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Tony Grisoni Interview
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Writewords talks to Tony Grisoni award-winning screenwriter whose credits include the much-written about story of a young refugee, IN THIS WORLD, currently on release.
What have you written?
I worked in many different areas of film making before becoming a screenwriter. QUEEN OF HEARTS (1989) was my award winning first feature directed by Jon Amiel. I’ve worked closely with a number of directors including John Boorman and Terry Gilliam (FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (1998). I am also proud to count myself amongst the crew on board the ship of fools: THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE.
My work with performance artist and poet, Brian Catling, has been referred to as “genre busting - an encounter between mainstream movie story telling and the art avant-garde...” - Jonathan Romney - The Guardian.
My most recent venture involved a trek along the people smugglers’ route from the Pakistan/Afghan border, through Iran and Turkey to Europe with the director, Michael Winterbottom. The resulting film, IN THIS WORLD (2002) featured in the London Film Festival, “...a road movie to end all road movies...” - Sheila Johnston - Screen International. IN THIS WORLD went on to win the Berlinale’s Golden Bear award.
Curent maverick projects include: TIDELAND, an adaptation of Mitch Cullin’s book for Terry Gilliam - the Brian Aldiss novel, BROTHERS OF THE HEAD to be directed by Keith Fulton and Lou Pepe (makers of LOST IN LA MANCHA) - LAIKA (the canine cosmonaut) for Revolution Films - KLOX, with N.G.Bristow for Tall Stories - THE CUTTING and A WINTER with Brian Catling.
How, when and why did you first start writing?
Films have always been my first love. Writing comes second. The earliest writing for film I can remember is when I was around 13 or 14 - doing sort of cartoons or storyboards for wildly extravagant and extremely derivative movies. Around the same time me and friends got into shooting on 8mm. We didn’t write down anything - just made it up as we went along. There was one about a boy who kept talking - even after his head was cut off with the garden shears. Then later we graduated to filming one another walking backwards through crowds of shoppers then reversing the shot. This also involved wearing a bowler hat for some reason. All this in Bournemouth!
I do remember getting a preproduction script of a film called the Bofors Gun which Jack Gold made into a film. I went to see it at a local fleapit called the Moderne. I saw it a couple of times and compared the early screenplay with the cut film. That was the first time I properly put the two together.
Later, at what was then the Polytechnic of Central London but is now the University of Westminster (the film course is still run by the brilliant and indefatigable Joost Hunningher) I used collages and scrapbooks to produce a kind of screenplay, but dialogue was a mystery to me. It was all pictures and music.
The first real scripts I wrote were 3 shorts I co-wrote with a friend, Andrew Bogle, who went on to direct them. They were disposable romps - thrillers - which went out with feature films like the Amytiville Horror and so on. Andrew and I had both worked for Tony Garnet at the BBC as runners and then as production managers. In fact I spent the first 10 years after college working in editing rooms, running on BBC dramas, assistant directing on music videos, production managing on a couple of documentaries. As I said, it was film making that has always obsessed me. I think all this background experience feeds into my screenwriting in a very real way.
I gave all the running round on music videos and commercials and stuff up around 1983. I was just making a buck and all tasted of ashes. I went to live in Norfolk and tried to remember when I had last really LOVED my work. It was when I was at college. I went back to what I was doing then - re-working fairytales like Anderson’s The Snow Queen. I was getting a lot of support from one or two very close friends. I produced a book of collages and something like a script. I kept going - coming up with ideas for films - one about Stanley Spencer - another about an angel - and so on. After a year or so I pushed these things out to various people and got my first commission from Scott Meek and Margaret Matheson at Zenith Films. It was called Fallen Angel and I must have re-written it about a hundred times. Never got made, but it’s always there at the back of everything. The angel was called Lily.
What kind of response have you had to your work?
Oh, all kinds! amazement. incredulity. disappointment. incomprehension... silence - now, that’s the worst.
when you finish the first draft of a screenplay, you’re exhausted! you’re empty. and you know you can never write again. Nothing left. But you know - just KNOW - that this is the best thing you’ve ever written. Then times passes. Those who know how to handle writers always tell you how great the script is... just one or two little things... then it’s back to work. I love it. I love the whole process.
The main problem is that there are very few people who know how to read a screenplay. There’s this weird emphasis on the academic. You can’t read a screenplay and understand it UNLESS YOU HAVE MADE FILMS YOURSELF. That needs to be written in caps and stuck up on every development exec’s office wall. It doesn’t matter if it’s short films - long films - video - digital. It doesn’t matter. But you have to have experienced being part of the film making process. You can’t learn it from a book or lectures or from your pay masters who will gradually corrupt your instincts. You have to do it. Now I’m sounding like a nike commercial.
Who are your favourite writers/films and why?
There’s so much to be excited about in the UK right now
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