Examination of Witnesses (Questions 236
- 239)
TUESDAY 13 MAY 2003
LORD ATTENBOROUGH
Q236 Chairman: Lord Attenborough,
welcome.
Lord Attenborough: Good afternoon,
Chairman.
Q237 Chairman: We have called you
Lord Richard Attenborough, which I think makes you the younger
son of a Marquis. You are a British film industry all in yourself
and you have seen it all, right from the days of the structured
studios through to today. Having listened to the financial observations
of BSAC, what do you believe that we need to do, not to restore
things to the days when you were employed by studios, but to restore
things in a way that we have a British film industry comparable
to, analogous to, if you like, the United States film industry?
Lord Attenborough: Chairman, I
do not think that we can ever do that quite in superficial terms
simply because the scale of the whole American operation is so
enormous and it has such control and grip all around the world
of the principal infrastructures which make it possible not only
to make movies, but indeed to distribute them. I was very interested
to hear what David Elstein and Marc Samuelson were saying to us
now, but if I may go back just momentarily; there is no question
whatsoever that the industry cannot succeed without some form
of assistance. There is no possibility. And in the whole world,
there is not a country in the whole world, including the United
States and India, where all, in some way or another, have major
fiscal advantages in terms of operating their industry. I think
the whole question that started under Section 48 when I was still
involved—I should say that for ten years I have not been
involved in any of the industry organisations, the British Film
Industry, BSAC. I retired ten years ago, so I am not up to date
with everything that those bodies are presenting as their cases,
but of one thing I am certain; is that until we accept that a
form of subsidy, in some form or another—whether it be a
tax concession or whether it be actual funding—is accepted
as a prerequisite for the British film industry, the British film
industry will continue to jump and flop and climb up again and
fall again, etc. The sadness about the Section 48 situation, that
it is to come to an end in 2005, is very sad not only in itself
but in the message that it sends out to investors and people around
the world. If it is deemed that Section 48 did not work—and
I accept we failed to be as wise as we should have been in that
the concessions under Section 48 which were intended unquestionably
to foster indigenous production—that particular loophole
was used outrageously by some of the television operators and
I think did an enormous disservice to the industry. Also for a
number of years, even way back, ten years ago when I was involved
with BSAC, I was advocating what David and Marc were broadly saying,
that if we simply fund production and then close our doors, we
are simply not facing up to the problem, particularly with the
demise of the major companies that did exist in this country;
Rank, Ealing, bless them, but Rank and ABPC and that somehow or
another we have got to face a situation that make movies as we
do under varying circumstances and with varying success, if nobody
shows them, we are wasting our time. What are we putting money
into, no known manufacturer would do this. He would not make teddy
bears and have no way of selling the teddy bears, or whatever
they are. So somehow or another it seems to me we have to examine
the two together. I would like, if I may, afterwards to come onto
production itself. There is, it seems to me, no reason whatsoever,
either fiscally or, if I may say, ethically, why because the terrible
word distributor is a sort of ogre in our lives because "Those
devils have not shown my film as I would have shown it" or
they have not put the money behind it, or they had not got the
marketing skills, or whatever it is. It is no good continuing
to say that. They are our exit doors. They are the way we get
out. What are we making films for? We are not making films to
please ourselves in terms of incestuously getting pleasure from
the function itself. If we make a film that we care about, presumably
there is something in that film, whether it be our background,
whether it be our morals, whether it be our convictions, whether
it be our anger, whatever is, we want people to see it. I am not
in favour of two men and a dog in a barn. I want an audience.
I want people to come to the cinema. So we must make films which
have that degree of attraction, that element in which the audience
says "I can identify myself with what is happening in that
movie. Somehow or another there is something there that pleases
me". Now if we accept that, then it seems to me to offer
this principle of Section 48 to distributors to themselves, provided
the criteria are set down firmly, that the financing of the movie
is the financing which does not invade the autonomy of the artistic
freedom of the person who makes the movie, but says under circumstances
which are agreed initially script, budget, players, director,
etc., if we say "Okay, that is yours, you do that and we
will guarantee this amount of money for the backing of your production"
and in return, in order to get that funding, we say to them "Here
is a way in which you may benefit in the same way the producers
variance in terms of Section 48". Then it seems to me we
start to say to distributors "We are in with you right from
the beginning. We are in with you in terms of distribution".
