The God-Carter of Brit-grit, Mike Hodges.
The Get Carter director on his six-decade career…
‘CLIVE OWEN WOULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT BOND, BUT I’M GLAD HE DIDN’T DO IT’
After working in radio, TV and theatre, Mike Hodges exploded into film with iconic gangster movie Get Carter, and wowed critics 27 years later with Croupier. In between, many of his films opened to poor box office and tepid reviews, only to grow in reputation (Pulp, Flash Gordon). Now being released on Blu, Black Rainbow is a little-seen horrormystery starring Rosanna Arquette, Jason Robards and Tom Hulce…
Black Rainbow is a real rediscovery…
If you make films that don’t fit into a genre easily, they can get lost. We got Palace Pictures and Miramax for distribution. They were the best in the UK and US. What we didn’t know was that both of those companies were in financial trouble. So Palace dumped it into the VHS market, and Miramax dumped it on to a cable channel.
Rosanna Arquette is great as a medium who starts seeing the future. Is it true that she did the role because Scorsese gave her a nudge?
Yes. One of the major difficulties, particularly in America, is getting the script to the artist. Particularly if it’s one that’s kind of loaded: you don’t get a lot of plaudits if you’re questioning the existence of God, or the validity of religion. So I was lucky that Scorsese had worked with Rosanna [on After Hours], and I was able to get it through a friend to Scorsese to her [laughs].
The supernatural elements work because the film is rooted in reality…
Well, I like to get everything in place, so that when you start getting down to the nitty-gritty of storytelling and characterisation, all those building blocks are in place. When I did Carter, for example… Michael Caine was a big star, but I had to fight tooth and nail to get all the actors around him. Because hardly any of them had been seen on film before. So you therefore begin to forget that Caine came with a lot of baggage.
Get Carter is such a bleak, brutal film!
A lot of British gangster films had jokey characters. And by this time, you’d had the Krays, you’d had the Richardsons… you realised that these people were not pleasant. I’m still often quite astonished that Michael took on the character, because he’s seriously psychotic!
Croupier is one of your best-reviewed films. But it started off rather bumpily, didn’t it?
The executives at Film4 didn’t like it, so they weren’t going to distribute it. But the BFI were re-releasing Get Carter. So I went to them and said, “Look, that was my first feature film. This is my latest. Would you be interested?” They looked at it and liked it. And that’s how it got excellent reviews. And then, in America, it played for months and months and it got rave reviews across the board. It made me very cheery!
It sparked a lot of talk about Clive Owen being the next Bond…
He would have been great, but I’m glad he didn’t. I think it’s a curse, frankly. Sean Connery is the only one… he recognised it was a role that was going to go nowhere, for him. So he got out and made all sorts of different and interesting films.
Would you have directed a Bond film?
No. I like the early ones. They were sort of cheeky. But Flash Gordon was enough. The big-movie market, I don’t really enjoy. I’m much happier making smaller, low-budget films.
Talking of Flash, have you seen Ted? Sam Jones has a cameo…
Yes! It’s very funny. Oh, God, the language in it. I mean, even by my standards… [For more on Flash Gordon, turn to page 102.]
As well as movies, you’ve done radio, TV, plays, novellas…
I’d like to have made more films, but it’s very difficult in this country. There isn’t really a film industry. I’m 88 next month. People don’t quite realise that filmmaking is physically exhausting!
ETA | OUT NOW / BLACK RAINBOW IS AVAILABLE ON BD AND DIGITAL HD.