December 7, 2021 • 44 mins
(Recorded in June 2021) Filmmaker Tony Palmer’s more than 100 documentaries have featured everyone from Cream to Stravinsky; Jimi Hendrix to Yehudi Menuhin; Leonard Cohen to Richard Wagner. He collaborated with Frank Zappa on the surreal cult-classic 200 Motels and with his friend, John Lennon on All You Need is Love, a multipart series on the early days of rock n roll. He’s made three films about British composer Benjamin Britten. Tony Palmer’s work has been recognized with over forty international awards; not bad, for someone who fell into filmmaking.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from My Heart Radio my guest today. Filmmaker Tony Palmer
knows how to tell a story, particularly when it involves musicians.
He's made more than one hundred films, featuring everyone from
Cream to Stravinsky, Jimmy Hendrix to Yehudi menu In, Leonard
(00:26):
Khne to Richard Wagner. He collaborated with Frank Zappa on
the surreal cult classic Two Hundred Motels, and with his
friend John Lennon on All You Need Is Love, a
multi part series on the early days of rock and roll.
Tony Palmer's work has been recognized with over forty international awards,
(00:50):
not bad for someone who fell into filmmaking. Well, if
I tell you the true story, I inclined to believe
that you won't take it at my word, but I
promise you this is what happened. I was at Cambridge
University and had ambitions to be a minor academic. We're
talking about October and I went to a press conference
(01:13):
given by the Beatles, who were then famous, but not
intergalactically or so as they became later on, and I
went representing the university newspaper, and at the press conference
held in the then Regal cinema at lunchtime they were
giving a concert that night. I just thought the whole
thing was rather silly. And as we were milling around afterwards,
(01:36):
this rather scruffy lad came up to me and he said,
you didn't ask any questions, and I said, no, that's
perfectly true. Why not? Well, I thought it was all
rather silly. Yes, it was very silly. He said, very silly,
because it was very typical of those early Beatles conferences
where they were sort of just laughing about. And then
he said what do you do? And I said, well,
I'm I'm a student? What of? And I was doing
(01:59):
something called moral sciences don't be confused by that had
nothing to do with morality, little owned science. And then
it surprised me and said would you take me around
the University of this afternoon? And I first said no,
why not? Well you'll be mobbed and that's not my
idea of fun. And he he said, well, how about
if I come in disguise? So I was having my
(02:19):
bluff called at every turn, so finally I agreed. So
I met him outside the hotel where he was staying
an hour or so later, and sure enough this chap
turned up, and this enormous fedora had a completely stupid,
straggly beard, and if I say it was a dirty Macintosh,
that's about right. And we both just fell around laughing,
(02:42):
and he said he took the disguise off, and I
managed to take him into King's College Chapel, which is
that famous Henry the Eighth Chapel where the carols come
from at Christmas time. But rather more importantly, I got
him into the library at Trinity College, which is designed
by Christopher Wren is always known as the Ren Library. Now,
strictly speaking, we were trespassing because I wasn't supposed to
(03:06):
be there, because I wasn't at that college, and he
certainly wasn't supposed to be there. But having got him in,
I mean he was just taking books of every shelf
he could see. I couldn't get him out of there.
And it occurred to me that this was an essential
moment in John's life, as he later told me many times,
(03:28):
that he suddenly realized, as you said, being a war baby,
that he'd had no formal education, and that having been
carried away in this sort of wave of Beatlemania, so
young comparatively speaking, that he realized what he had missed.
Eventually I got him out of there and he just
he said, come to the concert. I was going to
(03:50):
the concert anyway, and he scribbled a telephone number on
a piece of paper and said, call me when you're
coming to London. I said, well, I'm actually not coming
to London, staying here and hope we will be some
sort of completely minor and insignificant academic. Well well, well,
he said. So. Three years later I eventually joined the BBC,
(04:10):
still having absolutely no ambitions to make films that let
alone get involved in any kind of documentary making. And
I still had this bit of paper with this phone number,
so I thought, well, nothing ventioned, nothing gained. So I
telephoned the number, and to my absolute astonishment, somebody answered
the phone and it was clear from the girl's tone
of voice that I was the four hundredth person who'd
(04:32):
rung up that morning. Said John Lennon said to call,
and I said, well he really did, but don't worry
about it. This is my phone number, and put the
phone down. Half an hour later, a guy called Derek Taylor.
You will know of Derek Taylor, he was the beg
famous publicity. Yeah, rang me up and said I've got
a message for you from John. So at this point
(04:54):
I'm kind of in a state of shriveled excitement because
now they were intergalactically fame us. And I kept thinking,
what the hell is this message going to be? Is?
Who the hell is this? What does he want? Why
doesn't he leave me alone? So nervously finally I said, well,
what is the message? Quick as a flash, Derek came
back with the reply, well, John wants to know why
(05:15):
it's taking you three years to call him. And that
was the beginning of a rather bizarre relationship between the
two of us. Interesting you mentioned that about Lennon and
his yearning from for greater education. I worked with an actress,
one who shall remain nameless. I don't want to embarrass anybody,
but this actress was someone who we were talking about
the scenes and there was an historical component, and the
(05:38):
director was there and we're having a meeting, and then
we went into her trailer and we talked a little
bit more about the film and some aspect of history
that informed the project. And I was going on and
on and holding forth on some of the research. I
don't mentioning this in this book, and so forth. And
she started sobbing. She burst out sobbing, and I said,
what's the matter, And she said, she said, I didn't
(05:58):
go to college. And she goes, I regretted every day
of my life. She goes, how I wish I'd gone
to college. And she was a beauty queen who was
a gorgeous a woman when she was young, and it
was all modeling and advertising and then right into Hollywood.
