George found happiness in love and friends and family
DIRECTOR DAVID AUSTIN TELLS GEORGIA HUMPHREYS WHAT FANS CAN EXPECT FROM HIS LIFELONG PAL GEORGE MICHAEL’S FINAL PIECE OF WORK – A FILM ABOUT HIS CAREER
WHEN the late George Michael decided to make a film about his career, the idea was to focus on his infamous court case with Sony. But it soon became apparent there was a much bigger story to tell.
Here the film’s co-director and executive producer David Austin – a lifelong friend of the star – talks about the candid details George wanted to share with his fans.
What inspired you and George to make Freedom?
GEORGE’S publicist Connie Filippello approached me and said “the 25th anniversary of Listen Without Prejudice is sort of looming, you need to go and see Sony”.
So she set up some meetings ... and I realised that they were really into working this project. I talked to George about it and he said to me, “you know, we should make a film to support it, because I’m not going to promote it”. He said: “I didn’t promote it (Listen Without Prejudice) the first time round, why am I going to do it now?”
How did the creative process move forward from there?
INITIALLY, we were just going to make the film about the Sony court case (George took on the company over his contract. He lost the case) the period leading up to Listen Without Prejudice, and just slightly after; that was the kind of arc of the whole thing.
But it soon became apparent that there was a bigger story to tell here because, you know, the loss of airplay in the US, there was the court case itself, there was Anselmo (Feleppa, George’s first love who died in 1993), there was George’s mother (being diagnosed with cancer).
Once we’d realised we had this kind of mammoth project ahead of us, the first thing that happened was we discovered about 75,000ft of 35mm that David Fincher had shot in the archives at Sony. We had it all restored and we started assembling as much of the archive footage as we could.
And then George gave us all of his private home footage.
What role did George play in producing the film?
GEORGE would come to London and would edit the film. I mean, literally, the film more or less is George’s cut. He was editing right up until the 23rd; we had Nile Rodgers over in London filming his part and George was due to go back in on the 27th (of December 2016, George died on December 25) to continue editing, which, sadly, didn’t happen.
Did he mind looking back at all this old footage of himself?
NO, he didn’t. I was a bit apprehensive to start with because, what actually happened was I was going through a cupboard one day and I found this little Harrods cooler bag. It had all of his home footage that he’d lost, that he’d shot himself, which is all that stuff that you see in the centre of the film. I talked to him about it and he looked through it, and I thought he’d be nervous to... I’d already cut a few little tiny bits of Anselmo into the film and I thought he’d be nervous about that, but I think he wasn’t, he embraced it and he loved it.
Why do you think George felt it was important to include the parts about Anselmo?
HE loved Anselmo, he was an incredibly important person in his life and it just came from George, it came from George’s heart. That’s really the heartbeat of the film in the centre, you know ... all this home footage, that’s the real heart of the film.
The court case is a fascinating element of the film. How did a guy in his midtwenties go against a whole industry?
I LOOK at kids like Justin Bieber today and think, ‘my god, look at this multi-million pound industry around them’... but I think when you’re in the eye of the storm, you don’t realise it, you’re just getting on with the job, rolling your sleeves up, and I think it just all comes naturally. He was brave to do what he did, that’s for sure; a lot of people would have stepped back and would have done as they were told. But not George, he felt slighted and he believed in what he was saying, and like Elton (John) says, George is a very stubborn person and when George puts his mind to something, he goes for it. It was a big deal, the court case; I mean, what could have come from that could have been incredible, had he won.
Is the court case something he later regretted?
YEAH, he did actually. He says in the film. And when we were talking about the case and how we were going to handle it – and I didn’t realise this at all – but he turned around to me and said how he regretted it. He wished he’d never taken Sony on in the first place, because it dented the armour in his career in America. I think also the fact he discovered that Anselmo wasn’t well ... all these things happened at the same time.
What’s really interesting that people don’t realise is that, while this court case was going on and he was on the stand, he was holding it (Anselmo’s illness) very close to his heart; obviously nobody knew, he hadn’t come out at the time.
Do you think George ever found happiness?
OH yeah, totally. He absolutely did ... with Anselmo and later on in his life.
You know, he was a very happy, contented man, he found happiness in love and he found happiness in his friends and family. We had a fantastic relationship.
Do you have a sense of where George’s career might have gone to next?
IT would have been about writing and giving amazing music and amazing vocal performances full of integrity. George was one of those people who had a rare gift... when you write music or you sing, making a record is one thing, but if you can resonate with the public, if you can touch people; that’s another level. George had that and I think that’s why George’s music... there are two tracks in particular we have (which haven’t been released) that are just extraordinary pieces of music. George Michael: Freedom, Channel 4, Monday, 9pm