Bafta honour for North East movie legend
SIR RIDLEY SCOTT WILL BE IN FRONT OF THE CAMERAS FOR A CHANGE. BARBARA HODGSON REPORTS
ALL eyes will be on as Sir Ridley Scott this weekend as the North East born director is presented with a Bafta Fellowship award.
The South Shields-born creator of such classics as Blade Runner and Alien will be on the other side of the lens for once when he receives the film awards’ highest honour on February 18.
While the 80-year-old has picked up lots of awards throughout his extraordinary filmmaking career, which also includes Thelma & Louise, Gladiator and most recently All the Money in the World, this is one which has eluded him – until now.
And it’s about time that he got it, according to film expert Chris Phipps.
The media historian, and author of Forget Carter, thinks that the award – an annual honour which recognises “outstanding achievement” – has been too long in coming.
Having interviewed Scott twice back in the day, on the release of both of his early big hitters, he is familiar with his whole body of work and says of him: “You could see his talent in his earliest days.”
Boy On A Bicycle was Scott’s first attempt at a film, made around in Hartlepool while he was a student in the early sixties, and it starred younger brother Tony, the late director who also came to find fame in Hollywood.
This 25-minute film was inspired by James Joyce’s stream of consciousness Ulysses, says Phipps, and features a boy bunking off school and cycling around Hartlepool and Seaham with thoughts going through his head about school, family, life and death.
“What’s remarkable about Boy On A Bicycle is the way he frames the images,” says Phipps. “It’s an amazing portrait of the North East at that time, its shores and industry.
“Even then he showed an extraordinary eye for the industrial landscape and composition.”
When Phipps interviewed the director for BBC radio on the release of 1979’s Alien and then Blade Runner in 1982, he learned inside information about the films as well as quirky details about the man himself, such as the fact he’s left-handed and can get claustrophobic.
“That’s where the whole feeling of Alien comes from,” said Phipps. “He wanted the crew to get that feeling of claustrophobia on the spaceship.”
On a personal level, he tells how he found Scott: “He had the hallmarks of a driven, extraordinary talent who really doesn’t waste words. There’s no small talk but he has a sense of humour.” And he signals out hallmarks of his films. “He’s one of the few directors who gave women powerful roles,” he said; adding: “Thelma & Louise is a feminist film as well.”
He said the director felt dwarfed by another of his leading ladies, towering Alien star Sigourney Weaver who proved so memorable in her standout role as the kickass officer of the spacecraft. Phipps sees missions as being another hallmark of Scott’s films, whether the mission at the heart of Alien; Matt Damon’s quest in The Martians; the Crusades theme of Kingdom of Heaven, or Blade Runner’s mission to destroy the android replicants. Scott’s memories of the North East landscape, including the area around the industrial plant ICI in Teesside, also inspired his most famous work. Phipps said of Blade Runner: “When he was trying to visualise the dystopian world of LA, what came to his mind was cycling back from college at night, and ICI lit up with its funnels and flames and gases escaping.” The look, and that of the film, remains “incredibly futuristic” even decades on. Having not been fully satisfied with the film studio’s final cut of the movie, Scott re-worked it and reworked
He had the hallmarks of a driven, extraordinary talent who really doesn’t waste words. Chris Phipps
it until he had the film he wanted to make, said Phipps.
“He pioneered the idea of a director’s cut; with a different vision of the same film.”
There are people who don’t know of his North East connections, said Phipps, nor that he started out in commercials, one of which was the famous Hovis advert featuring, once again, a boy on a bike. He also has a successful TV production company.
Phipps does not know of many people, he said, who have the visual skills Scott has and he added: “He’s created some images that will really last forever.”
Sir Ridley Scott will receive his Bafta Fellowship award at The British Academy of Film and Television Arts at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Sunday, February 18.