And she said, I never went to school. And she said,
and I consider it one of the most staggering acts
of self robbery you could imagine. I wish I had.
And you think about what Lennon might have men as
(06:19):
a writer had he and he had a more of
a formal education post high school. I think that's absolutely true.
I mean, he was a man of such enormous imagination
and energy and enterprise and creativity and courage that, as
you said, I mean, how had he benefited. On the
other hand, you know, once you start benefiting quotes and
(06:43):
quotes from a formal education, to some extent, it restricts
you and to some extent it prevents you from these
huge leaps of imagination that you might otherwise have when
you make a film, and you've made quite a few films,
when you're doing research about Wagner, it's different when you're
relying on what other people said about that person, and
(07:04):
you're having to sift through their conclusions and assertions about
someone who you don't get a chance to meet, and
then you meet the person and you write your own
film based on your observations. Can you describe the difference
between the two involved. The thing I've learned about making
films about people who are alive or appear to be alive,
I think is more accurate is that practically everybody you
(07:25):
talk to doesn't tell you the truth. They want their
footnote in the major story, as it were. I mean,
I can give you no I think about the perfect
example of this. I made a film about Stevinsky at
the request of Stevinsky's widow, and it was hoped to
be the definitive film about Stevinsky. And one of the
people I wanted to interview was a choreographer called sergeley Far.
(07:50):
He was it was the Aguilev's last great choreographer, and
he wants to be interviewed in French, which is fine,
but he also wants to be interviewed at the hotel
in Montre where Nabakov lived. And I later discovered that
he had never been to that hotel before, but he
thought it would be good for his image if I
interviewed him in the same hotel where Nabakov lived. Interesting, Interesting,
(08:14):
the bonkers. Anyway, the interview went well, but suddenly towards
the end of the interview he started to tell this story,
and he said, I arrived in Venice, I went over
to the leader. I looked up at the hotel where
Sergey Pavlovitch was de Aguilev was staying. He looked very
ill to me. I went back across the lagoon. I
(08:36):
found a doctor. We came, etcetera, etcetera, and then the
concluding remarks were And then in my arms on the
night of August twenty nine, and I was remember the
date because it happens to be my birthday. In my arms,
Sergey Pavlovitch Agilev died, and as he said died, tears
(08:58):
were pouring down his cheeks, I mean literally sobbing. And
I thought, but I don't say anything. I'll wait I'll
pause and see what it said. The problem with the
story is there's not a word of truth in it.
He wasn't he wasn't Do you do when you're recording
someone who's lying to you, just to just to hold
their just to hold their seat at the table of history?
(09:20):
Well exactly. But then the question is I knew that
the story was not true, but do I include it
in the film or do I not include it in
the film? Now, all of my films, without exception, have
no narration, so I can't have a narrator, even as
distinguished narrator as you, to say, well, actually, Chaps, that
story is not true. But it's a good story, isn't it.
(09:41):
Like what do you do? Eventually I included it knowing
it wasn't true, because you could see this that was
filmed in nineteen Diaguilefford died in so here we are
fifty some our years later, and you can still see
the pact that that extraordinary man Diagilev had on someone
(10:03):
like Surgeley far by the fact he's bursting into tears.
I mean, I got fed up with a number of
people I've met over the years in whose arms x
Y and Zai have died. I mean Rostropovich, the great
Cellis once told me in my arms procoffeev died completely
forgetting to mention that that couldn't possibly been true, because
(10:24):
when Procoffee have died, he died the same day as Stalin,
and the entire center of Moscow was cordoned off. So
how have Rostropovich smuggled himself in in order that Procoffee
could very conveniently die in his arms? Was a question
which I don't think he was prepared to answer. As
you well know. You know documentary filmmaking stories that involved
the past. You're going back and talking to rock and
(10:46):
roll stars about wood stuck. It doesn't matter what it is.
You know, memory becomes this watercolor, it becomes this very
very blurry, undeveloped polaroid, and that's how they remember it.
That's absolutely true. I made a film with great English
composer William Walton, and Walton arguably is most famous for
having written coronation marches for various queens and kings, and
(11:10):
the first big hit he had was for the coronation
of George the Six, Queen Elizabeth's father, for which he
wrote Crown Imperial Right. So I now go to it.
I'm now interviewing Walton, who very old but very articulately.
So also spoke very very slowly, so I won't do that.
But he said, you know, I wrote that thing called
Crown Imperial for whatever he was called. It's called George
(11:35):
the six. William, Oh, yeah, yes, George is something or other.
And then I wrote another one for his daughter, what
was she called, Queen Elizabeth the Second? Oh? Yes, yes,
and that was called orb and Scepter. And now I'm
writing another one for the next king, Charles something or other,
(11:56):
and that's called the Bed Majestical. So I it, William,
Wait a second, where'd you get these wonderful titles from, Oh,
dear boy, don't be so silly? Crown Imperial Orban Sceptor
bed Majestical. It's a line from Henry the Five. There's
no line at all, but it's just a great thought,
(12:16):
you know that the three Since he wrote the music
for Lawrence Olivier's film version of Henry the Fifth, you're
beginning to terrify me. That should be down in all
the British history, now which it's been recounted by the Brits.
