Interview with Peter Strickland

January 31, 2013.

Peter Strickland triumphed at the BIFAs (British Independent Film Awards) with his film Berberian Sound Studio, which won Best Director, Best Actor, Best Achievement In Production and Best Technical Achievement, a quartet of awards that mark him out as one of the best and most successful directors in Britain today. He talks to Roberto Oliveri about his early journey from obscurity to greatness. His story is an example to aspiring film-makers (and to anyone chasing a dream).

Q. Despite your precocious interest in film-making, you enrolled at an art school, instead of a film school. Why is this?

A. It was my intention to go to film school, but I couldn’t get in. I applied to the Film and Drama Department at Reading University in 1992 and did an essay on Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures as part of my application, but they rejected me. It will probably take another twenty years to get over that one.

Q. Several famous film-makers, such as Derek Jarman, have acquired their cinematic understanding through an art-school education. To what extent did it shape your imagination, your cinematic eye?

A. I was aware of the art school background of film-makers such as Jarman, Greenaway and Lynch, but it was never my intention to go there, mainly because I couldn’t paint. Art-school was a fall back option for me, but I didn’t get involved in it much. I stayed in my bedroom most of the time listening to music or I went to London to watch films or buy records. The advantage of living with my parents during university was that there was more money to do these things instead of spending it on rent. I had a friend there, Tim Kirby, who I still work with on music and he also contributed sound effects for Berberian Sound Studio.

I felt frustrated during that period. A lot of that might have been in my head, but there were concrete things that got my back up. I started up a free film club, screening videos by Sun Ra, Jodorowsky, Kenneth Anger, Richard Kern, etc. – films that were very hard to find in 1994, but usually only one or two people turned up to the screenings. I didn’t get it. There was a rival film club showing the latest Kevin Costner films and they had no problems filling the room. That was profoundly irritating. However, I look back on that period now and there were many good things that happened and the tutors gave me a lot of freedom to do what I wanted. They gave me a huge amount of time off to make a short film in New York with Holly Woodlawn and Nick Zedd. The Warhol connection with Holly helped, but I quickly remade the film on video with two friends in Reading in one day and presented that for my finals. The provocation backfired and I was damned with faint praise instead of the spectacular fail I was hoping for. I think I got all that out of my system back then. Now I’m content to be easy- going with my work.

Q. You have named David Lynch, who also studied at an art school, as an influence. Who else has influenced you? Directors? Artists? Writers? Philosophers? Musicians?

A. I think the list would go on forever. I have particular influences for particular projects instead of having general influences for everything I do. With Berberian, the main influence came from Italian music. First of all Italian soundtracks either for giallo or horror: Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Stelvio Cipriani, Goblin, Fabio Frizzi, Claudio Gizzi, Riz Ortolani, Nicola Piovani. The avant- garde period in the ‘60s and ‘70s also fascinates me: Luciano Berio, Luigi Nono, Marino Zuccheri, Bruno Maderna, Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, Area, early Franco Battiato, Walter Marchetti. So many ideas in terms of both structure and specific sounds came from listening to these records. The Goblin scene was inspired by Area’s singer, Demetrio Stratos, as well as being a reference to the band, Goblin. Battiato’s Café Table Musik was a big influence with its cut-up sounds and whispering. That period was incredible with so much inventiveness, diversity and beauty. The best soundtracks came from Italy. No doubt whatsoever.

Q. Why did you choose to set Katalin Varga in Transylvania rather than the more mountainous and isolated parts of Britain, where presumably you would have achieved a similar sense of purity and the sublime?

A. I responded to Transylvania as it felt so exotic and had a mythical quality to it. At the time of preparation (2004), there was no Romanian New Wave and it felt like a relatively undiscovered place, cinematically speaking. There was a mystery to the place, which perhaps I didn’t feel with the UK, as I’m from there. Financial factors too, but even if I had proper funding, I still would’ve chosen Transylvania and more importantly, those wonderful actors who made the film what it is with such dedication and generosity.