So the problem of marketing, of selling, of judging a budget to
a particular subject matter makes much more sense because they
have got their money in but they feel that they are on the wagon,
that they are with us, they are going with us, the whole project
goes through as one rather than production being one group, exhibition
being another, distribution being another. The skill of BSAC—and
I am sorry to mention BSAC again, but the boys and Fiona were
here—is that it does bring together the whole industry and
it is one of the platforms which I believe the Film Council and
the Government should pay attention to in terms of understanding
that cinema is no longer alone. Cinema does depend, sadly very
often, on television, but now with television, with video, with
DVD, etc., etc., we are a whole industry and cinema is basically
the provider. And that is why I think it is so desperately important
that the primary function on everything that you ladies and gentlemen
suggest to Government is based fundamentally on the subject matter;
the work itself, the selling of it, the marketing of it, the exhibition
of it has to be involved. But primarily it is production and production
is script. Without scripts, without really first rate scripts,
we collapse. What do the Americans do? The Americans have blocks
of screenwriters and they put money into one project, ten projects,
100 projects and perhaps three or four come through and those
are the ones they take through. The Film Council, in my judgment,
should pay, if they have got the funds, more attention to screenwriting.
We should make sure that they have sufficient funds. Why was Balcon
such a success at Ealing? Balcon was such a success because he
had a group of writer, director, producers, but essentially a
writer, Timmy Clarke, etc., who worked there and were guaranteed
a living and a revenue and an interest in what they did. They
put an idea and that group of really superb film makers talked
about that subject together until it went back to the person concerned.
But it was the writer who first convinced the director, convinced
the producer, convinced Micky that this was a project with which
they could attach the sort enthusiasms and funding and everything
else, but it was not a one by one movie. It was a whole block
of potential and if something was not working, Micky did not make
it. And if something suddenly came up the middle, Micky could
do it. We do not have that anymore. Rank does not—the studios
exist, but an organisation does not exist anymore. Now, I have
heard talk that there should be a suggestion that we should build
great studios in London for enormous sums and that that would
be the way of solving the problem because everybody would there.
Without the funding of the propositions that are put forward,
it would be a total waste of time. I am involved in building some
studios just outside Cardiff, but we are building studios as processes,
as facilities and so on, really up to date, we have not built
studios since I was working in 1947 at Borehamwood. A film that
I did there and it was razed to the ground a few years later.
It is not really the studios we need. Micky did not depend on
the buildings at Ealing. Micky depended on an idea and a passion,
not only about cinema and the cinema's opportunity to influence
people, to bear people one to the other, to display thoughts and
ideas and concepts and passions and so on. That is what Micky
cared about. That is why it went. That is why it worked. And into
that come those fantastic comedies, all of which had something
to say in addition to the particular comedic element. So I believe,
if I may say so, Chairman, that we should try to persuade Government
that this hot jump idea ending it in 2005 is very sad. It will
rock the situation because it has been very successful really
in the main. But we should be saying to Government: give us an
ongoing position. Allow us to continue. Tell us that you understand
in the same way that you accept art galleries or libraries or
whatever art form. Will you support us into the future? And in
so doing, let us jointly tackle the problems that exist; the subject
matter itself, the screenwriters, the manner in which we finance
them. We have technicians and people second to none in the world.
Why do the Americans primarily come here? Partly because we are
cheaper than Los Angeles, but also because our talents, our cameramen,
our sound recorders, our designers are the best in the world.
There is nobody better. And if you put all that together, we have
a hell of an opportunity, but it has to have a long term basis.
It cannot jump, stop, start and start and stop all the time. So
if this Committee could persuade Government to look at 2005 and
bring together the particular problems that everybody can identify
so easily and see if we can judge how we can solve that overall
problem, primarily focus on production but then on the manner
in which we can promote those producers, I would have thought
that this Committee would be able to have its hat raised from
the rest of the—
Q238 Chairman: Thank you. We did
have a bit of an impact last time, so let us hope—
Lord Attenborough: Indeed. Absolutely.
No question.
Derek Wyatt: I just wonder actually,
Chairman, whether it is possible to ask the Treasury team responsible
for 48 to come and give evidence in front of us?
Chairman: We have, in fact.
Q239 Derek Wyatt: Can I ask therefore,
Lord Attenborough, what you would say, if you were on our side,
to them? There is a sense that it is clear that TV production
companies did scandalously use 48. So what is the change that
we need to do? Is it a matter of wording? How would you close
the loophole so we could go on?
Lord Attenborough: Well, other
than a guarantee of some form, which I do not quite know how you
arrive at it, whereby the movie that is made, or the project that
is made, is to be exhibited in the cinema and can ultimately go
on television, but it must have a guarantee. Therefore you need
the distributor. Therefore the distributor needs the exhibitor.
Therefore those groups have to come together. We will fail unless
we understand the overall industry.
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