GEM issue
aRUDE comment
ONLINE content
ARBITERS
Value Added Paul Wilmot interview by Idris Mignott
Sexy Haute Damaris Evans interview by Kathryn Cullen
The Gem Weaver Mish Tworkowski interview by Alan L. Scott
BEAUTY
Napoleon Complex photography by Jamie Nelson
Naked Ambition Joanne Gair interview by Dale Johnson
A Girl's Best Friend photography by Andrew Matusik
BON APPETIT
Questions for Annisa's Anita Lo
Questions for Indochine's Jean-Marc Houmard
FASHION
Portrait of a Lady Carolina Herrera interview by Iké Udé
Wicked Ways photography by Iké Udé
Dangerous Liasons photography by Simone Falcetta
Madame X photography by Iké Udé
KULTURE & ART CINEMA
Saint Richard of Celluloid Richard Pena interview by Brandon Judell
He Can Bark in French Robin Williams interview by Brandon Judell
No Botox For Her Mena Suvari interview by Brandon Judell
No Cock & Bull for Him Michael Winterbottom interview by Brandon Judell
OFF THE WALL THE COLOR OF MONEY
Franco Maria Bruccoleri
REVIEW
aRUDE Comment by Iké Udé
Telescope A close-up of the stars, notables, scenesters and picturesque dilettantes
ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
Renaissance Man Barnaba Fornasetti interview by Iké Udé
STYLE
Element of Style aRUDE's template for style
aRUDE comment
gem_issue_mwinterbottom.php
ONLINE content
ARBITERS
Value Added Paul Wilmot interview by Idris Mignott
Sexy Haute Damaris Evans interview by Kathryn Cullen
The Gem Weaver Mish Tworkowski interview by Alan L. Scott
BEAUTY
Napoleon Complex photography by Jamie Nelson
Naked Ambition Joanne Gair interview by Dale Johnson
A Girl's Best Friend photography by Andrew Matusik
BON APPETIT
Questions for Annisa's Anita Lo
Questions for Indochine's Jean-Marc Houmard
FASHION
Portrait of a Lady Carolina Herrera interview by Iké Udé
Wicked Ways photography by Iké Udé
Dangerous Liasons photography by Simone Falcetta
Madame X photography by Iké Udé
KULTURE & ART CINEMA
Saint Richard of Celluloid Richard Pena interview by Brandon Judell
He Can Bark in French Robin Williams interview by Brandon Judell
No Botox For Her Mena Suvari interview by Brandon Judell
No Cock & Bull for Him Michael Winterbottom interview by Brandon Judell
OFF THE WALL THE COLOR OF MONEY
Franco Maria Bruccoleri
REVIEW
aRUDE Comment by Iké Udé
Telescope A close-up of the stars, notables, scenesters and picturesque dilettantes
ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
Renaissance Man Barnaba Fornasetti interview by Iké Udé
STYLE
Element of Style aRUDE's template for style
MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM no cock & bull for him
interview Brandon Judell
Michael Winterbottom click image to enlarge BJ: Tristam Shandy is a brilliant exploration of filmmaking. Was it always your intention to employ this novel as a way to dissect the process of creating cinema? Or at one time were you considering a straight adaptation of the book?
Michael Winterbottom: We started out to do Tristam Shandy. But obviously when you say you are doing Tristam Shandy, Tristam Shandy is 80% about writing. So it's not as though Tristam Shandy is just a story of Walter Shandy and Tristam Shandy. It's actually a book about messing around with writing, messing around with the reader; deliberately not telling people what's going on. So it's not as though the book is a straight book, and then we messed around with it; the book itself is very playful. So we got the idea to do something playful quite early on. After a couple of months of working on the screenplay, I kind of felt the only way of getting a sense of all that playfulness in writing was to do a movie about making a film. Not that making a film is fun….
BJ: There was the era of Thatcher England, and now there's the one of Blair England. Do you feel the films made during these exceedingly dissimilar time periods are also dissimilar in spirit, or in approach? Are you yourself reacting against some political force?
MW: It is rare that culture is ahead of reality. I think content usually takes quite a long time to catch up. So I don't know.
BJ: Individually, you just make films that you're interested in. Some of the things might be in reaction to, like, particular issues—like, immigration. Immigration is a big issue in Europe generally. Europe has, in the last 7 or 8 years, become more and more obsessed with the issue of people from the outside coming into your [territory]. Obviously, I feel [that reaction] is a bad thing; I don't think it's actually anybody's fault.
MW: I think one of the things that really annoyed me at the time of making this film was that the labor government—probably all the individuals in the labor government—were themselves against the idea of a sort of fortress-Europe mentality, a sort of exclusion. But they were so concerned about the popular election that they assumed they had to say a lot of very racist things about immigrants in order to be popular with the electorate. I think that's kind of ludicrous. If you betray all your principles just to stay in power, that's pointless. But you know, I think in general, if I look around at films, do I think it's a big difference [i.e. between the eras]? I'm not sure really.
BJ: So you're saying Tristam Shandy is not based upon Blair? Or is Shandy supposed to be reminiscent of him, screwing one person, than another, falling on his face, looking a fool?
