that the most one of the most famous ballerinas of her time finished up in a mud hut in Panama when there was no water, no no running water, no telephone, nothing. He was living off cornflicts. How did that happen? And we have to try and understand it? Director Tony Palmer, If you're enjoying this conversation, be sure to follow Here's the Thing on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, Tony Palmer discusses his seven hour and forty five minute film about Richard Wagner. It starred Richard Burton, Lawrence Olivier and Vanessa Redgrave. The l A Time has called it one of the most beautiful films ever made. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. When you make over on films in the course of a career, there are operat tunities to experiment with different styles of storytelling, and while Tony Palmer has certainly been adventurous, one thing he decided he would not use in his films his voiceover narration. The story has to speak for itself. I mean this My job, as it were, is to present the evidence and let you make up your mind. I mean, at no point in the menu and film, since we talked about it, does anybody say anything derogatory of menu in other than the eyewitnesses as it were. And then at the end you have to decide, you know, was this guy's goody two shoes as he just hiding really important moments in his past. It makes your job quite difficult. But I mean I I don't only make films about music, but I mean the music films I've made, I would consider the music as an essential narrative point part of the film. The music drives the story forward. I mean rachaman and Off since you mentioned him, I mean Rachamanov provided me with plenty of musical evidence for that actually happened in his life, and so I was able to construct a film entirely around pieces of music. I mean a lot of people talking and a lot of I hope, very pretty shots of where he lived and what he did, especially in Russia. But it's it's it's essentially the music is the driving force, the narrative of the film that makes it. It's it's not easy, it's difficult, but I'm a better editor. I think that I am a director, and I mean I can edit to our film in ten fourteen days simply because it's very clear in my mind what I want to do. Because I could sing most of whatever composer I'm working on, I could sing the music backwards. So when you're making a film that seven hours and forty five minutes, the Wagner film, does the length of the film present itself prior to the making. So for example, now you do a podcast for like Netflix or I Heart of Someone, and they'll say to you literally, they'll say, we only break even after five episodes. We don't make any money the graviest episode six, seven, and eight, and we don't care how you have, how loaded it needs to be, how much you have to stretch it out, how much you have to kind of pump oh, you know, very true, And they'll say, we need an eight episodes shure, even if there is an eight episodes there in the story. Now in your case, tell us about the length and the scope of your incredible project about er Well. I mean, if you're if you're dumb enough or stupid enough to make films about composers, I've made a few. Then as far as the nineteenth century is concerned, the shadow of Wagner hangs over everything. You can't avoid it. At some point, you've got to face up to it and do it. Wagner, of course, is immensely complicated because of what happened to his music in the third right, among others, and so that makes trying to find a perspective on the story of Wagner difficult. The other thing which is difficult is that I think at the time that we made the film, which was for the hundred anniversary of his death, we reckon that there were more books about Wagner than any other person who had ever lived, including Jesus Christ and including Napoleon. So you're suddenly faced with this mountain of information. When we were planning the film about Vargner, we didn't really know that it would be either that short or that long. We just knew it was a big subject would require big film, and so we were lucky in that I had already been approached by Vittorio Seraro, great Oscar winning cameraman. Have you got a project that would interest me? Yes, sir, I have. It's called I'm there, he said. So we got Victoria's Steraro straight away. Richard Burton, oddly enough, was not the first choice. It was Albert Finnie, who I had worked with before, wouldn't give me a start date, and of course we were under some pressure to have a start date that we could stick to. And in fact that the whole film of seven hours forty five minutes, it only took seven months to film. I mean it wasn't long, and about three months then to edit. But going back to the main subject. When we started on the project, I mentioned this chat earlier deck John Culshaw. John Culshaw had recorded many of Wagner operas, and he took me to meet Wagner's grandson, Wolfgang. And Wolfgang and I got very drunk with John Culshaw and Volkang's wife. I think he was then his mistress, but became his wife at a hotel in Bustledorff. And at the end of this long drunken lunch, he said, making this film, you'll find two important pieces of advice. He said. The one is that as you go on, you were discovered that everybody, without exception, knows exactly where my grandfather was on the third Thursday of the fourth month of eighteen seventy