How much of it is true well British history very
little filmmaker Tony Palmer. If you love hearing stories of
(12:37):
how directors approached their work, be sure to check out
my conversation with Stephen Daldry. His films include Billy Elliott,
The Hours, The Reader and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
I love editing you do. It's my favorite bit of pressure.
Is a film is written three times. You write it
(12:58):
to start it, and you rewrite it as you make it,
and then you do the final and proper right as
you put it all together. And it's like a jigsaw puzzle.
And I would imagine that the experience of editing makes
anyone a better filmmaker in terms of teaching you what
you need to have in the can people say to me,
you know, what should I do to learn how to
make a film? Just getting by final clup pro and
just start shooting stuff and then just start editing, and
(13:20):
you'll learn everything you need to know about making a
movie from editing. Here more of my conversation with Stephen
Daldry at Here's the Thing dot Org. After the Break,
Tony Palmer talks about the enduring trait he believes all
great artists possess. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
(13:51):
here's the thing. Tony Palmer's prolific work includes not one
or two, but three films about British composer Benjamin britt
Britain was the subject of Palmer's very first film, which
was released in nineteen sixty seven. He was in his
mid twenties then and making his way up the ranks
at the BBC. Now, the very first film I made
(14:13):
I actually inherited. I had worked with my boss Humphrey Burton,
who was biographer of Lenard Burnstein, amongst others. He and
I were developing a film about Benjamin Britain. Britain had
always resisted having a film made about him at home.
He didn't mind coming into a studio, he didn't mind
(14:34):
being filmed in a concert, but no way was anybody
going to get anywhere near his home. You know why
he wanted privacy, Yeah, absolutely, I mean he was already
in a classical world, incredibly famous, especially after the war
requim and he just didn't need it, didn't want it.
I was also told, interestingly enough, I should never ever
(14:55):
mentioned to Britain the name of john S Lessingship wonderful
director John S Lessingshire, because he had made a ten
minute little film about Britain and I think eight or
fifty nine, which Britain apparently had absolutely hated, and every
time I looked at the film, I couldn't see why
he hated it. Many years later, Peter Pears, Britain's lover
and the great tenor, said to me, well, he's not
(15:18):
sure whether Ben made a pass at Lessinger or Slessinger
made a pass at Ben, but it had gone wrong,
so that's why you can't there was something afoot anyway,
Humphrey Burton had spent years trying to set up a
film about Benjamin Britain. Seven was the opening of the
big new concert hall, which is now one of the
(15:39):
great concert halls of the world, and it was going
to be what is in effect state occasion. The Queen
was coming members of the royal family and it was
going to be the grand inauguration of this wonderful, wonderful
concert or so Britain was eventually persuaded that we'd be
there filming the Queen anyway, so you might as well
go along with this and give us a bit of help.
As it were so was all set up and then
(16:01):
we were due to start filming on a Monday, and
on the previous Wednesday, Humphrey Burton, who was making the film,
he got fired by the BBC. And he got fired
because it had been leaked to London Evening Press that
he was off to set up a commercial radio station. Now,
if you'd worked for the BBC, the notion that you
(16:22):
were going to abandon ship and go and set up
a commercial radio station, television station, that was anathema and
there were cries of betrayal, betrayal, betrayal. So I'm sort
of sitting in Oldboro and Suffolk, where Britain lived, thinking
what the hell do I do. Humphrey Burton, my boss
to them out is going to make the film is fine?
And I was also in a hotel that had no
(16:44):
phone in the room, so there was an endless knocks
on the door. There's a phone call for you come downstairs,
and then it was a man probably doesn't mean too
much of your American listeners, but the man called Hugh
Weldon was one of the greats of public service broadcasting,
and it was Hugh Olden on the phone. Now, apart
from Hugh Weldon, being the head of television. Effectively, he
(17:06):
was also a military cross. I mean, he was a
very distinguished soldier. So the conversation went a bit like this, partner, Yes, sir,
don't panic, I said, no, I'm not panicking. He said,
the cavalry are coming, and then slammed the phone down.
I had no idea what that do. So I go
back upstairs, still now in a state of real panic.
(17:27):
Twenty minutes later, knock knock on the door, and I said,
to the poor manager of the hotel, who kept running
up downstairs, I said, I don't care who it is,
but I'm not coming. He said, I think you'll want
to take this call. I said, why, who is it?
It's Mr Brittain on the phone. So I go, I
knew Britain by now. Yeah, I knew him by now,
but so, I mean, I wasn't thrown by that, but
I thought of having to explain myself. And when he
(17:50):
comes on the phone, he says, Tony always called me.
Tony said, don't worry, We've heard nothing to worry about.