Q. Before Katalin Varga, having made several short films, you faced a dilemma. From your uncle you inherited enough money to either shoot a feature film in Romania or purchase a flat in England. What made you take the plunge, as it were? What was funding like then? Presumably adequate investment would have prevented such a gamble.

A. I was fed up around that time. I had been making formal applications since 1993 for almost everything. The closest I got to anything was a meeting with British Screen in 1999, but then they dissolved into the UK Film Council with new people. When I inherited money from my uncle I was burnt out from making applications and waiting and waiting. I didn’t even bother applying to anyone in the UK for Katalin Varga. UK investment for films was pretty healthy then, but I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell, so I didn’t even bother applying. I tried in Hungary, but we couldn’t get funding. Making films is a compulsion, so you just take the plunge without even thinking about it. Logically, you know it’s not a good idea, but the urge to do these things is so strong that you can become a little deluded and blind yourself to the risks.

Q. The film critic Jonathan Romney, in a review of Katalin Varga, claims it is increasingly the case that practitioners of art cinema have to leave Britain if they want to make something truly distinctive. To what extent was it necessary to escape Britain in order to make this film? In order to stimulate your creative powers?

A. There were many reasons for leaving the UK, but money was one of them. I had an inheritance, but it was a finite amount of money that could soon disappear, so I had to make it last as long as possible where rent was cheaper, so I could make Katalin Varga. I don’t think living abroad made any difference to creativity. One thing for sure was I had to get out of London. I was either too tired after my day job or there was too much going on almost every night in terms of films, concerts, etc. No quiet time to write.

Q. You went to Romania and shot the film, but money soon diminished, and financial circumstances forced you to return to Reading. You needed funding to finish the film. By all accounts, it took you some time to secure investment. What was this period like, and how supportive were British investors, given that the film was shot in a foreign language? If it were shot in England, in English, would you have received a warmer reception?

A. Just before shooting Katalin Varga, a British filmmaker called me an idiot for not doing the film in English. I also remember one distributor who refused to look at even a minute of the film when he found out it was not in English. It all worked out in the end. People responded to the film. It just took time. I don’t think shooting in the UK would’ve made any difference. Without Hilda Péter’s (Katalin Varga) energy, the film wouldn’t be what it is.

Q. Katalin Varga is a European film. It is not a film that a British director would ‘naturally’ make. There seems to be a sense in which British cinema (though this is a generalisation) has become samey, less unique and less visually distinctive than its European counterpart. Would you agree?

A. Hard to say. A lot of this comes down to personal taste. I’ve always preferred European directors for their visual approach and my favourite British directors, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger came more from a European romantic tradition, especially given the latter’s roots. Many British films are of no interest to me, but that’s the same for any nation. We just don’t know about those films because they’re not distributed beyond their home territory. But I would concede that some countries have cinema in their blood more than others. One only has to look at Eastern European cinema from the last fifty years to see how many visionary filmmakers there have been.

Q. There is a sense in which British investors are averse to funding the projects of lesser known but innovative film-makers. Would you agree?

A. Disagree. A lot of interesting work is being made. Maybe more could be made, but times are tough economically. What one has to remember is how many scripts people working in funding bodies have to read. I would go insane if I had to read as many scripts as they do and it’s purely about numbers – sometimes something distinctive gets lost in the pile. Those rejections and non- acknowledgements have happened to most of us. A lot of competition for such limited funds, but it’s human nature to take those rejections personally. It’s worse in some other countries where nepotism, ideology or other unfair agendas get in the way of the selection process.

Q. Much has been written recently about the commercialism of the UK film industry – a reason why films in the UK lack much distinction. It seems the elite few at the top determine whether or not a project deserves funding on the basis of whether it will cater to a large audience, rather than on the basis of merit or artistic validity. A similar thing seems to have happened with your film club at art school. To what extent did you feel this shortly after shooting Katalin Varga? Have your opinions changed over time?

