I was fortunate enough to attend
a special screening of Song for Marion
at the Curzon Mayfair where the film was followed by a Q&A with director
Paul Andrew Williams, star Terence Stamp and producer Ken Marshall. From their
answers, it emerges that Song for Marion
was a very personal film for many involved. Stamp speaks of second chances and
Williams argues what makes his film stand out from the recent Quartet that also
featured an elderly cast and singing.
They started off by discussing
where the idea for the film came from. Williams revealed he wrote the film six
years ago and Ken Marshall who has worked on Williams’ previous films talked
about the desire to be able to take their mothers to see one of their films.
Terence Stamp spoke of being
approached to play Arthur: ‘I thought it was a great script. I wasn’t sure
about whether I was right for it. Then they showed me the first film that Paul
had made called London to Brighton
which was obviously made for sixpence and a toffee apple but it was wonderful.
Then I met him and he kind of talked me into it.’
He then talked about drawing on
his experience of his own father for playing the role: ‘He’d been a merchant
seaman from the age of 15 and he’d been a merchant seaman during the war and
shipwrecked three times. So by the time the war finished and I started getting
to know him, the kind of grace had been knocked out of him and he was very
stoic and I can’t really remember having any emotional connection with him at
all really. And so I thought to myself, if I get in trouble with this, I’ll
just think of Tom and I’ll play it like him’.
Stamp went on to discuss
preparing for the role: ‘I didn’t really research it much. I thought I know Dad
and I know how he was; I know how he was with me so I’ll know how to play it
with Chris [Ecclestone who plays Arthur’s son]. What I wasn’t really prepared
for was the kind of energy on the set. It was very unusual. Working with
artists like Chris and Vanessa and Gemma, there was a kind of underlay of
energy and from the first day, the whole thing was very emotional and what was
wonderful personally was that the emotions were the kind of emotions that I
never really had before on set and I think what most film actors are hoping for
is that the best of themselves will manifest in between action and cut and the
irony is that you can’t do anything about it. There’s no way you can kind of
reach it. Either they come and they’re there for you or they’re not. And they
were just there and they seemed there for everybody. I just thought I’m not
going to bother; I’m just going to learn the words and get out there.
Fortunately the director got those takes and printed them which was a big
luxury.
On director Paul Andrew Williams,
Stamp said ‘he said to me at the end of the first week, he said rather loudly,
“Wow you and Vanessa you just nail it on the first take” and I said “listen,
when you’ve got a Redgrave and a Stamp, you’ve got a hundred years of film
acting”’.
Williams chimed in: ‘It’s true
that there were a lot of first takes used but we spent like three hours
rehearsing each scene before that first take. What was very interesting was
that when I met Terence, I remember he talked about the first take and stuff
like that and it’s actually true that a lot of the time the first take,
sometimes the second, is always the most natural. And it was interesting with
an actor such as Terence just how much you only see afterwards. I have to be
honest I think Terence was amazing in this and it was just so interesting to
see how different actors work and part of the director’s job is to try and
understand that and try and understand what a certain actor might need at some
point and when to step back. I hope we came to an understanding fairly quickly.
When he says it was one take, there were so many times when it was really there
and I don’t think had it been someone else, it would be the same.’
On why he chose Stamp for the
role, Williams said: ‘Anyone who has seen Superman 2 [in which Stamp played
infamous super villain General Zod] would know that when you watched that film,
you can see Arthur all over it. To be honest after I met Terence it was really
interesting because I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t slightly intimidated by
meeting him. But the fact that when I turned up and he was there in his shorts
and his t-shirt and his sandals, this is London obviously, and after half an
hour, I realised I was talking to somebody who I could talk with and talk about
the character but I also felt this guy is going to the character justice.
Obviously when you write the script, there’s a big element of yourself that you
put into it, your own stories and your own family and I think it was very clear
early on, just as he was getting on the tube, not in a limo, he was getting on
the tube that I was like man this is going to work really well and I was very
excited.’
On how comfortable he was with
singing in the role, Stamp answered after a long pause: ‘This was a very
unusual kind of occurrence really because earlier in my career I had turned
down the wonderful Joshua Logan who’d asked me to play King Arthur in Camelot
and I turned it down because I genuinely thought that I couldn’t do justice to
the score and I felt that I would be re-voiced when the film was finished. So I
turned it down but I turned it down for the wrong reasons. I turned it down
because I was frightened. In all the years since, I’ve kind of regretted that
because I had to get a lot older before I realised what he saw in the young
Terence as King Arthur and I was sad that I didn’t have that as part of my resume.
And when this came up I had real reservations about being up for the part. I
didn’t feel that I could do it how it was written and I was also very worried
about the song and then I heard that they’d got Vanessa and I thought wow,
she’s the wife, my character’s called Arthur and I have to sing. So it really
felt to me that life was giving me a second chance and I know it sounds
superficial but for a performing artist, things like that make a great deal of
difference because I suddenly thought to myself if this has got my name on it,
I don’t have to worry about it. I’ll just do it, I’ll just get on with it, I
won’t worry about it. And in fact I only had time for two lessons with the
singing teacher I know and we went through the breathing and then I just learned
the words and I sang them to myself every moment of the day and night. But the
film went so swimmingly well that I thought I’m not going to worry about this
song, I’m just going to do it. Because it was very small budget, we only really
had time for one take. I know they boasted about Les Mis that they sung it
live, but we sung it live in one!
When asked about the similarities
between Song for Marion
and Dustin Hoffman’s recent directorial debut Quartet, Williams said: ‘I
haven’t seen it. That’s not a comment against Quartet, I just haven’t had time.
I think the idea of having a story that features singing, that’s a similarity,
a story that features some characters who are from an older generation, that’s
similar but from friends and people I trust who have seen both films, actually
from what I gather, there’s actually not that many similarities in terms of the
whole shebang. Also we had Terence.’
It will be very interesting to see where Paul Andrew Williams' career heads next and I read in Total Film that Stamp might be doing a sequel to The Limey so keep your eyes peeled.