two. He said, you will even find and it turned out to be true. You will even find somebody who knows how many eggs he had for breakfast and how long he cooked the eggs for. That was turned out to be absolutely true. But then the other thing he said was you have to understand about my grandfather that if he were alive today, we're talking about the end of He said, it's the only one place he would want to work. He'd go to Hollywood straight away. Hollywood all has all the technical needs and money and so on and so on. He'd be straight in there in Hollywood. I think that would have been a shock for Hollywood. But nonetheless, those two pieces of advice were kept. They would like Manchester. They kept me going and kept me sane all the time. Richard Burton was very confused about why I'd chosen him. What role do Burton and Olivier and Vanessa Redgrave play if you have no announcers, what do they do with their hosts on camera? No, it's a drama. It's not a documentary. It's a drama. So Richard Richard Burton plays Richard Wagner, Vanessa Redgrave plays Kozma, his wife, and the Three Great Nights Olivia, Richardson and Gilgud. They played the three Ministers of Luding, the second of Bavaria and Ludwing the second later in life, was Wagner's principal patron. In fact, the famous Ring Cycle is dedicated to my co creator, Ludwiger Bavarious. An extraordinary situation. Once Olivia was on board, of course, everybody wanted to be in the film because they wanted to be with Olivia or they wanted to be with Burton. Richard got a bit annoyed by this, and it said to me one day, said why the hell did you choose me? And I said, well, Richard, Firstly, you're both called Richard, how about that? Secondly, you talked too much, how about that? Thirdly you definitely drink too much. And fourthly, you have an indescribable charm, as I'm sure the original Wagner did, otherwise he couldn't have got away with what he did. And lastly, I said, don't take this the wrong way. You both have a strong element of genius and that I want to celebrate. I mean, the crucial point about the Wagner film is that it explores as a drama written by a very good English dramatist called Charles Wood who wrote Charge the Light Brigade you might know who actually wrote the Beatles film Help is that it explores what was the politics of Germany at that time, in the middle of the nineteenth century, and Wagner was absolutely determined to unify Germany, to make it a power in the land. And having failed to do that by burning down an opera house, which is what he did, or he was involved in the burning down of an opera, then issuing endless pamphlets about this, that and everything you ever heard of, finally thought, well, there any way to do it is to write a huge music drama, the ring Cycle for for operas, because that will show them, that will show them what the real purpose of being a united Germany is. And of course that led to Pitland, that made it very, very complicated. But I think that the most telling image in the whole film. This was a guy who had wanted notices published all over Germany, dead or alive, Wagner five dollars. That was certainly a part of it. He was on the run from creditors, from political adversaries, from people who wanted to do him down. Finally, in August eighteen seventy six, this time, and little man, he was only about five ft three or five ft four, stood on the top of a hill behind which was this theater he had built with Ludwig's money, the theater in Byroid, and the crowned heads of Europe came up to say hello, Mr Bagnets, and honor to meet you. Can you imagine an artist sent to stage greeting the crown heads of Europe. I mean that that's never happened, since it probably happened a bit in the time of the Greeks, but that's it. This was an artist, a musician, a composer, and yet he was sent to stage, not all these conniving, mendacious politicians courtiers. Now you spent your entire career over there. If you were, you never lived in America, you never lived in Los Angeles and made films in California. Well, I did a huge series called All You Need Is Love, The History of American Popular Music, where I mean I was camped in the United States for a year tracking down everybody. But you never wanted to relocate here and make film. You've made documentary films and narrative films. You never wanted to become just a regular filmmaker shooting narrative films over here and make I think I would want to say that I never had the opportunity. Nobody ever asked me. I mean, I just kind of plodded on doing my own things. I mean, I've worked at the BBC. As I mentioned, I left the BBC after about five years because I felt it was very restricting. And I've been a freelance ever since. And as you mentioned, I mean I've made rather a lot of films. I mean, I mean about a hundred and twenty films entirely as a freelance, trying to find the money than doing it, than getting it on television, and so on and so on and so on. I'm a one man band, a one man band. Indeed. This episode was produced by Kathleen Russo, Kerry Donahue, and Zach McNeice. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing. Is brought to you by iHeart Radio

Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin

Award-winning actor Alec Baldwin takes listeners into the lives of artists, policy makers and perfor 
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