This week Chris Deacy is joined by Duncan Woodruff to discuss the films; Withnail and I, Rob Roy, The Day of the Jackal, and The Princess Bride
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00:00 [Music]
00:10 Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club.
00:15 I'm Chris Deesey and each week I'll be joined by a guest from Kent
00:19 to dive deep into the impact certain films have had on their life.
00:23 Each guest will reflect on the films which have meant the most to them over the years.
00:27 And every week there will be a Kent Film Trivia where we quiz you at home
00:31 about a film that has a connection to the county.
00:34 And now let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:38 He attended Bridge Theatre Training Company in London
00:41 but now teaches fight performance training by running Sword & Scoundrel,
00:46 a theatrical combat school in Ashford.
00:49 He is Duncan Woodruff.
00:51 Hi.
00:52 Great to have you on the programme Duncan.
00:53 Thank you very much, lovely.
00:54 Well I don't know your films in advance but as I turn to the screen
00:58 I can see that what a classic from the 80s with nail and eye.
01:01 What made you choose this film?
01:03 Okay well I mean it's obviously a bit self-indulgent because it's an actor's film.
01:07 But the...
01:09 First of all, it's a comedy.
01:13 And it sort of settles into the fantasy or the fantasy world that the actors
01:19 who while they're not working are sort of engaging in.
01:22 Obviously you've got the simple farce and things like that
01:24 from going off on holiday by mistake and all the slapstick and things that go wrong.
01:29 But the thing that always sticks in my mind is the fact that these two
01:33 who almost in a Pinteresque kind of terrible state of fortunes
01:37 are living in their bedsit in, I think it's Camden.
01:40 And they spend their time living out fantasies.
01:43 So even when they're sort of in the kitchen and they've left all the dishes piling high
01:47 you can see Richard E. Grant as Withnail.
01:51 Sort of going "Get back, get back!"
01:53 There's mould everywhere and sinew and all this sort of stuff.
01:57 Mildew and things.
01:59 And making it seem like it's this sort of incredible work of art or something.
02:03 This big film.
02:05 Yeah because Richard E. Grant of course is phenomenal in that
02:07 because he's that jaded actor who is so desperate for a drink.
02:12 You kind of see this guy who perhaps once had a very wonderful kind of apprehension
02:19 of what the career was but he's kind of fallen on hard times.
02:23 Yes, exactly.
02:24 But hasn't lost sight of that bigger picture.
02:27 No, and he's always looking for it.
02:29 Even on the phone in the telephone box in Penrith where there's absolutely nothing going on.
02:33 And there's a certain jealousy when he discovers that his friend has got an audition
02:38 and then gets a job and of course that's the bittersweet passing at the end.
02:41 So yeah, especially when you're a classically trained actor who reduced to the stakes for a bum
02:45 and all this sort of thing.
02:46 But hasn't lost his sense of humour throughout the whole thing.
02:49 There's also the undertone of a genuine fraternal kind of love story between the pair of them
02:54 because you have all this flippant disregard for stuff throughout the film.
02:59 The fact that he's quite cruel to his friend throughout most of it.
03:02 And then you realise just how lonely he becomes at the end when they leave each other
03:05 and he does that wonderful piece of Shakespeare at the end.
03:07 Because I often reflect on this sometimes that when you're watching an actor on stage
03:12 they can be brilliant on stage or in a film but we don't always know what happens outside of that space.
03:18 And this gave us an indication of somebody who perhaps has fallen on harder times than they would like.
03:23 There's that famous line, wasn't there, 'We've come on holiday by mistake'.
03:27 Of course he says, 'I've come on holiday by mistake'. It's all about him.
03:30 Yes, it is.
03:31 I wouldn't say, yeah, and trying to be slightly apologetic for him to a degree.
03:35 I don't think it's necessarily that he's selfish, more that he's self-centred.
03:38 That he just doesn't see the world around him.
03:40 He's very centric around his own life and his own career and things like that.
03:44 And you can see that becomes a problem for what we'll call 'I'
03:48 because his name isn't really mentioned throughout.