MW: (Laughing) No, it's not supposed to be a portrait of Blair. I was talking about this last night. The thing with Blair is that there are a lot of foreign policy issues that he's made unbelievable choices on, and I think he's completely destroyed his credibility. But what's weird about labor is that their rhetoric is very right wing, and their sort of public image is very kind of focused on appealing to the right. But underneath it, it's easy to forget that for 20 years, under Thatcher, there was no money at all for schools, no money for hospitals, massive unemployment. And despite all the right-wing rhetoric of the Blair government, those things have shifted majorly. For the last 7 years, there has been money for schools; there has been money for hospitals. So though it is very tempting to just completely say there is no difference, there are actually, on the domestic level, major differences. The country is majorly better.
BJ: The Vietnam period of American history seemingly wasn't detailed on the screen by the big Hollywood studios for several decades. Your upcoming film, The Road to Guant·namo, is within a handshake of the actual events. It's a look at the Tipton Three, a trio of British Muslims imprisoned in Guant·namo Bay for two years. Did you make the film as a provocation?
MW: I think it might provoke. It's very hard to tell when you are making a film. The intention isn't really to provoke in that sense, but certainly if you make your film about the people at Guant·namo, it will obviously make more sense to make it right when Guant·namo still exists, when it is still current, then to make it ten years later. So this is a very low budget, very quick film. It just tells the story of these three people and what happened to them. It doesn't take in a wider political context; it just shows you what happened to them. Hopefully, it will kind of make people feel that whatever else those three people are, they're not the most dangerous terrorists in the world. And whatever else they do, they don't justify the kind of completely illegal detention of people on that offshore island.
interview Brandon Judell
Michael Winterbottom click image to enlarge BJ: Tristam Shandy is a brilliant exploration of filmmaking. Was it always your intention to employ this novel as a way to dissect the process of creating cinema? Or at one time were you considering a straight adaptation of the book?
Michael Winterbottom: We started out to do Tristam Shandy. But obviously when you say you are doing Tristam Shandy, Tristam Shandy is 80% about writing. So it's not as though Tristam Shandy is just a story of Walter Shandy and Tristam Shandy. It's actually a book about messing around with writing, messing around with the reader; deliberately not telling people what's going on. So it's not as though the book is a straight book, and then we messed around with it; the book itself is very playful. So we got the idea to do something playful quite early on. After a couple of months of working on the screenplay, I kind of felt the only way of getting a sense of all that playfulness in writing was to do a movie about making a film. Not that making a film is fun….
BJ: There was the era of Thatcher England, and now there's the one of Blair England. Do you feel the films made during these exceedingly dissimilar time periods are also dissimilar in spirit, or in approach? Are you yourself reacting against some political force?
MW: It is rare that culture is ahead of reality. I think content usually takes quite a long time to catch up. So I don't know.
BJ: Individually, you just make films that you're interested in. Some of the things might be in reaction to, like, particular issues—like, immigration. Immigration is a big issue in Europe generally. Europe has, in the last 7 or 8 years, become more and more obsessed with the issue of people from the outside coming into your [territory]. Obviously, I feel [that reaction] is a bad thing; I don't think it's actually anybody's fault.
MW: I think one of the things that really annoyed me at the time of making this film was that the labor government—probably all the individuals in the labor government—were themselves against the idea of a sort of fortress-Europe mentality, a sort of exclusion. But they were so concerned about the popular election that they assumed they had to say a lot of very racist things about immigrants in order to be popular with the electorate. I think that's kind of ludicrous. If you betray all your principles just to stay in power, that's pointless. But you know, I think in general, if I look around at films, do I think it's a big difference [i.e. between the eras]? I'm not sure really.
BJ: So you're saying Tristam Shandy is not based upon Blair? Or is Shandy supposed to be reminiscent of him, screwing one person, than another, falling on his face, looking a fool?
MW: (Laughing) No, it's not supposed to be a portrait of Blair. I was talking about this last night. The thing with Blair is that there are a lot of foreign policy issues that he's made unbelievable choices on, and I think he's completely destroyed his credibility. But what's weird about labor is that their rhetoric is very right wing, and their sort of public image is very kind of focused on appealing to the right. But underneath it, it's easy to forget that for 20 years, under Thatcher, there was no money at all for schools, no money for hospitals, massive unemployment. And despite all the right-wing rhetoric of the Blair government, those things have shifted majorly. For the last 7 years, there has been money for schools; there has been money for hospitals. So though it is very tempting to just completely say there is no difference, there are actually, on the domestic level, major differences. The country is majorly better.
BJ: The Vietnam period of American history seemingly wasn't detailed on the screen by the big Hollywood studios for several decades. Your upcoming film, The Road to Guant·namo, is within a handshake of the actual events. It's a look at the Tipton Three, a trio of British Muslims imprisoned in Guant·namo Bay for two years. Did you make the film as a provocation?
MW: I think it might provoke. It's very hard to tell when you are making a film. The intention isn't really to provoke in that sense, but certainly if you make your film about the people at Guant·namo, it will obviously make more sense to make it right when Guant·namo still exists, when it is still current, then to make it ten years later. So this is a very low budget, very quick film. It just tells the story of these three people and what happened to them. It doesn't take in a wider political context; it just shows you what happened to them. Hopefully, it will kind of make people feel that whatever else those three people are, they're not the most dangerous terrorists in the world. And whatever else they do, they don't justify the kind of completely illegal detention of people on that offshore island.
It is rare that culture is ahead of reality. I think content usually takes quite a long time to catch up.