I think you should come up and have tea in
our house with me and Peter and we'll discuss what
we do. And I remember two things from from that
t One he couldn't sit still. He was cutting this
really beautiful fruitcake, which I remember I can taste it
(18:11):
even today. And then the second thing was the two
of them were giggling all the time while telling me,
don't worry, we'll get you through it. We'll get you
through it. So I said fine. Years and years later,
after Britain had died and I began to make other
films about Britain, especially with Peter Peers, and I asked, Peter,
remember that occasion. Why were you giggling? You know? Was
(18:31):
it something I was wearing, something I said, or did
I smell wrong? He said no, he said, you missed
the point. He said. We never wanted to make that film.
Humphrey had talked us into it, and we thought, now
we're stout with you and you're clearly an idiot and
have no idea what you're doing. We'll go along with it.
We stuck with We stuck with the B squad. Here,
(18:52):
B squad, the D s. God absolutely, So this is
your Bruno Walter moment at the Carnegie Hall. You get
summoned to conduct, you step up. This is your Leonard
Bernstein moment to step into the sunlight and take over.
How did it go? What was the experience like for you? Well,
I mean direct. It was, in fact the first color
(19:14):
film of the BBC ever to be networked in America.
It went out as a Bell Telephone Hour, which was
a tremendous thrill, and I mean it was not unsuccessful,
but unfortunately it came to the attention of one John
Lennon who summoned me again and said now then, he said,
now that you're well established at the BBC, I just
(19:36):
made one quite short films about fifty five minutes. Now
you're going to do something serious. And I said, right, what?
And he said, there are all these musicians who ought
to appear on the BBC. Either they refused to appear
on the BBC or they don't like the idea of
appearing on the BBCO and Morris the same, And I said,
(19:58):
like who. He said, well, can you imagine Jimmie Hendrix
appearing on the BBC? And I said, tell me what
the problem is. He said, well, you know, you're the
camera and over there is Jimmie Hendrix playing as wonderfully
as he does. But between the camera and Jimmie Hendrix.
There are an awful lot of gyrating new biles who
are in the ways, and that's insulting to Hendrix as
(20:21):
a man and also more particularly as a musician. And
for that reason, a great list of musicians said John,
will not appear on the BBC's your job to get
them on there without the gyrating new biles. And he
gave me this extraordinary list. Hendrix was one, Cream was another,
Frank Zappa was another. There's a story in a half,
(20:41):
Eric Byrdon and the animals Donovan. Now, at that point
none of these people had appeared on television on the BBC.
So we made a film Pink Floyd. It was the
first time Pink Floyd had he appeared on television. And
oddly enough I was at school with Roger Waters of
Pink Floyd, but he was the only one I knew
personally what year was this. So John said, well, I
(21:05):
will make the introductions, you make the film. So I
said fine. So I went back to the BBC slightly
riding the crest of a very small wave as a
result of the Benjamin Britten film, and said, now I'm
going to make a film called All My Loving which
is about the Beatles, I said, lying, It wasn't just
about the Beatles. It was about what that group of
(21:25):
people represented great musicians, great musicians, but also people who
were articulate and had something to say and wanted to
say it clearly and loudly on the BBC. So we
made the film. The BBC absolutely hated it. That was
predictable to some extent. David Amber wrote me a memo
(21:46):
which I've still got in which he said, this film
is a disgrace. Over my dead body, will this film
ever be shown on the BBC. He was then control
of the BBC and we were kept waiting for nine months.
We couldn't get it on the air. We were rescued
nine months or so later by the new head of music,
who was a man called John Culture who ran Decca
(22:07):
Record Company with whom I had worked and have become
a very good friend. And he looked at the film
and said, well, we have to get this on. We
have to get it on peak viewing our So we
were then taken to see the man who was a
controller of BBC one, I mean the main channel, who
said he'd obviously been very well brief because as I
went in He just waved his hand at me. I
(22:28):
don't want his discussion. He said, I will trade you
three fs to two pieces. In other words, if you
get rid of three f's, I'll let you have to
show the film. So that was that, and that caused,
if I may say so, a sensation that film. Now,
when you say that the BBC didn't want to show it,
did they not want to show anything on that subject?
(22:49):
They didn't want to show that. Did they offer you
any explanation? Nothing on that subject, nothing from that uber,
not those particular people. What was their reasoning. Their reasoning
was that popular music on television at that time consisted
of two shows, one of which was called Jukebox Jury,
where four people sat in the line and played a
(23:10):
new piece of music and they had to push a
button one to five. That was it. And then the
other thing was I mentioned the Top of the Pops
where you had all these gyrating new birds and no
real appreciation of the music itself. And what we had
presented in all my loving was very articulate. People names
I mentioned who had a lot to say about the
world in which they lived. Don't forget that's the time
(23:32):
of the Vietnam War. And other deeply divisive social issues.
They wanted to talk about it. They wanted to talk
about what they they thought their role as musicians was
in that society, and they weren't going to be shut up.
And that's what that film managed to express. And who,
by your estimation, was among the most articulate of the subjects, well,
(23:55):
I mean the two obvious ones who sweep to minded,
John Lennon and Paul McCartney. And McCartney had a lot
to say on that subject. But also the other one,
from a slightly oblique angle, was Frank Zappa. Now you
had you had a little bit of a lilt when
you talked about him before. What was the story with
Zappa that was amusing or interesting? Well, I mean I
later made I think the worst film in the entire
history of the universe, in spite of the fact that
(24:16):
has a colossal cult following called two hundred Motels. I
don't regret making Totels, but I mean I had a
deeply upsetting experience. Not many years ago, the one hundredth
anniversary of the premier of the Writers Spring caused me
to be invited to numerous orchestral organizations on the West
(24:37):
coast of America, mostly in California, which the most auspicious,
I suppose, was for the music school in Los in
u c. L A. And what did they perform? Right
A spring firebird? What did they do well? This was
a pure lecture. In most of the events, what happened
was they played bits of Stravinsky in the first half.