03:50 But it's simply because he's almost secondary to him in a way
03:53 until he realises his absence at the end when he suddenly has a moment to himself to realise what's gone on.
03:58 Because there's always that mishmash element, isn't there?
04:00 The idea that somehow in any profession there's the dream, the goal, the ambition
04:05 and the falling short of that.
04:07 And the film occupies that very liminal space because they're also geographically away.
04:12 Because he wants to be in London, that's where all the big parts are,
04:14 and he's in this middle of nowhere.
04:17 Yeah, they've disappeared, haven't they?
04:18 And of course you've got the, cruelly we'll call him the creepy uncle,
04:24 with Richard Griffiths as Monty.
04:27 Again, he's part of an older, albeit amateur, but theatrical scene of the past.
04:33 And it's showing that kind of world where things are starting to change.
04:36 And I suppose really if you're thinking that it's set around 1969,
04:38 you're probably getting into the era of the Richard Burtons and the...
04:41 Peter O'Toole.
04:42 Peter O'Toole's and that sort of thing.
04:44 So Richard Harrison, the great drinkers and Oliver Reads and all that sort of stuff.
04:48 Hellraisers, you know, of acting and things as time moves on.
04:51 So you're moving away from that more stoic and gentle side of theatre
04:56 and you're moving into something a bit braver and a bit different.
04:58 And I suppose when you look at the way that Withnail sort of treats his character,
05:05 he's all focused on the classical, isn't he?
05:09 And even his melodramatic sort of character really suits something
05:13 that perhaps isn't really sort of in vogue in the same way as time's moving on.
05:17 So maybe that's another point that the nature of storytelling and theatre
05:23 has kind of progressed in a way that he feels maybe somewhat left behind.
05:27 And is this a film that you would go back to?
05:29 So have you watched this in the recent past?
05:31 Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
05:33 I mean, it's also a delightfully quotable film, isn't it?
05:35 It's really funny.
05:36 And I was introduced to it when I was at university with friends.
05:39 But yeah, because it's so quotable, it's so funny.
05:41 And it was such a cult kind of film at the time.
05:43 And of course everyone engenders that kind of rebel attitude and things as well,
05:46 doesn't it, because they're the underdog throughout.
05:48 But they're partly underdogs because of the way the world is working,
05:51 but they're also probably a little bit of their own making as well,
05:54 because where they could be getting on with it and doing as they should every day,
05:58 working harder and harder and things like that to be on the phone the whole time.
06:01 Well, it's time now to move on to your second chosen film.
06:05 And you've gone for Rob Roy.
06:07 Yes. Okay.
06:09 So probably not one that people are really thinking about,
06:11 and I totally understand that.
06:13 But one, it's a great piece of storytelling anyway,
06:17 especially given that perhaps the character of Rob Roy has been somewhat romanticised.
06:22 And I will caveat by starting with the fact that this film isn't actually about nationhood.
06:26 It sells it on the big screen, you know, as that.
06:29 But really it's about the individuals in class systems between Lairds, you know, in Scotland.
06:34 They're actually Scottish families and things like that.
06:36 There are fights in fighting and things like that.
06:38 So it's wonderfully pieced together.
06:40 He's led into being a very romantic role.
06:42 He's got, you know, sort of family that he cares about.
06:44 And of course he's being stitched up by the guys with the money.
06:46 But the reason I've picked it is because I'm going to throw myself into my sort of professional side of things with the fight directing.
06:52 Because everything we talk about with theatrical violence is that it's there to satisfy storytelling.
06:59 So we spend a lot of time going, "Wow, isn't it fun?"
07:01 I mean, don't get me wrong, three years old, jumping on the bed with a wooden sword, you know,
07:05 pretending you're a pirate and things like that is absolutely what we're all doing it for.
07:08 But then when you get into the context of theatre and film, you know, and the media of storytelling,
07:14 it's about, it's got to satisfy the story.
07:17 If it doesn't satisfy the story, there's no point doing it.
07:20 It becomes gratuitous.
07:21 And, you know, we could talk a lot about things that have already satisfied that side of it.
07:25 But with this, and I always bring this in, whenever I'm teaching, I get the phone out and I show all the, you know, students things.
