Interview: James Erskine
The director of Italia 90 nostalgia trip One Night In Turin talks to us about Gary Oldman and more.
From episodes of Torchwood, a feature film (EMR), to acclaimed documentaries such as Who Killed The Honey Bee? and The Human Face, James Erskine has forged himself a diverse career.
Now the director turns his attentions to football, with this ambitious documentary based on Pete Davies' book 'All Played Out', an account of England in the 1990 World Cup. One Night In Turin is released on 11th May with a charity screening in London - see www.onenightinturin.co.uk for details.
Erskine has teamed up with Oscar-winning Man On Wire producer Victoria Gregory and House Of Saddam's Alex Holmes for this recreation of Italia '90. Using footage, reconstructions and passionate narration from Gary Oldman, Erskine takes us back to that summer, where the ridiculed England team, under Bobby Robson, changed the world's perception of them and their fans, and came back heroes after the heart-breaking penalty shoot-out in the semi-finals.
We caught up with James for a chat about Oldman and the emotional intensity of that moment, which left us with the everlasting image of a teary-eyed Paul Gascoigne.
How old were you during Italia 90?
I was 16 years old, I was living in Manchester, and I was working in a factory making airline meals for a summer job. I went to sixth form and university to study law. I didn't really enjoy studying law, so I got into other things like journalism and filmmaking. I made a short film which got shown on Channel 4, then I went to the BBC as a trainee documentary maker.
You've had a varied career so far - television drama, documentaries and a feature film. Do you have a preference?
I'm most attracted to factual material. I love making dramas to be honest, so it's nice to be able to balance the two. I find that if I work on a TV drama for six months I'm desperate to do something a little bit less formatted, and have a little bit more control like I do in a documentary.
Were you really passionate about football at the time?
Yeah I was really into football, and music, which is a big part of the film. I never imagined I'd be making movies. It's a shock each time. Each time I finish one I imagine I'll never make another one again - sometimes I wish that was the case!
How did the project get into your hands?
I was chatting to my agent about what to do next, and I'd been working on some feature documentaries. We were talking about doing something which had real meaning to me, so it would be a documentary but it would have a personal angle to it. It was he, Ben Wall, that suggested the book. I was really moved by it, so I decided it was a really good story - one that could be told really well, for the big screen, rather than the classic TV documentary. Instead of the interviews, nostaglia, looking back, there was a story to be told on the ground - a drama. It's not necessarily the easiest pitch to sell. We're lucky we've had a huge amount of creative freedom in making the film, and some fantastic creative collaborators. Really from there it was about being an obstinate bastard. One of the things about making films - if you really want to make a film, you can't rely on anyone else. You just have to go out there and do everything - produce, direct, find the money. You might be wrong, and it could be a huge act of hubris, but I felt this was a good film to go and approach and make it the way I wanted to make it.
Were you able to dig out rare footage?
Yeah, there are images in there that haven't been seen before. The challenge was finding the untold story and finding enough of it to make scenes. Several scenes were reconstructed from four or five different archive houses. Archive is very well-logged nowadays, but in 1990, people didn't see the value it has now, so we would go in and get tapes that just said "1990" on it!
How long did it take?
We started full-time in November, so it's been six months to make it, which is quite quick really. But obviously, time was of the essence!
What was it you wanted to portray to present-day viewers?
The one thing I wanted to explore most of all was this idea that very, very rare moments in our lives are emotionally transcendent moments. That was a moment in England when 30 million people were wanting the same thing, and watching and feeling the same thing. Not just in a general way, but in a specific split second. There's something incredibly powerful, and I suppose there's a certain religiousness to it. It's something pretty unique to sporting events and to cinema, which is 300 people being directed to a similar emotion, and a football match is, well, half of 40,000 people! That's what I want people to come away from the film with. The big idea is that there's a difference between everyone thinking the same thing and the power of the good energy can change things. I wanted to people to live it. I wanted it to be a drama, not just for football fans, but for people who hate football, or a casual observer in France. That there would be enough story-telling at the heart of it. At the end of the day it's a period drama set in the 1990s about a sporting team. That's what the film is - it's not a documentary with loads of fact. It's just a story about a bunch of characters in a space of time. People can watch the film and say, oh well, you didn't do this, or you could've made more of this context, but it really wasn't my mission to make a film that explored the political dimensions, but that put you in the emotional situation. I wasn't trying to make any great statements about politics or behaviour, or the magic of sport. I want people to have those thoughts, but they should flow through the reaction to the material.
A lot of the time is devoted to actual match commentary.
One of the issues we had with it was that there were six games, and three of them went to extra time, and one went to penalties. That's a lot of football. Now if we were writing this from scratch as a fictional story, there'd be three or four "battles", and that's the hardest thing. Figuring out who to tell the whole story, because it is factually based and you can't skip over the Egypt game. I think you have to think of it as a battle film, the games are the battles and they are how we see the expression of the characters. It's the only way they can express themselves!
Did your experienced producers guide you in any way?
Victoria's a fantastic producer with a very practical point of view, and Alex is a very experienced filmmaker and helped guide the creative process. He was there at 4 o'clock in the morning making cups of tea!
Was the narration based entirely on Pete's words?
Some of it. Where possible we tried to use Pete's words. Particularly the matches, it really needed to be what the person there was feeling rather than what a person there was telling you to feel. At one point we thought about making all the match stuff present tense as opposed to past tense. Even to the point of recording with Gary [Oldman]. It just didn't work, this past tense with the John Motsons. The present seemed to be the right poetic dynamic.
How did Gary get involved?
We approached him and he was very keen to do it. It's fairly straightforward from that point of view. It took a few weeks to get it organised, and it was only confirmed at the very last minute. He saw the pitch, liked it, was intrigued by it, watched a rough cut and loved it. He'd always been my number one choice to do it, but known to be quite unobtainable. He's got a great voice but he's not known to be an obvious narrator. I knew he liked football. But really because I thought he was the premium actor of that period. There was Alan Clarke's The Firm, the archetypal English hooligan film, and Dracula in '92.
What's next for you?
Depending on the success of this film will define what my next project is! We've got a few more drama feature films in development at New Black Films, mine and Victoria's production company. They'll be interesting and challenging pieces.
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