I then talked for twenty minutes, and then they play
(25:00):
the writer spring. But on this occasion it was just
purely a lecture, and I rambled on for about an
hour about Stevinsky and procoffee f and Sakovich and what
all the great Russian composer had undergone. Brachmaninov had suffered
in the twentieth century, partly as a result of Stalin
and others. So this was a very somber and serious address.
(25:21):
I don't think there were too many jokes. There were
three or four hundred, I can't remember, but that sort
of size audience. And at the end of the one
hour lecture, the interlocutor said, looking at the audience, said
would anybody like to ask Mr Palmer a question? And
one guy almost in the first row put his hand
up straight away and he said, yes, sir can you
tell me what Frank Zapple was? Like? I thought, I've
(25:44):
just been talking about thirty million dead in the on
all he wants to know Stalin tortured rockman enough and
you want to hear about it? Yeah, exactly, Well, don't
you go with the huskies? Go? Don't you eat that
yellow snow? I remember from Zapples from my part smoking days.
But when you've ex am in the world's the universes
of classical the late grape maestros and composers of the
(26:07):
repertoire and popular music, you know, there's nothing in my
mind like popular music in terms of its ephemeral nature.
There's many people who come up and they have that opportunity,
they take the stage, they have that moment to capture
the world's attention, and they go away. Most of them
don't make it. Most of them don't go to Mount
Olympus if you will. And the ones who do. I'm
wondering what do Stravinsky and Wagner and the Beatles and
(26:32):
the who have in common, meaning those that endure, What
do they have in common? Is it the same in
popular music as it is for classical music. Well I
can answer the question. I think slightly a tan genital way. Initially,
the thing that attracts me to all of these people
that I've made films about, whether you're talking about Maria
Carlos or Margot Fonte, Noor Stravinsky that you mentioned, or
(26:55):
even the Beatles, there's one element which they've all got,
which is courage, whether you're talking about intellectual courage, or
emotional courage, or artistic courage, or in some cases physical courage.
I remember Margot Fontein trying to explain to me one
day when she later in her life, when she was
(27:16):
just on tour as a solo star artist, sometimes with area,
sometimes not with neuro She'd say, you know, we'd go
to a new theater which we didn't know it's a
wooden stage, fine, but would moves and sometimes you have
little nails sticking up out of the wood. Now, if
they have not prepared the stage properly, or even if
(27:36):
they have not swept the stage properly, I'm standing in
the side of the stage and I'm hearing my music
coming up, and then I hear my cue and I
whoops off I go. If I land on one foot
and that foot slips or gets on a nail because
the stage has not been properly prepared. My career is over.
So in that single moment, there is an act of
(27:59):
physical courage which is beyond most of us. And I
think all the people that I've dealt with exhibit that
courage in one form or another, and that's something I'm
in all of attracted to want to celebrate. I mean,
I've sometimes been accused of making films where all I've
chosen to do is any great if you see what
(28:20):
I mean, I mean big film I made about Menu
and got me into a hell of a lot of trouble.
You're referring to the great violinist yr Whodi. Menu went correct? Correct?
So you did? You did a film about Menu went
and what happened? Well, in the end he didn't approve it.
Why Well, in his autobiography he makes two for me
or three fatal admissions. The one is he repeats over
(28:44):
and over again, and this became a kind of mantra
with him that I had this wonderfully idyllic childhood and
I grew up thinking the world was lovely. Secondly, that
if you look in the autobiography as published, you can
find no reference to his first wife. If you know,
her name was Nicholas, you can find Nicolas Nola, but
(29:07):
not menu In Nola. That was an interesting admission. And
the third thing was that I became very puzzled by
the fact that if you asked man in Street, well
you who he was still very active man in Street?
Who's the most famous violinist alive? Most of them, especially
(29:27):
in England, would say you who him? Anuin He was
an extraordinary man. I'm not that if you asked musicians
who is the greatest violinist of our time, I'm not
sure you who he would get in the top fifty.
So where was this? Yeah? So where was this disparity?
What was the problem. I went to a particular concert
(29:47):
where he and the leader of the particular orchestra he
was playing with played a Mozart double concerto. He was
making lots of wrong notes. I think he was almost
making it up as he goes along. The other guy,
who the leader of the orchestra, was of course absolutely
spot on. But your eye and your ear went to Yehudi.
Didn't matter who the other guy was, You went to Yehudi.
(30:10):
But the thing that upset you who he was? That
we found he had two sisters, one of whom was Hepsiba,
who was a very good pianist, and she had died
of cancer, and I discovered that he hadn't gone to
her funeral, and in fact, he never mentioned it. Then
I discovered that in his autobiography he talks about playing
(30:33):
for displaced persons after the war, and through my Benjamin
Britain connection, I knew and I was certain that Britain
and Menuin had actually gone to play in the newly
liberated concentration camps, not displaced persons, the actual concentration camps. There.