07:31 There is a final fight, the big culmination of everything, between Rob Roy, Liam Neeson, and the Marquis, who is Tim Roth.
07:39 Both of them trained incredibly well with Bill Hobbs, who was one of the great fight directors, did Three Musketeers, you know, Four Musketeers in the '70s.
07:45 And in this final duel, they are mismatched, their weapons aren't correct for each other,
07:49 one's got a transitional rapier, the other one's got a claymore, you know, or broadsword rather.
07:53 And they don't say a word.
07:55 And this lasts a good three or four minutes.
07:57 They don't say a word.
07:59 All the actions are in what they're doing.
08:01 It's a bit like, you know, the Scottish play, you know, "My voice is in my sword."
08:04 You know, they are communicating via it.
08:06 You know, Tim Roth's character is the villain, is incredibly arrogant, he's the fop, he's been sword fighting since he was a child, you know, sort of competitively.
08:16 And Rob Roy, of course, is, you know, the salt of the earth, you know, who just kills, doesn't have to think about, you know, style, panache, things like that.
08:24 But he's outrun throughout.
08:26 And as we get towards the end of it, you see that it's almost like Death by a Thousand Cuts.
08:31 He's being run ragged, he's getting tired, and you can see the arrogance in Tim Roth's face throughout, you know.
08:35 And then finally at the end, when they think it's all over, and I won't spoil the end, things change somewhat.
08:41 But it's the fact that you've had a whole film, an hour and a half or two hours or so of storytelling.
08:47 They don't need the dialogue at the end because you've watched the film, you know who the characters are, you know why you want one to win and one to lose.
08:54 But if you watch that scene on its own, it's an entire story of its own.
08:59 So that sounds as though it was a huge inspiration to you in terms of what you're doing.
09:03 Because obviously this is what you do professionally.
09:06 But this film, I remember Tim Roth won a BAFTA actually for his Best Supporting Actor for this role.
09:10 And because it was slightly overshadowed by Braveheart, which came out only a year or so later.
09:16 Yes, because it came out at a similar sort of time.
09:18 And of course Mel Gibson being the rising star and all the rest of it.
09:20 Yeah, it was bound to be.
09:22 I enjoy Braveheart.
09:23 I think as a piece of entertainment, thoroughly enjoyable.
09:27 Historically, all over the place and not least of all because of the attitude of Mel Gibson throughout the film.
09:38 Still performed really well.
09:40 But yeah, when you think about the King and his son and things like that, it's very to be taken with a pinch of salt.
09:48 As is this, because after all, Roy was indeed a bit of a cattle thief and things like that.
09:53 But they play him out like he's the guardian of it instead.
09:55 However, both of them for the sake of storytelling, for getting you involved in someone's life and the betrayals and all the things like that.
10:04 You can't fault it, I don't think.
10:06 And I'm fascinated as well by this notion that the fighting is almost the surrogate dialogue or the substitute dialogue or indeed functions as the dialogue.
10:16 Yes, indeed.
10:18 So, I mean, we'll always say this to actors when we're working with them in shows.
10:22 You're asking a question and someone's giving you an answer.
10:26 So, any form of communication like we're talking now, you know, isn't it?
10:29 It's about someone asking a question, someone getting something out of the other person and retrieving information.
10:34 Then you choose what you do with it.
10:36 Well, it's the same thing with the fight.
10:38 I mean, we'll pick swords for now because this is the style of it.
10:40 We do all sorts of stuff.
10:42 But it's an intention.
10:44 Even in fencing, they call it an intention.
10:46 You know, so I intend to stab you in the shoulder or do whatever or I intend to hurt you or I intend to embarrass you or whatever.
10:52 And the other person is deciding not to allow that or, you know, is vehemently deciding to do the same thing.
10:57 So, everything is a question with an answer throughout.
11:00 And so, the actions of the sword, you know, no matter what you're doing, whether you're cutting it, thrusting it, you know, trying to do something clever around the back with it or something like that, is telling the audience something about your character.
11:12 Telling them about how you feel about the other person as well.
