I bought the DVD of Comrades -- my favourite film -- last week, and have just worked my way through the extras, and through that discovered this blog. Congratulations on Lanterna Magicka, a marvellous documentary that helps bring this elusive director alive and provides some fascinating backstage glimpses of the making of Comrades. I'm interested to know how you drew up your initial hit-list of people you'd like to interview, as I was surprised that your blog entry on interviewing Robin Soans mentions that you hadn't originally thought of speaking to him. William Gaminara would also have been interesting to talk to, since he's a writer as well as actor who might have some interesting insights about his memories of the shoot. And I would have loved to hear Keith Allen's memories (when I saw him interviewed on "The Word" sometime in the 1990s, he mentioned Comrades as being the work he was most proud of, but Terry Christian, presumably knowing nothing about it, moved straight on to something else).
The other aspect of the production it would have been nice to know something about is the music. Hans Werner Henze is one of the major figures of post-war European classical music, and did only a handful of feature film scores -- in fact Comrades was his last (though he's still alive, at 83), and his only English-language production. I'd love to know how he became involved in the project -- Who had the idea of asking him? Who was the point of contact? Has he ever said anything about why he took on the project? I've speculated in my IMDB comment on Comrades that his well-known radicalism might have attracted him to the subject matter, but it would be interesting to have that confirmed.
Although Lanterna Magicka is finished, perhaps you might think about a little side-project: continuing to film interviews with other cast members, and putting the footage up on this blog?
A small final question: does Joanna David actually appear in the released version of Comrades, or were all her appearances cut, like the now-legendary Mr Wetham? I can't say I've ever spent a whole viewing of Comrades actively looking out for Mrs Frampton, but I'm pretty sure I've never actually seen her.
1 comments:
I bought the DVD of Comrades -- my favourite film -- last week, and have just worked my way through the extras, and through that discovered this blog. Congratulations on Lanterna Magicka, a marvellous documentary that helps bring this elusive director alive and provides some fascinating backstage glimpses of the making of Comrades. I'm interested to know how you drew up your initial hit-list of people you'd like to interview, as I was surprised that your blog entry on interviewing Robin Soans mentions that you hadn't originally thought of speaking to him. William Gaminara would also have been interesting to talk to, since he's a writer as well as actor who might have some interesting insights about his memories of the shoot. And I would have loved to hear Keith Allen's memories (when I saw him interviewed on "The Word" sometime in the 1990s, he mentioned Comrades as being the work he was most proud of, but Terry Christian, presumably knowing nothing about it, moved straight on to something else).
The other aspect of the production it would have been nice to know something about is the music. Hans Werner Henze is one of the major figures of post-war European classical music, and did only a handful of feature film scores -- in fact Comrades was his last (though he's still alive, at 83), and his only English-language production. I'd love to know how he became involved in the project -- Who had the idea of asking him? Who was the point of contact? Has he ever said anything about why he took on the project? I've speculated in my IMDB comment on Comrades that his well-known radicalism might have attracted him to the subject matter, but it would be interesting to have that confirmed.
Although Lanterna Magicka is finished, perhaps you might think about a little side-project: continuing to film interviews with other cast members, and putting the footage up on this blog?
A small final question: does Joanna David actually appear in the released version of Comrades, or were all her appearances cut, like the now-legendary Mr Wetham? I can't say I've ever spent a whole viewing of Comrades actively looking out for Mrs Frampton, but I'm pretty sure I've never actually seen her.
Jonathan Dore
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