(30:54):
They were in bergen Belson months or so after it
was liberated. Now, Yehudi means the Jew, so you can
imagine the shock that that had on him. But that's
why he didn't mention it. But I thought it was
important to try and understand the man who was in
front of us. But then the fatal observation was to me,
(31:14):
it was the fatal observation was that he had had
this happy childhood. His two sisters, Hepster was dead, died
of cancy, had another sister called Yalta who was the
little one. And we'd tracked down Yalta and we interviewed her,
and she told a totally different stories. She said, our
childhood was a nightmare. You know, we were locked in cupboards,
We were prevented from meeting other children because they weren't
(31:36):
good enough for us. It was a horror story, she said,
And she articulated this quite extensively. And ye who he
had said, he didn't know that. He knew that we
had interviewed his younger sister, but he obviously didn't know
what she'd said. But he kept saying. At the end
of the filming, I'm going to persuade my mother, who
(31:58):
is only I think, to allow you to film her
and me together. Are you happy about that? She lived
in Los Gatos in California, So I said fine. So
we dutifully trooped off to Lost Catos to film you HOODI.
And there there this midget who was five foot arrived
wearing black glasses, black clothes, looking really menacing, and she
(32:21):
invited into her house for tea, and before anything had
got going, luckily the camera was running by now she
began to tell Yahudi off in front of us, don't
do that. That's very silly. What who do you think
you are? And you just saw it in one. So
our portrait of Rhodimnuin was, if I say Watts and all,
it wasn't there to diminish him in any way whatsoever.
(32:43):
It was to celebrate the man. How had he managed
to do this in this background? Margaret Fontein was the same.
How did it come about that the most one of
the most famous ballerinas of her time finished up in
a mud hut in Panama when there was no water,
no no running water, no telephone, nothing. He was living
off cornflicts. How did that happen? And we have to
(33:06):
try and understand it? Director Tony Palmer, If you're enjoying
this conversation, be sure to follow Here's the Thing on
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you
get your podcasts. When we come back, Tony Palmer discusses
his seven hour and forty five minute film about Richard Wagner.
(33:30):
It starred Richard Burton, Lawrence Olivier and Vanessa Redgrave. The
l A Time has called it one of the most
beautiful films ever made. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening
(33:53):
to Here's the Thing. When you make over on films
in the course of a career, there are operat tunities
to experiment with different styles of storytelling, and while Tony
Palmer has certainly been adventurous, one thing he decided he
would not use in his films his voiceover narration. The
story has to speak for itself. I mean this My job,
(34:16):
as it were, is to present the evidence and let
you make up your mind. I mean, at no point
in the menu and film, since we talked about it,
does anybody say anything derogatory of menu in other than
the eyewitnesses as it were. And then at the end
you have to decide, you know, was this guy's goody
two shoes as he just hiding really important moments in
(34:36):
his past. It makes your job quite difficult. But I
mean I I don't only make films about music, but
I mean the music films I've made, I would consider
the music as an essential narrative point part of the film.
The music drives the story forward. I mean rachaman and
Off since you mentioned him, I mean Rachamanov provided me
(34:58):
with plenty of musical evidence for that actually happened in
his life, and so I was able to construct a
film entirely around pieces of music. I mean a lot
of people talking and a lot of I hope, very
pretty shots of where he lived and what he did,
especially in Russia. But it's it's it's essentially the music
is the driving force, the narrative of the film that
(35:19):
makes it. It's it's not easy, it's difficult, but I'm
a better editor. I think that I am a director,
and I mean I can edit to our film in
ten fourteen days simply because it's very clear in my
mind what I want to do. Because I could sing
most of whatever composer I'm working on, I could sing
the music backwards. So when you're making a film that
(35:39):
seven hours and forty five minutes, the Wagner film, does
the length of the film present itself prior to the making.
So for example, now you do a podcast for like
Netflix or I Heart of Someone, and they'll say to
you literally, they'll say, we only break even after five episodes.
We don't make any money the graviest episode six, seven,
and eight, and we don't care how you have, how
(36:00):
loaded it needs to be, how much you have to
stretch it out, how much you have to kind of
pump oh, you know, very true, And they'll say, we
need an eight episodes shure, even if there is an
eight episodes there in the story. Now in your case,
tell us about the length and the scope of your
incredible project about er Well. I mean, if you're if
you're dumb enough or stupid enough to make films about composers,
(36:23):
I've made a few. Then as far as the nineteenth
century is concerned, the shadow of Wagner hangs over everything.
You can't avoid it. At some point, you've got to
face up to it and do it. Wagner, of course,
is immensely complicated because of what happened to his music
in the third right, among others, and so that makes
trying to find a perspective on the story of Wagner difficult.
(36:46):
The other thing which is difficult is that I think
at the time that we made the film, which was
for the hundred anniversary of his death, we reckon that
there were more books about Wagner than any other person
who had ever lived, including Jesus Christ and including Napoleon.
So you're suddenly faced with this mountain of information. When
(37:10):
we were planning the film about Vargner, we didn't really
know that it would be either that short or that long.
We just knew it was a big subject would require
big film, and so we were lucky in that I
had already been approached by Vittorio Seraro, great Oscar winning cameraman.