11:15 So, those, as I say, those three or four minutes, every little moment in that has a wealth of acting gold in it as well.
11:23 Not just people picking up swords and thinking, "Well, I'll have a go with it."
11:26 It's absolutely delightful.
11:28 Brilliant. Well, that's about all the time we have for this first half of the show.
11:32 However, before we go to the break, we have a Kent film trivia question for you at home.
11:37 Which film has the same title as the play written by Noel Coward that is set in Lim in Kent?
11:44 Is it A) Blythe's Spirit, B) The Happy Breed or C) Brief Encounter?
11:51 We'll reveal the answer right after this break. Don't go away.
11:54 [Music]
12:05 Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club.
12:08 Just before the ad break, we asked you at home a Kent film trivia question.
12:12 Which film has the same title as the play written by Noel Coward that is set in Lim, Kent?
12:18 Is it A) Blythe's Spirit, B) The Happy Breed or C) Brief Encounter?
12:24 And now I can reveal to you that the answer was in fact A) Blythe's Spirit.
12:29 The actor and writer Noel Coward was actually a frequent visitor of the county
12:33 and even maintained a property in Ashford for close to 30 years.
12:38 Did you get the answer right?
12:40 Well it is time now Duncan to move on to your next chosen film and you've gone for The Day of the Jackal.
12:48 Yes. OK. So 1973, we're post-war era, things like that.
12:56 We're still thinking about Charles de Gaulle as part of Frederick Forsyth's novel.
13:00 And remember this novel only came out about two years before they made the film.
13:04 So it must have had such a big impact that they immediately wanted to get on with it.
13:07 Frank Zinnaman directed it. But the chief thing that gets me about this,
13:12 and again it's a storytelling piece, is the fact that following the Jackal throughout,
13:16 played magnificently by Edward Fox and I think it was a career-defining film for him,
13:20 you follow him throughout, throughout the film.
13:23 He doesn't speak that much, he doesn't say that much,
13:26 you just follow him meticulously going through his plan to attempt an assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle.
13:32 But you never find out who he is.
13:34 But this entire film, and you are rooting for him.
13:37 One, technically he's the villain, he's an assassin.
13:40 But the film is taken entirely from his perspective, kind of over the shoulder in a way,
13:44 it's not first person really in that sense, but you follow him, you're in the room with him the entire time.
13:49 And by the time you get to the end of it, and when things go awry and they're nearly catching him,
13:54 you are rooting for him the entire way, no matter what you feel about the French president or not,
13:58 whether you support him or not, it doesn't really matter.
14:00 You are guaranteed to be on his side.
14:02 And then, and they make it really clear, because again, I'm afraid, bit of a spoiler,
14:07 when he is not successful and he's buried, he's in an unmarked grave by the river, I think in Paris.
14:14 And you then realise, and they break into somebody else's house who they've been suspecting is the identity of this man,
14:21 and they realise that they were completely wrong and hoodwinked by this guy anyway.
14:25 And this guy kind of in a way had the last laugh.
14:27 And you never know who he is.
14:29 You're supposed to identify with someone and know who they are and you understand their life and their story and things like that.
14:34 By the end of it, when you see that grave, you suddenly think, everything you've just watched, you know nothing about him.
14:39 Because I remember in the 90s, Hollywood did a remake of this called The Jackal, Richard Gere and Bruce Willis.
14:45 And it's played on that very motif. The Saint, I suppose, did something similar, of actually the person of changing identity.
14:52 But you're watching it thinking that you can empathise with somebody to a point,
14:56 but of course you don't know exactly who they are. And yet you're still hooked.
15:00 Yes, exactly. The Bruce Willis version obviously uses a lot more tech and is a bit more Hollywood in its style.
15:06 This also, the other thing I quite like about this, it has a gritty realism, but it doesn't beat you over the head with it.
15:13 It doesn't try anything gratuitously. Anything it does, it does to satisfy his journey and what he's doing.
15:20 And try and maintain that sort of element of realism.
15:23 So you feel a bit like the Grey Man and the Everyday Man. You can kind of understand all that.
15:30 The cars he drives, the people he sees, the hotels he's in, the people in the streets, all that sort of stuff.
