An Education in Success and Failure

Thirty years ago as a student journalist I interviewed Fred Zinnemann in Port Glasgow. He was directing what would be the final film of a long and distinguished career. It was then called Maiden, Maiden but would eventually emerge as Five Days One Summer. The star was Zinnemann's old friend Sean Connery. Zinnemann was old-school Hollywood, a soft-spoken gentleman with impeccable manners. As an afternoon near the Clyde drifted by, he discussed a career that had included High Noon (1952), From Here To Eternity (1953), Oklahoma (1956), The Day Of The Jackal (1973), Julia (1977) and many others. We also touched briefly upon one of his rare misfires Beyond A Pale Horse (1964), a muddled, miscast drama set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. It was a box-office failure. Zinnemann recalled: " You always learn more from a failure than a success. Nobody knows why a film is successful but a failure is somehow salutary. It was only because of Behold A Pale Horse that I was able to make my next film. " The next film just happened to A Man For All Seasons (1966), a glorious adaptation of Robert Bolt's play which won six Oscars, including Best Actor for Paul Scofield and Best Director for Zinnemann.

I was reminded of that conversation earlier this week when I saw An Education, the screen version of Lynn Barber's memoir. The film is directed by Lone Scherfig who made Italian For Beginners (2000) and Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself (2002).

Scherfig's last film Hjemve (Just Like Home) (2007), was a slight, idiosyncratic ensemble comedy depicting a community in crisis. It barely surfaced beyond some random Festival appearances and it seems unlikely that anyone reading this will have had the chance to see it. Perhaps it was the failure of Just Like Home that allowed Scherfig to triumph with An Education (pictured above). She applies a very light touch to the winning story of Jenny, a sixteen year-old girl in the suburban London of the early 1960s. Her ambitious parents believe that her future lies in academic achievement and an Oxford education. Then Jenny meets the charming, debonair David, who seems to represent all her fantasies rolled into one. He is older, more worldly, with a passion for music, painting and the arts. He plays jazz, smokes cigarettes and promises to carry her off to Paris. Even her straitlaced parents are beguiled by him even although his affection for Jenny verges on Nabokov's Lolita.

Scherfig is surrounded by some wonderful collaborators on An Education and really doesn't put a foot wrong. The screenplay adaptation by Nick Hornby is witty and acute. The production designers do an admirable job of recreating the period and John De Borman floods the screen with glowing images. The casting is superb with Peter Sarsgaard blinding us to the sleaziness of David, Alfred Molina capturing all the cowardice and pomposity of Jenny's dad and notable supporting turns from Emma Thompson, Rosamund Pike and Dominic Cooper. Best of all is Carey Mulligan who gives a superbly nuanced performance as Jenny, capturing the mixture of innocence and longing in an adolescent on the brink of adult life. When she wears her hair up she even conjures up the look of Audrey Hebpurn. It is a star-making performance from a youngster destined to earn comparisons with Kate Winslet, Julie Christie and a whole raft of British greats. Lone Scherfig can look forward to a big hit film when An Education is released in Britain on October 30th. Maybe it took the salutary failure of Just Like Home to get her back on track.

Blogger: GFF Co-director Allan Hunter

The Winner Is Precious

Everyone knows that Audience Awards are far from perfect. We've all walked out of Film Festival screenings where people don't bother to cast their vote, nobody is there to collect the ballots or a group of devoted fans conspire to unbalance the democratic process. All these misgivings still don't detract from the amazing track record of the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival over the years. In 2008, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire received the first indication of the massive public acclaim that was to follow with the Cadillac People's Choice Prize at Toront0. Previous winners include Oscar contenders like David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises and Gavin Hood's Tsotsi.

The 2009 winner (which receives a $15,000 cheque) announced at the weekend was Precious: Based On The Novel Push by Sapphire. Precious has been one of the most talked about and admired films of the year ever since its debut at Sundance in January where it also won the Audience Prize. GFF Co-Director Allison Gardner and myself both saw it at Cannes in May and would probably rate it among the best films in the entire Festival. The main reason is because it is a film of raw emotion and you would need a heart of stone not to be moved by the plight of the central character and the astonishing quality of the performances. My colleague Mike Goodridge has rightly described it as " horribly upsetting and movingly inspirational".

The story is set in the Harlem of 1987. Claireece 'Precious' Jones is an obese teenager living a life of unspeakable hell, mostly at the mercy of her parents. Precious can neither read nor write. She is pregnant for the second time by her own father. Her mother is spite personified, using her as a convenient target for physical and mental abusive. The glory of Precious is that she does not regard herself as a victim. She is a girl with attitude who still has hopes and dreams of how different her life might be. Faced with explulsion from school, she accepts an alternative education programme and finds someone who believes in her and the slimmest chance that her life could change.

Precious features an amazing cast including Gabourey Sidibe as Precious, Paula Patton as her new teacher and Mo'Nique as a monstrous mother who has made it her mission in life to destroy the girl's self-esteem. There are smaller, well-played roles, for Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz. It is a gruelling film at times but one that really cuts to the heart. When Oprah Winfrey saw it she was still fighting back the tears when she contacted director Lee Daniels and his team, offering herself as an executive producer and someone who would use her celebrity to draw attention to what is a small and challenging film. True to her word, she swept into Toronto claiming all the front pages and the majority of the attention at the film's press conference.