Have you got a project that would interest me? Yes, sir,
I have. It's called I'm there, he said. So we
(37:32):
got Victoria's Steraro straight away. Richard Burton, oddly enough, was
not the first choice. It was Albert Finnie, who I
had worked with before, wouldn't give me a start date,
and of course we were under some pressure to have
a start date that we could stick to. And in
fact that the whole film of seven hours forty five minutes,
it only took seven months to film. I mean it
wasn't long, and about three months then to edit. But
(37:54):
going back to the main subject. When we started on
the project, I mentioned this chat earlier deck John Culshaw.
John Culshaw had recorded many of Wagner operas, and he
took me to meet Wagner's grandson, Wolfgang. And Wolfgang and
I got very drunk with John Culshaw and Volkang's wife.
I think he was then his mistress, but became his
(38:15):
wife at a hotel in Bustledorff. And at the end
of this long drunken lunch, he said, making this film,
you'll find two important pieces of advice. He said. The
one is that as you go on, you were discovered
that everybody, without exception, knows exactly where my grandfather was
(38:36):
on the third Thursday of the fourth month of eighteen
seventy two. He said, you will even find and it
turned out to be true. You will even find somebody
who knows how many eggs he had for breakfast and
how long he cooked the eggs for. That was turned
out to be absolutely true. But then the other thing
he said was you have to understand about my grandfather
(38:56):
that if he were alive today, we're talking about the
end of He said, it's the only one place he
would want to work. He'd go to Hollywood straight away.
Hollywood all has all the technical needs and money and
so on and so on. He'd be straight in there
in Hollywood. I think that would have been a shock
for Hollywood. But nonetheless, those two pieces of advice were kept.
(39:19):
They would like Manchester. They kept me going and kept
me sane all the time. Richard Burton was very confused
about why I'd chosen him. What role do Burton and
Olivier and Vanessa Redgrave play if you have no announcers,
what do they do with their hosts on camera? No,
it's a drama. It's not a documentary. It's a drama.
So Richard Richard Burton plays Richard Wagner, Vanessa Redgrave plays Kozma,
(39:45):
his wife, and the Three Great Nights Olivia, Richardson and Gilgud.
They played the three Ministers of Luding, the second of
Bavaria and Ludwing the second later in life, was Wagner's
principal patron. In fact, the famous Ring Cycle is dedicated
to my co creator, Ludwiger Bavarious. An extraordinary situation. Once
(40:07):
Olivia was on board, of course, everybody wanted to be
in the film because they wanted to be with Olivia
or they wanted to be with Burton. Richard got a
bit annoyed by this, and it said to me one day,
said why the hell did you choose me? And I said, well, Richard, Firstly,
you're both called Richard, how about that? Secondly, you talked
too much, how about that? Thirdly you definitely drink too much.
(40:29):
And fourthly, you have an indescribable charm, as I'm sure
the original Wagner did, otherwise he couldn't have got away
with what he did. And lastly, I said, don't take
this the wrong way. You both have a strong element
of genius and that I want to celebrate. I mean,
the crucial point about the Wagner film is that it
(40:52):
explores as a drama written by a very good English
dramatist called Charles Wood who wrote Charge the Light Brigade
you might know who actually wrote the Beatles film Help
is that it explores what was the politics of Germany
at that time, in the middle of the nineteenth century,
and Wagner was absolutely determined to unify Germany, to make
(41:14):
it a power in the land. And having failed to
do that by burning down an opera house, which is
what he did, or he was involved in the burning
down of an opera, then issuing endless pamphlets about this,
that and everything you ever heard of, finally thought, well,
there any way to do it is to write a
huge music drama, the ring Cycle for for operas, because
(41:34):
that will show them, that will show them what the
real purpose of being a united Germany is. And of
course that led to Pitland, that made it very, very complicated.
But I think that the most telling image in the
whole film. This was a guy who had wanted notices
published all over Germany, dead or alive, Wagner five dollars.
(41:56):
That was certainly a part of it. He was on
the run from creditors, from political adversaries, from people who
wanted to do him down. Finally, in August eighteen seventy six,
this time, and little man, he was only about five
ft three or five ft four, stood on the top
of a hill behind which was this theater he had
(42:16):
built with Ludwig's money, the theater in Byroid, and the
crowned heads of Europe came up to say hello, Mr Bagnets,
and honor to meet you. Can you imagine an artist
sent to stage greeting the crown heads of Europe. I
mean that that's never happened, since it probably happened a
(42:37):
bit in the time of the Greeks, but that's it.
This was an artist, a musician, a composer, and yet
he was sent to stage, not all these conniving, mendacious
politicians courtiers. Now you spent your entire career over there.
If you were, you never lived in America, you never
lived in Los Angeles and made films in California. Well,
(42:57):
I did a huge series called All You Need Is Love,
The History of American Popular Music, where I mean I
was camped in the United States for a year tracking
down everybody. But you never wanted to relocate here and
make film. You've made documentary films and narrative films. You
never wanted to become just a regular filmmaker shooting narrative
films over here and make I think I would want
(43:17):
to say that I never had the opportunity. Nobody ever
asked me. I mean, I just kind of plodded on
doing my own things. I mean, I've worked at the BBC.
