|
 Ben
Hopkins is the sort of person you invite to your grande bouffe at News
Years, when you've reserved places for one too many happy couples. Nic
met him at some festival or other last year [that's 2000 now - Nic] and
after hearing of his talent but having missed Simon Magus, he had a pop
at interviewing him anyway. Months after transcribing that half hour of
garbled crackling (and after evidence of an odd cult following) Ben
sends us an email trying to drum up publicity for his latest film The
Nine Lives of Tomas Katz without realising the connection. This is the
film that people love or hate, the director that many have derided at
cliquey parties whilst others claim he's the resurrection and the
light. Netribution's vote?
Genius. We keep watching it and we've
both agreed that this film, an enormous exotic main course with
tiredness and drugs on the side and a huge mint julep, is the most
daring and successful British film for a quarter of a century. Bold
words huh? Well the trade reviews are listed after the interview - just
to show you what 'the experts' thought - but they could never come
close to persuading or dissuading potential viewers accurately. It's
just one of those films that demands exhibition and gets piss all. This
isn't Bridget Jones or even a Lean epic, this is The Wicker Man and 2001
on £400,000. Please go and see this film. Go and hate it, walk out and
blame me or chew sodden blotter with your popcorn and have your wits
walk out instead.
What were your influences for Tomas Katz?
Well
I watch everything from the sloppiest Hollywood pic to Armenian
Animation. I'm a real anorak for film, I will watch anything. When it
comes to influences, it's very difficult to sort of unpick the film to
answer that, obviously I've nicked a few things but that's not quite
the same as influences. I've nicked stylistic things from the German
Expressionists like Murnau and Lang. The film has a mixture of styles
from silent film through to MTV.
Lets
talk about the silent stuff. Was there some hidden meaning to Katz
dancing around the playground and getting bullied almost apathetically?
I
don't know, I think that stems from the time when Tom played a child in
front of me.
It's about as unconventional as it gets in a feature.
With
the silent movie, inter titles and everything? Well obviously there is
the kind of old fashioned film style and a contradistinction to the
style of the tamagotchi, so it's hilarious.
It's funny but I hope the sequence is vaguely haunting as well.
It's eerie.
I
like to have two things going on, two different moods at the same time
where possible. Have chilling and funny at the same time - that's kind
of the ideal.
I
suppose people try to associate you with Gilliam in that way. Although
the narrative exists, it's pretty fucking all over the place. How's
that comparison sit with you?
With
this film is interesting because everyone has their own point of
reference - that people can say "yes - this is reminding me of…" The
thing is that there are so many points of reference. The film has
reminded so many people of so many different things, it's quite clearly
not derivative of any one thing. I challenge anyone to come up with a
film that it is really like. There are moments when it's like other
films but the overall thing is entirely unique.
This is your second feature isn't it?
Yes it is.
It was a great deal cheaper than the first.
A ninth of the price.
Was it a very personal project from the beginning?
Simon
Magus is more conventional. I thought it might cross over art-house and
mainstream film. But by the time it came out the trend had moved so far
to the right they could only argue it was quite clearly an art house
film. It's not conventional. Nothing I do is conventional.
You got an art school background?
Well I went to the Royal College of Art to do film.
What's
your beef with London? You got the cabs but you didn't attack mobiles
when you obviously hate them?
Well
I would like to have somehow put mobiles in the stocks and killed them
off but I didn't get round to it in Tomas Katz. I don't know why actually, I should have done it.
What you working on now?
The distribution of Katz
You've got to do that yourself?
Yes.
Was it the same with Magus?
No,
Magus was released, albeit half-heartedly, by FilmFour. No, I mean
it'll be a total one-man show. It'll be me putting out all the
postcards in the bars and the cafes. I'd quite like to hire someone to
do it but I've no idea how to, can't hire anyone to do it, I don't know
anyone who would do it. It's such a boring job, I have to do it myself.
Family?
Oh
fuck no! (laughter) What I need is a fourteen year old nephew or
someone like that but I don't have one.
The
one section that particularly got to me was the way the record stops in
the emergency broadcast. It's something I've always quite wanted to
see, it was like Romero in one of the Zombie flicks - that was equally
absurd, betrayed the hopelessness of the situation and invoked fear in
the audience.
