Tyrants create brilliance
Sometimes being a hard taskmaster can be a good thing in creative industries
So Christopher Nolan is a hard taskmaster. According to actress Anne Hathaway, the director behind such acclaimed Hollywood hits as Inception and Interstellar won’t allow his lead actors chairs when they are rehearsing, or let them sit down between takes.
When Hugh Jackman campaigned for a bigger trailer on the set of The Prestige, Nolan was unyielding and the Australian actor had to continue sharing with his co-star Christian Bale.
I know that actors are fragile human beings, but really they need to count their blessings.
The idea of a tough visionary at the top is something to be championed not criticised, and a director such as Nolan gets results.
He is not only one of the most innovative people in the industry, but delivers his films with the utmost efficiency and is known for that extremely rare skill of coming in under budget. (Jackman noted they finished the day’s work by 7pm.)
Nolan is not alone in taking a tough stance. Quentin Tarantino, like Nolan, bans mobile phones from his set so the team are not distracted, and indeed such demands are de rigueur among top directors ranging from the sensible to the downright bizarre.
Then there are the perfectionists. On his forthcoming Citizen Kane biopic Mank, David Fincher made actress Amanda Seyfried film one scene 200 times. You would expect nothing less from the director behind such meticulously crafted works as Fight Club and Zodiac.
History, of course, is littered with examples of artistic visionaries who have been unbending in their pursuit of creative excellence. Conductors are notorious tyrants who thrive on control. John Dexter was such a persistent source of terror to actors that, at his funeral, Derek Jacobi reported that the theatrical great and good attended “not out of love but to make sure he was burned to a cinder”.
Diana Rigg worked with Dexter on several occasions, and says that his tyranny was worth it.
“He used the same people he loved and trusted, again and again — people he sensed he could develop — and would, like a bull terrier, drag this talent out of them.”
And yet there is no doubt that Dexter often went too far.
In his diary he once wrote plaintively: “Why does bringing out the best in others always bring out the worst in me?”
It’s true that there is a fine line between relentless perfectionism and downright bullying and I am not endorsing the working practices of many artistic geniuses whose modus operandi should be consigned to history.
Alfred Hitchcock was a master of his game, but his terrorising of Tippi Hedren on the set of The Birds (he made sure that live fowl were tied to her costume, pecking at her body) was nothing short of abuse.
But what should be acknowledged, and indeed championed, is that the best work is often down to a singular tunnel vision, rather than collaboration.
The trend, now, sadly, is to move away from that. Too many cooks leads to a diluting of artistic vision as marketeers from middle management without a creative bone in their body feel the need to throw their thoughts into the broth.
And then there is the ever-growing need for kindness in the workplace. Yes, bullying shouldn’t be tolerated, and there is much to be said for working with charm and persuasion, but if a creative head is always conciliatory, is that really going to yield spectacular results?
In a way, that is a throwback to the idea of a creative as a “wafty”, arty type whose ideas are nebulous, whose results are questionable.
Peter Brook wanted to see if Glenda Jackson could be induced to have a breakdown. For hours on end, he told the other actors to chase her around the room, pretending to be hounds or concentration camp guards.
However, he met his match in the formidable actress. In the end, Jackson said to him: “Let’s just have a cup of tea instead.” On this occasion, I think she was right.