The film is so good, so vibrant and compelling that it no longer needs Oprah to act as a cheerleader. It is winning the hearts and minds of everyone who has seen it. The Toronto award is an endorsement of how broad its appeal may be. Like Slumdog Millionaire it celebrates the triumph of the underdog. Like Slumdog it could be travelling all the way to Oscar glory.

GFF Co-director Allan Hunter in Toronto

Just A Girl Called Mary Pickford

Here's an anniversary that seems to have passed most of us by. It is 100 years since Mary Pickford made her first screen appearance. Pickford virtually invented the concept of the movie star. In her heyday she was as famous as Madonna, as beloved as Kylie and more popular than both of them put together. When she visited Russia in 1926 large swathes of the country's biggest cities came to a standstill as crowds choked the streets desperate for a glimpse of their idol in the flesh.

Pickford was born Gladys Mary Smith in Toronto and it was her home town that celebrated her career on the final day of the Toronto Film Festival with a sparsely attended screening of William Beaudine's Sparrows (1926) which suggests just how difficult it can be to attract an audience to silent cinema. The print from the Library Of Congress was in pristine condition, the sympathetic piano accompaniment was expertly handled by Gabriel Thibaudeau and the setting of the Elgin Theatre couldn't have been more atmospheric and yet the audience was strictly hardcore buffs.

Perhaps there is something about Mary that fails to attract the modern viewer. Renowned for her golden curls and wholesome image, her popularity earned her the title of America's Sweetheart and a salary that nudged $10,000 a week in 1916. She was the screen embodiment of the Victorian Miss. Seen today she seems to belong to the era of waxed moustaches, starched bonnets and dastardly villains who tied distressed damsels to the railway tracks.

Sparrows is a typical Pickford vehicle. She was 34 when she made it and her character must be all of fourteen. Molly is a kind-hearted tomboy, trapped on a grim farm in the the Louisiana swamplands where she becomes a surrogate mother to the ragamuffins being kept captive by the mean-spirited, profiteering owner. Danger lurks in every treacherous swamp and in the gleaming gnashers of some very realistic alligators but we know our angelic miss will lead them to the promised land of a new life.

Pickford's acting style is far from subtle; joy is expressed with a dance and a clap of the hands, terror conveyed with wide-eyed stares and a mopping of the brow. It is little wonder perhaps that her films seem quaint. She lacks the dramatic poise of a Lillian Gish or the sophistication of a Gloria Swanson. She doesn't beguile in the manner of Keaton's deadpan stoic or Harold Lloyd's daredevil go-getter.

Time and changing fashion have largely consigned Mary Pickford to the dusty vaults of movie history. In life she retired from the screen in 1933, aged just 41. There were always rumours of a comeback but none that came to pass. Her acting style simply didn't suit the demands of the sound era for a more realistic, naturalistic performer. She received an honorary Oscar in 1976 for her "unique contributions to the film industry and the development of film as an artistic medium". She died in 1979 and there will never be another movie star quite like her.

GFF Co-director Allan Hunter in Toronto

Colour The World With Scots

Toronto is probably the biggest Film Festival in the world. It screens more than 300 films each year and is like a colossal department store housing everything you might want from a single lightbulb to a luxury three piece suite. In film terms that means everything from experimental low-budget ventures to the latest star-studded Hollywood contenders.

Highlights from this year's Festival include the witty and surprisingly poignant Jason Reitman comedy Up In The Air with George Clooney as a corporate hatchet man criss-crossing America delivering his messages of doom and hoping to find his soul along the way. Scott (Shine) Hicks makes a strong return to form with The Boys Are Back, a sensitive Nick Hornby-style male weepie in which jet set sports journalist Clive Owen is widowed and left with the responsibility of becoming a full time parent to a boisterous, 6 year-old boy.

Fashion designer Tom Ford proved to be a natural born filmmaker with A Single Man, an accomplished adaptation of the Christopher Isherwood novel in which Colin Firth gives an unusually heartfelt performance as a gay English professor in 1960s California. Grieving the death of his lover (Matthew Goode) he spends a critical day pondering whether there are any valid reasons to go on living.

The comforting things about any major Film Festival these days is that you see Scots everywhere you look. We are a small country that produces some of the finest screen actors in the world. In Men Who Stare At Goats, Ewan McGregor holds his own against the likes of George Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey in a wacky comedy about the American military's attempt to wage psychological warfare using soldiers gifted with psychic superpowers. Laura Fraser plays Clive Owen's wife in The Boys Are Back and Tilda Swinton stars in the stylish, eyecatching Italian melodrama Io Sono Amore (I Am Love) (pictured above). Best of all is the brilliant Shirley Henderson in Todd Solondz's comeback Life During Wartime in which she shines among an all-star cast playing Joy, a neurotic women haunted by the ghosts of past lovers and the lingering legacy of missed opportunities.

Given all the Scottish talent making the most of some wonderful opportunities on the world stage, Toronto leaves you wondering why there isn't a great project from a Scottish writer or director that could put their services to use on home territory.

Blogger: GFF Co-director Allan Hunter from Toronto Film Festival