I
know the movie you are talking about. I think that was quite probably a
starting point towards… that's a good point, I think it was the Romero
film that engendered that kind of emergency broadcast. The other one
was of course the Moral Maze which was a Radio 4 programme
Oh I didn't know that.
It's
a load of pompous twats pontificating but the characters who speak
about the Abdominal Gaze were based on the people who did the Moral Maze.
The
time when it gets stuck: There are several Avant Garde films where
people have experimented with the same but a lot of Tomas Katz
is experimental and/or Avant Garde but most Avant Garde films are
really boring. You see someone waving their camera around their garden.
This is an experimental film, which intends to entertain and amuse.
It does run a course, and I didn't think it would at one point.
It
does have a narrative but it's a narrative that has hundreds of
digressions, It wonders off in one direction and comes back again. It's
in no way a traditional narrative in the way that a person in this
industry would recognise it
And
it really, really does suit drugs more seeing it sober, I have to say.
I think it probably is a good drugs film.
That's not such a bad label is it?
It's
a perfect way to begin a drugs evening or it's er…..well why not?
Who do you think your audience is?
Well
the film has done very well in Germany where it's played to generally a
young, art schooly, druggie, clubby style public. Which is probably the
second most sought after public after teenagers. I've been really
pleased with the success in Germany in a market place that people
making shit gangster films are trying to conquer. Despite the fact that
it's done in black and white I think it's really got quite a wide
appeal but that's 'cause it's funny basically. And people can excuse
things when they're laughing. They can excuse my indulgences in German
Romanticism. It's a very indulgent film, the thing is that when you
indulge yourself and take yourself too seriously then it's rather
painful to watch. I'm indulging myself quite a bit, yeah sure, whilst
having a laugh, which is far more watchable.
Have you got plans for another feature?
I
was planning to shoot one this summer but it fell through - it was a
horror film. It was quite comical but it was too ungeneric and it
didn't sufficiently resemble a horror film for the financiers. At the
end of the day they wanted it to be a teenage horror film.
Can I ask you about how you met Robert Jones?
He's
a great guy. How did I meet him? He read the treatment and rang me up.
I
would much rather Robert was working as producer because I think he's a
very good producer and we don't have enough of them. But given the
choice of people who could be running the Premier Fund I'm glad it's
him because he's got his head and his heart in kind of the right place
- and it could be in a lot worse hands than Robert's. But it's a shame,
every single producer that I've worked with so far has had to take an
office job in order to survive. It's kind of untenable to be a producer
in this country without having to give in and go and sit behind a desk
after a little while, which is kind of depressing.
What
would you say to young filmmakers who want to go out and shoot their
own feature and they really wanted to do it their own way. Would you
advise it or not - after your experiences?
Well
yeah. I mean the worst you can do is fail and end up making bollocks
but you can equally spend three years planning it, raise five million
and end up with a pile of bollocks as well. Simon Magus was £3m and was very carefully planned, very particular and very ornate. Tomas Katz
was very cheap - shot in three weeks on a small budget - really knocked
together. I kind of prefer the Tomas Katz way of making films because it's much more exciting.
I think you can but fail. You can make a masterpiece on a DV camera
with a couple of unknown actors in a room and you can make a total
piece of shit with $120m and all the help in the world. There's a magic
thing in filmmaking, a sort of alchemical process where something is
either working or it's not and it's very difficult to get into that
realm - there's no formula to that. It either works or it doesn't.
(the
phone rings, an ansaphone clicks on but Ben turns the volume down)
Are you going to make another London movie?
I'd
love to do more about London. I think London is an amazing city. I
think there's room to do more stuff like Tomas Katz about London i.e. turning London into a mystic place.
And tearing it all down in the end?
Yeah. (laughter)
I
wanted you to stay with the pirate who comes out of the sewer in the
beginning….I found him darker, I found him more powerful than his other
characters.
You call him a
pirate, that's interesting, I've never heard him called before. That's
fine, that's cool. There's a line where he did explain who he was but
it was cut.
He
was a dream surgeon. He does actually say what he does. He cuts people
open. He's meant to be a strange Russian mystic who somehow ended up in
a war or something like that. It doesn't really matter what he is
anyway. If we stayed as 'the pirate' - we wouldn't have had much of a
film. We'd call it the One Life Tomas Katz.