15:37 It's all very human and real.
15:39 And I wonder if this was also an influence, because it came out at the same time,
15:42 Three Days of the Condor, which was 1975, Robert Redford. Again, the shifting sounds of espionage.
15:48 People who change sides often at a moment. So the killer, the victim, the assassin.
15:55 Yes, of course, because it's all Cold War, isn't it? We're heading around that sort of period.
15:59 Where you've got things like the Fourth Protocol and things like that with Michael Caine and what have you.
16:03 And it's that intrigue, isn't it? And I think I just particularly enjoy how clever it is.
16:09 It's difficult not to sound a little too excitable about these sort of things.
16:15 I like a film that makes you follow it.
16:20 Especially today when we can sit on our phones and pick it up as we go and miss bits and things like that.
16:25 This has you throughout. And if you miss a little bit of it, it can throw you off entirely.
16:29 Because after all, that's the whole point. Because the entire French police system is after this guy.
16:34 And if they drop the ball for a second, they can't follow it either.
16:37 So you really have to keep your head on a swivel throughout. And so does he.
16:41 And I think that's where the excitement and the suspense, and they call this the great suspense thriller,
16:46 I think that's where it comes in. Because it could turn on a sixpence.
16:49 You never know where it's going to go next. And you're under no guarantee that he's going to succeed.
16:54 All you know is that he's got all these different plans that he's going to flip from one to the other to try and keep moving on.
17:00 And I think it's the ultimate cat and mouse.
17:02 Yeah, and also this is so much, I mean, some would say this is the golden age of filmmaking.
17:06 You mentioned Frank Zimmerman, I'm thinking of Birdman of Alcatraz.
17:09 Do you have that sort of sense that these were films that kind of defied sort of expectations, that they were pushing boundaries?
17:17 Yes. Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, and again, you pick someone like Edward Fox, who is a stoic English gentleman,
17:25 you know, who one expects as well, Mr. and Mrs. Simpson and things like that, you know,
17:29 in very genteel classic roles and things like that.
17:32 And here he is being a stone cold sort of killer, you know, with no emotional cares or anything like that.
17:40 You don't see empathy in him much, you know, in the entire film.
17:45 There are one or two moments where you think you have and then you realise that it's completely sort of sociopathic,
17:50 you know, element where he's using the emotions that other people are feeling in order to get what he wants out of it.
17:55 And he is entirely cold. And I think previously we don't often see that kind of thing.
18:01 Maybe Rebecca or something like that, where you get the sort of distant sort of characters, the, you know, Mr. Rochester types and things like that.
18:07 But again, that's not within such a violent context.
18:10 So I think this does, yeah, certainly push it, especially at a time when you're talking about the Cold War.
18:14 Yeah, brilliant choice. Well, it's time now to move on to your final chosen film, Duncan, and you've gone for The Princess Bride.
18:22 Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's just joyous, isn't it?
18:25 It's come up before actually on the Grey Programme.
18:27 I'm not surprised. I'm really not. In fact, when I chose it, I thought, is this pushing something that people have seen so many times and that sort of thing?
18:33 But I really don't care because it's a film you can watch over and over again.
18:37 And, you know, it's one you can go back to. It's a great comfort. It's a wonderful fantasy.
18:42 It is such a beautiful homage. It started, I think it was intended to be a parody,
18:47 but I've never seen a parody that has embodied what it was parodying so well.
18:52 You know, this is the golden age of Hollywood. This is the Errol Flynn era, the Basil Rathbone.
18:56 And I thought about choosing a few of those films, Stuart Granger and all these other things.
19:00 You know, in one film you have, you know, The Bounty, you have Zorro, you have, you know, The Prisoner of Zenda, you have Scaramouche.
19:11 All of these are all just thrown into this, but also great fantasy around castles and princesses and, you know,
19:17 and and the the young farming boy who goes out and, you know, seeks his fortune and follows his love.
19:23 You've got brilliant humour with Billy Crystal and the like and things like that.
19:26 You know, so you have all of it rolled into one and there isn't anyone I'm sure I would put money on it who wouldn't enjoy it.