A. The pattern I’ve seen is for organisations to fund a few commercial films and the revenue from those help them cope with any losses from more personal or marginal films that they also fund. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s the pattern I’ve seen and it seems to work in my non-business brain. It also seems that funding bodies recognise the fact that ‘artistic’ films will slowly make their money back over years and even if they don’t, there is the cultural worth, which you can’t put a price on. But who knows? So many of these things come in waves. Film history has taught me that most directors come and go, so we do as much work as we can while we have the chance.

Q. Do you think that UK investors are more willing to invest if you have had a more traditional education, i.e. film school? Or is it a case of just making films and hoping that your talent is one day noticed by the right people?

A. I can only speak of the path I took. As soon as Katalin Varga was noticed, nobody ever asked if I had been to film school. My lack of a formal education hasn’t been a hindrance recently. Sometimes I wish I had been to film school to learn about eye lines when shooting groups of people, otherwise no. It feels like a cliché to say this, but watching films was my education. The whole irony is that as soon as you make films, it’s very hard to find the time to go to the cinema or even watch a DVD.

Q. Because it is so difficult to acquire funding, filmmakers, like you, are using their own money to fund their projects, which means small budget features are being made. One thinks of Ben Wheatley’s Down Terrace. It seems that the unwillingness of investors to invest in new talent (or just lack of funds), coupled with the rise in cheap but professional technology, has led to a renaissance in UK film-making. Would you agree and would you recommend aspiring film-makers to take a similar path – to use their own money to create something different and worthwhile?

A. It all depends on your circumstances. If you don’t have children and if you have parents who can keep a bedroom for you if everything collapses, then it might be worth taking a risk. I worked out that I would’ve made more money working at the UK minimum wage for the same amount of years I made Katalin Varga. It didn’t work out for me financially, but that was never the reason I went into the project. It led to other films and I’m doing what I love now. If you’re clear about your objectives when you begin a project, then on a certain level, you can’t lose because the true joy is in the process of making the film. In a way, it’s easier to make films now with digital technology. The hard thing now is getting your film noticed since there is so much out there.

Q. After the success of Katalin Varga, you had enough clout to secure funding from the UK industry to make Berberian Sound Studio. In it you (deliberately) avoid answering our questions, instead using particular images and dialogue to imply meaning. Is it a British or a European film?

A. Financially, it’s British and German. I am half-British, half-Greek and the film’s language is English and Italian with a bit of Greek and Hungarian thrown in. I’ve no idea what that makes the film in terms of its identity. We had the same confusion with Katalin Varga.

Q. Were you surprised with the critical and commercial success of Berberian Sound Studio?

A. Yes.

Q. Is it safe to say that the UK industry (and the UK audience) is again recognising the merits of European films?

A. There does seem to be a general acceptance of more personal filmmaking recently. I’m not sure if it’s connected to any European sensibility. Some films, yes. When I started going to the National Film Theatre in 1990, both Jarman and Greenaway were active and prominent. Nic Roeg and Ken Russell were still prolific. Newcomers such as Philip Ridley could make an impact, but by the middle of the decade something changed. Apart from the Quays and Andrew Kötting, the middle of the 1990s onwards was pretty grim, especially with all this vile ‘Cool Britannia’ self- congratulatory nonsense. I can’t think of anyone interesting during that period apart from Ben Hopkins, but look what happened to him – he had to move to the continent to find support. Bloody awful period, but as soon as a recession loomed again, more interesting filmmakers suddenly emerged – Steve McQueen, Joanna Hogg, Christine Molly/Joe Lawler, Gideon Koppel, Ben Wheatley, Duane Hopkins, Clio Barnard and others. Even Andrew Kötting and Lynne Ramsay returned! What’s interesting about all of them (and I hardly know any of them) is that they’ve been active for years, but now there is both the support and the demand for their work. In terms of a European influence – hard to say. At least the directors above can tell the difference between Fassbender and Fassbinder.

Q. It has just been confirmed that you will be directing The Duke of Burgundy, with Ben Wheatley as producer. What else is next for Peter Strickland? Will you be leaving the UK again, perhaps to America, like Christopher Nolan and Ridley Scott?

A. I have no idea what is next. I’m working on various things, but nothing is certain. I can’t see myself moving to America. There’s too much of an ocean to fly over.