What
about the Happy Eater scene? That was pretty intense and yet I nearly
wet myself when throughout.
The
Happy Eater is of course a terrifying symbol of consumption. It's very
80's and it is is total naked consumption. All it is is just a mouth
with the fingers pointing into the mouth. There's something scary about
it. It's like, every now and again you see something on an advert on
TV, like the butter man in the "Lurpak' advert, and you think to
yourself - 'if I saw one of those fuckers on my table, I would tie
myself up and asked to be sectioned instantly. How scary is that?
The
whole piece is pretty apocalyptic. Is that something you particularly
enjoy. Definitely the sort of imminent doom you'd associate with George
Romero or John Carpenter.
It's
about the end of the world. The world is full of stuff. And most of the
stuff that the world is full of is bollocks and Tomas Katz obviously
removes all the stuff and makes it into a pure state - which is
nothing. It's quite a beautiful thing that he's doing. The apocalypse
is rendered here as an act of just closing down and making things more
simple.
A good and evil thing?
No,
not at all. It's a nothingness of being…Most apocalypses are rendered
as a fight between good and evil and the end is regarded as something
terrifying but this is more, the end is something, an act of peace.
Removing the world of mobile phones, removing the world of stupid
restaurants, removing the world of all this…all this idiocy that goes
on, people talking shit on television, all being closed down and shut
up, being made into a beautiful black screen.
(the phone rings again, Ben gets up to screen the call - doesn't take
it)
Why
did you pick the CCTV security guard to carry out your purification?
Well
it's obviously fun but the role of God was traditionally to watch over
us and the idea of His surveillance has now been replaced by CCTV. God
may still be watching over us but certainly we are being watched every
day by a bunch of security guards.
Does it bother you?
No,
it doesn't bother me at all actually. It's that metaphor of God as the
security guard that I found entertaining and I've come to a conclusion
God is now a stupid, chewing gum chewing, junk food eating twat from
Walthamstow who stares at CCTV screens. Quite scary I think.
I'm interested in where you can go from here?
Well I'd love to do Tomas Katz part two.
I've got an idea of what happens but the film hasn't even been spawned.
Katz has done quite well in Germany but it has to turn a profit which
it's not done yet for the producers who want to finance another one.
I've got plenty of projects but it’s just that most of them don't fit
in with what people want to finance these days, especially in Britain,
so you move elsewhere.
Would you go to Hollywood?
Personally
I don't think I'd have much of a future in Hollywood. No, I signed up
with the German producers and I shall be doing work for Germany.
Are
you going where the money is or where you have an audience?
Both.
It
comes across as a strong festival film, where has it been?
Everywhere
really, all around world. But unfortunately it's only been released in
Britain and Germany so far. The Sales Agents were United Artists and
just as the film started gaining momentum, United Artists were closed
down by MGM who own them. So for a while it didn't have a home. That
kind of killed the film, it's all kind of unfortunate for us.
You've just got to push on, I suppose.
Yes.
It's now a bit too old to sell it anywhere. People will be suspicious
about buying it because it's been around since 1999.
What
have you been doing since, apart from trying to drum up publicity for
this?
I've been doing the
usual thing, I've been signing on every now and again, working on and
writing scripts. Yeah, just trying to get a project made in this God
forsaken country. I had a project which nearly went ahead and was
cancelled at the last minute and at that point I decided 'fuck it' I'm
going to sign up with the Germans and go and work over there.
(the phone rings once more.)
This is what it's like trying to publicise your own film.
(Ben
gets up to screen yet another call - only to be met with 20 seconds of
silence on the end of the line)
Well speak then!
(silence)
You are really thick aren't you? Come on, fucking speak!
(laughter)
If we listen hard enough maybe they will?
(laughter)
(finally a foreign voice mumbles something before hanging up. Ben
sighs…)
My number is almost
the same as a Greek solicitor's so I get a lot of odd calls. The best
was a guy calling from Athens airport saying (mimics Zorba)
"I am
at the airport, my wife has not sent my daughter to meet me - I WANT
YOU TO SEND HER TO FUCKING HELL!"
(Much laughter)
Editing
obviously played a key role in the film, it was pretty experimental,
have you thought of working in commercials or music video to subsidise
your work as a film director?