19:33 And I have to ask this because obviously you do the sword and scoundrel work.
19:39 Yes. But is this what maybe kickstarted that journey for you? Is it a childhood film?
19:45 Yes. Yes. This is what I want to do.
19:47 And I think you'll find probably among everyone else who does what I do as well within this this context in the lovingly call it the fight community,
19:55 you know, the performance fight community or fencing as well, you know, because I think a lot of fences come out because of this sort of thing as well.
20:02 You know, they want to live it, too. And this certainly in that fight community is is the top one.
20:10 When people talk about the sword fights, things like that, this is it.
20:14 You know, I think one beautifully choreographed for a start, but mention makes mention of all these great historical manuals, Capo Ferro,
20:23 these great martial fences of of Europe of the sort of Shakespearean era, actually, and leading further on and, you know, in Tybalt and things like that.
20:32 So if you want to if you want to completely geek out on the fighting, then that's there for you.
20:36 It's all there. You can see it. But it's heroism and humour.
20:40 And, you know, and it's it's it's such a it's a feel good film without any pretense of bringing you down.
20:48 You know, it's always there. Because you also have to remember, you've got the likes of Peter Cook, you know,
20:55 and of course, Columbo is in there. Yes. Yes. Yeah, indeed.
20:58 Narrating it. And that's a beautiful way of doing it, too.
21:00 And it follows that kind of theme in the 80s where they they want to hark back to that kind of place really affectionately to,
21:07 you know, that golden age of Hollywood, the great stories, the the stuff that when you're a child,
21:12 you're reading the book about King Arthur and things like that. And, you know, and you want to be a knight of the realm and all this sort of thing.
21:16 So, you know, this this satisfies that entirely.
21:19 And I even I did work as one of my several day jobs in the past.
21:25 I worked at a school in Dover and we had an afternoon where the kids had nothing to do and going to put something on,
21:32 you know, for them to watch. And I said, put the princess bride on the princess bride. Oh, what's that?
21:37 And they were very cynical, really cynical. And at the end of it, I've never seen a group of people turn so quickly.
21:43 This enchanted them. And I think the word is enchanting.
21:46 Yeah. And so when you're doing your day job in that sense, are you kind of always thinking of films like this when you're choreographing a fight scene?
21:55 Is this the sort of the template? Is this the optimum example?
21:57 Yeah. And it depends entirely what you want out of it.
21:59 You know, you can have gritty realism, things like that, which real fighting doesn't look nice.
22:03 You know, it's ugly and it's it's brutal and things like that. And you see it. It demonstrates very well in a lot of films.
22:09 But when you want to see people at the top of their game, the best that they can possibly be this Rob Roy,
22:15 look back to the 50s for Scaramouche with Stuart Granger and things like that.
22:18 Basil Rathbone was an Olympic fence, you know, fencer, you know, international fencer.
22:22 All these people, they studied it so well. And that's mainly because back in the the earlier days, stage fighting was done and choreographed by fencers.
22:33 Even the unarmed stuff and all the rest of it was all them.
22:35 And that's why when you look at Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, the arming source, medieval sorts are using a kind of an offencing style because it because that's their main material to look at, you know, for reference.
22:47 Whereas, you know, when you get to the 70s and so on, the British Society of Fight Directors turns up and suddenly they start understanding stage combat as a as a concept a little bit differently now.
22:57 And and they started building on that as a as an industry and a subject of its own.
23:05 But so if you want to go back to where people really understand the fencing and, you know, the sword fighting, this is you can't you can't get better.
23:12 And when was the last time you watched The Princess Bride?
23:17 A couple of weeks ago. It is it is it is my absolute antidote to anything.
23:23 It is brilliant. It's an elixir. And yes, I couldn't fault it any time.
23:28 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One of your go to movies. That's brilliant.
23:31 Well, I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today.
23:34 Many thanks to Duncan Woodruff for joining us and being such a brilliant guest.
23:38 And many thanks to you all for tuning in. Be sure to come back and join us again at the same time next week.
23:45 Until then, that's all from us. Goodbye.
23:49 The.
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