Remembering Alan Parker. (Part Six)

OK! let's get this over with!

Parker's next project was a big screen adaptation of the stage musical Evita. I need to confess I have not seen this and in all honesty I have no intention of ever watching this I loath the work of Andrew Lloyd Webber and the screenplay was co-written by Oliver Stone who I am also not a fan of so I'm not going to dwell on this.

It was made for $55 million ($110m in 2024) and it grossed $141 million ($283m in 2024) at the North American Box office.

Moving On! 

"They used to say that if you threw a brick in Limerick you’d hit a priest. These days the priests are not so plentiful, but if you throw a brick, you’re bound to hit someone with an opinion about Frank McCourt and his book. My personal impression is that everyone you meet in Limerick of a certain age falls into one of two distinct camps. Half of them claim that this uppity, now affluent, Irish Yank exaggerated his childhood plight. The other half of Limerick seemed to have lived next door to the McCourts.

Anyone who doesn’t fit into these categories either has their own book to sell or has absolutely no memory of it ever having rained in Limerick."

Alan Parker from his essay "Angela's Ashes The Making of the Film" 

Frank McCourt's memoir/novel was published in 1996 and won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction and went on to be a phenomenal success. It was number one on the The New York Times hardback bestseller list for 117 weeks and the book has gone on to be published in 25 languages and has sold over 6 million copies in 30 countries.

Parker read an early publisher’s proof just before the book was published and pursued the film rights but found out they had been snapped up by film producer David Brown, who was set to produce the film for Paramount Pictures and had commissioned Australian writer Laura Jones to write the script.

Then they asked Alan Parker to direct the film once he was onboard Parker began to rewrite the screenplay. Alan Parker said "Everyone who has ever read Frank’s beautiful memoir will have come away with a thousand images of their own which is always daunting for a filmmaker because each reader has their own movie locked away inside their head."

Without a doubt this proves to be the issue with every motion picture adaptation of any popular novel. To adapt this personal memoir which is told in this first person, present tense ‘voice’ from the perspective of a young child which is hard to adapt cinematically. So certain characters and situations from the novel had to be excluded from the film.  

"If I had filmed the whole book people would have been sitting in the movie theatres for eight hours." Alan Parker.

A negative aspect of the thriving economy in (EU member) Ireland is that it's good for business and the population, but it makes it more challenging to shoot a period film there. 

The period architecture that is preserved tends to be Georgian but the working class industrial revolution era buildings and homes have either been torn down or rebuilt in a modern style. The Lyric Cinema which features in the book closed down in 1964 and is now a car park. So the production ended up filming in and around Cork which is the city and county south of Limerick.        

He is utterly hopeless, but the kids never have a bad word to say about him, despite the penury and pain he causes them with his negligence and irresponsibility.” 

It was important to portray Mr McCourt as a complex character who is sympathetic to an audience it would be easy to portray Malachy Snr as the villain of the piece but he is clearly a victim himself. Carlyle is probably most famous for playing “Gaz,” the unemployed steel worker in "The Full Monty" or the sadistic brutal maniac “Begbie” in the 1996 film "Trainspotting" but Parker wrote about Carlyle "his performances that always stayed in my head: his portrayal of the skinhead psychotic in TV’s Cracker; in Michael Winterbottom’s Go Now, his work as a multiple sclerosis sufferer is one of those performances that you can’t watch without dropping your jaw; the gay sex scene in Antonia Bird’s Priest; his work in Loach’s Riff Raff and Carla’s Song…….the list goes on and on."

With "Angela's Ashes" Parker delivered another beautifully detailed period piece that immerses you in this world of Ireland between the world wars.

Filming wrapped on December 22nd, 1998, having taken 75 shooting days to complete.  

The principal production team that Parker worked with on the film were professionals that he had regularly collaborated with over the previous twenty-five years in the industry. Parker was always vocal about the film being as much theirs as his.

They were Director of Photography, Michael Seresin; Production Designer, Geoffrey Kirkland; Line Producer, David Wimbury; and Editor, Gerry Hambling & Camera Operator, Mike Roberts.

I have mentioned that Alan Parker liked to work with the same production team members as much as possible. It must have been a comfort to know and trust these people and have that communication shorthand that comes with regular collaboration. 

"A Man for All Seasons" (1966) that starred Robert Shaw, Orson Welles, John Hurt, Leo McKern & Susannah York amazing!. He worked on"Diamonds Are Forever" (1971), "Live and Let Die" (1973), "The Man with the Golden Gun" (1974). He worked with the great Ray Harryhusen and legendary directors such as Lindsay Anderson, Blake Edwards, Neil Jordan, Roland Joffé, Steven Spielberg & Tom Stoppard. He also worked on amazing cult movies such as "Psychomania" (1973), "Stardust" (1974), "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975), The Who documentary "The Kids Are Alright" (1979), Rupert Everett and Bob Dylan film "Hearts of Fire" (1987) and the wonderful "Funny Bones" (1995).      

Parker's next film passed me by at the time and to be honest i'm not going out of my way to watch anything with Kevin Spacey in it... So I don't have much to say about it. This film is a drama exploring the morality of capital punishment so not a romp it was not a hit and did not receive positive reviews.

After his 2003 film "The Life of David Gale" Alan decided to retire from filmmaking at the age of 60.

Alan Parker on the set of Bugsy Malone 1976

He had directed TV adverts for eight years before he directed "Bugsy Malone" (1976) and he went on to direct thirteen more feature films.

Parker was asked in an interview in 2015 why he stopped making films, He replied,

“Directors do not improve with age: they repeat themselves, and while there are exceptions, their work generally does not get any better,”

Regardless of the perceived lack of box office receipts Alan Parker was a significant British filmmaker who made some absolutely stunning films. He worked to promote British film he encouraged other filmmakers, worked to preserve film and educated film students.

Parker was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1995 Birthday Honours and Knight Bachelor in the 2002 New Year Honours for services to the film industry.

In 1999 he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Directors Guild of Great Britain. He became chairman of the Board of Governors of the British Film Institute (BFI) in 1998 and in 1999 was appointed the first chairman of the newly formed UK Film Council.

In 2005 Parker received an honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of Sunderland.

In 2004 he was the Chairman of the Jury at the 26th Moscow International Film Festival.

In 2013 he was awarded the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award

"in recognition of outstanding achievement in the art forms of the moving image",

which is the highest honour the British Academy can bestow.

The British Film Institute (BFI) produced a tribute to Parker in September and October 2015 with an event titled "Focus on Sir Alan Parker" which included multiple screenings of his films and an on-stage interview of Parker by producer David Puttnam. The event coincided and marked the donation of his entire working archive to the BFI National Archive.

Artist Hero Johnson with Sir Alan Parker at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters 2018.

A true cinema legend that like so many British filmmakers that I feel are overlooked when talking about great film directors.

The most remarkable thing about Parkers filmography is the truly eclectic nature of it. Alan was an artist who obviously didn't want to repeat himself and was always challenging himself, the film industry as a whole and his audience.

My Recommendations! 

You should also watch Fame,Bugsy Malone and BIrdy in all honesty...   

That concludes my Alan Parker blogs. I hope you enjoyed it and it motivated you to add some of his work to your watch list.