Football
commercials. Maybe MTV? No one I've bumped into seems to want to work
with me on commercials or pop promos. I've been with the same company
for years. - maybe it's me, maybe it's the company but I think it's
mainly me. Our producer does sense that people are somewhat, sounds
really wanky, but people seem to find my reputation somewhat…formidable
I think is the word. I think they put me above doing a soap commercial
but I'm not. I live in the gutter daily and I’m happy to do a soap
powder commercial if they pay me. I need money like anyone else.
Do
you have any regrets from making such a thoroughly uncommercial film?
I
don't have any regrets. It's one of the most frustrating, fucking
irritating and problematic jobs around - especially working in Britain
at this time. And one is constantly dispirited and crushed by the
system in trying to get your film forward and struggling for the
available funds. But there's always that possibility you will actually
get to make your film. And once you're actually there standing in a
field and the cameras turning over and the actors are just doing what
they're doing, there's nothing more exciting in the world and then it's
all worth it. It's both the best job in the world and the worst. We're
all in the same boat. There's plenty of people you can moan with,
producers, directors and writers.
I don't know how you do it anymore because things have changed. If you
want to do romantic comedies or you want to do the kind of very
limited, mainstream kind of stuff, then you might get your first film,
but it's got to change, it can't remain like this forever. It's the
worst it's been for, I don't know, fifteen years or whatever. It seems
to be going in a cycle but at the moment the British film financing
market is incredibly conservative, that's why I'm leaving.
Yeah, why not? Will you be making English language films?
I
speak German. They could be English, they could be German, they could
be whatever. I've got a project in Bengali, I've got a project in
Turkish, you know whatever.
Where did the original idea come from?
The
idea was developed with the actor from a series of improvisations. The
original idea was simply, I want to do a film with Tom called The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz
in which he plays nine different characters and we had no idea what the
characters were.
You had no idea about shooting in London or…
No,
absolutely no idea. For a couple of years we didn't really know what to
do with it even though we knew what some of the characters were.
Eventually, it took it present shape.
It's quite unique to develop a film around an actor.
The Usual Suspects
was based on a poster idea. It shows you can start with anything
really. What certainly doesn't work I think - and you see this too
often - is where someone's had a really good idea for a film, and if
they've had a really good idea it normally means it was a boring idea
for a film. It's a love triangle - but hey! The three of them are
transsexuals, or something. If you know and if you can write down what
you're film is about and what it means on a sheet of A4 then you're
fucked because when people leave the cinema at the end of your film,
then that's all they've got - they've got a sheet of A4. In a film like
Tomas Katz or "Simon Magus there's
plenty to think about. There's lots of complexity and lots of interest,
you can watch this film many times and find new things and that's the
way it should be.
Check out www.tomas-katz.com
, and encourage others to do so. Many thanks, reviews follow...
…a
thrilling piece of absurdity... Hopkins' film is a great mad adventure
in the tradition of the Pythons, Fritz Lang, MTV, Euripides and German
Expressionism. It's a genuine curio... I've never seen anything like it.
James Christopher, The Times
....
this hilarious mutant brainchild of writer-director Ben Hopkins... a
monochrome surrealist farce that has "cult" written all over it.
Unhinged, unrepentant, and stark, raving mad.
Tim Robey, The Daily Telegraph
loopy,
diverting surrealism. Hopkins' film is an essay on the occult
ethnography of London... Nothing so obvious as a plot is allowed to
cramp this movie's style as it swoops weirdly across the dream
landscape of London like a demented, dishevelled bird.
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
...surreal,
freewheeling and frankly bizarre... TOMAS KATZ is a band apart from the
current crop of British films...
Dave Calhoun, Dazed and Confused
....a
creative, idiosyncratic talent. It's a wacky, fun, febrile concoction,
full of verbal and visual styles, jibes, jokes and puns, po-faced
prognostications and gnomic utterances, with wildly eclectic scoring,
surreal asides and occasional sublime cinematic coups...
Wally Hammond, Time Out
…a
wellspring of innovation... heading for enduring cult status.
Mark Johnson, Screen International
Buy now in a double box set with Ben's first feature - Simon Magus from Amazon and help support independent film & netribution (we earn a few pence for every purchase through this link)
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