As I mentioned, I left the BBC after about five
years because I felt it was very restricting. And I've
been a freelance ever since. And as you mentioned, I
mean I've made rather a lot of films. I mean,
I mean about a hundred and twenty films entirely as
a freelance, trying to find the money than doing it,
(43:40):
than getting it on television, and so on and so
on and so on. I'm a one man band, a
one man band. Indeed. This episode was produced by Kathleen Russo,
Kerry Donahue, and Zach McNeice. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.
I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing. Is brought to you
(44:00):
by iHeart Radio
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from My Heart Radio my guest today. Filmmaker Tony Palmer
knows how to tell a story, particularly when it involves musicians.
He's made more than one hundred films, featuring everyone from
Cream to Stravinsky, Jimmy Hendrix to Yehudi menu In, Leonard
(00:26):
Khne to Richard Wagner. He collaborated with Frank Zappa on
the surreal cult classic Two Hundred Motels, and with his
friend John Lennon on All You Need Is Love, a
multi part series on the early days of rock and roll.
Tony Palmer's work has been recognized with over forty international awards,
(00:50):
not bad for someone who fell into filmmaking. Well, if
I tell you the true story, I inclined to believe
that you won't take it at my word, but I
promise you this is what happened. I was at Cambridge
University and had ambitions to be a minor academic. We're
talking about October and I went to a press conference
(01:13):
given by the Beatles, who were then famous, but not
intergalactically or so as they became later on, and I
went representing the university newspaper, and at the press conference
held in the then Regal cinema at lunchtime they were
giving a concert that night. I just thought the whole
thing was rather silly. And as we were milling around afterwards,
(01:36):
this rather scruffy lad came up to me and he said,
you didn't ask any questions, and I said, no, that's
perfectly true. Why not? Well, I thought it was all
rather silly. Yes, it was very silly. He said, very silly,
because it was very typical of those early Beatles conferences
where they were sort of just laughing about. And then
he said what do you do? And I said, well,
I'm I'm a student? What of? And I was doing
(01:59):
something called moral sciences don't be confused by that had
nothing to do with morality, little owned science. And then
it surprised me and said would you take me around
the University of this afternoon? And I first said no,
why not? Well you'll be mobbed and that's not my
idea of fun. And he he said, well, how about
if I come in disguise? So I was having my
(02:19):
bluff called at every turn, so finally I agreed. So
I met him outside the hotel where he was staying
an hour or so later, and sure enough this chap
turned up, and this enormous fedora had a completely stupid,
straggly beard, and if I say it was a dirty Macintosh,
that's about right. And we both just fell around laughing,
(02:42):
and he said he took the disguise off, and I
managed to take him into King's College Chapel, which is
that famous Henry the Eighth Chapel where the carols come
from at Christmas time. But rather more importantly, I got
him into the library at Trinity College, which is designed
by Christopher Wren is always known as the Ren Library. Now,
strictly speaking, we were trespassing because I wasn't supposed to
(03:06):
be there, because I wasn't at that college, and he
certainly wasn't supposed to be there. But having got him in,
I mean he was just taking books of every shelf
he could see. I couldn't get him out of there.
And it occurred to me that this was an essential
moment in John's life, as he later told me many times,
(03:28):
that he suddenly realized, as you said, being a war baby,
that he'd had no formal education, and that having been
carried away in this sort of wave of Beatlemania, so
young comparatively speaking, that he realized what he had missed.
Eventually I got him out of there and he just
he said, come to the concert. I was going to
(03:50):
the concert anyway, and he scribbled a telephone number on
a piece of paper and said, call me when you're
coming to London. I said, well, I'm actually not coming
to London, staying here and hope we will be some
sort of completely minor and insignificant academic. Well well, well,
he said. So. Three years later I eventually joined the BBC,
(04:10):
still having absolutely no ambitions to make films that let
alone get involved in any kind of documentary making. And
I still had this bit of paper with this phone number,
so I thought, well, nothing ventioned, nothing gained. So I
telephoned the number, and to my absolute astonishment, somebody answered
the phone and it was clear from the girl's tone
of voice that I was the four hundredth person who'd
(04:32):
rung up that morning. Said John Lennon said to call,
and I said, well he really did, but don't worry
about it. This is my phone number, and put the
phone down. Half an hour later, a guy called Derek Taylor.
You will know of Derek Taylor, he was the beg
famous publicity. Yeah, rang me up and said I've got
a message for you from John. So at this point
(04:54):
I'm kind of in a state of shriveled excitement because
now they were intergalactically fame us. And I kept thinking,
what the hell is this message going to be? Is?
Who the hell is this? What does he want? Why
doesn't he leave me alone? So nervously finally I said, well,
what is the message? Quick as a flash, Derek came
back with the reply, well, John wants to know why
(05:15):
it's taking you three years to call him. And that
was the beginning of a rather bizarre relationship between the
two of us. Interesting you mentioned that about Lennon and
his yearning from for greater education. I worked with an actress,
one who shall remain nameless. I don't want to embarrass anybody,
but this actress was someone who we were talking about
the scenes and there was an historical component, and the
(05:38):
director was there and we're having a meeting, and then
we went into her trailer and we talked a little
bit more about the film and some aspect of history
that informed the project. And I was going on and
on and holding forth on some of the research. I
don't mentioning this in this book, and so forth. And
she started sobbing. She burst out sobbing, and I said,
what's the matter, And she said, she said, I didn't
(05:58):
go to college. And she goes, I regretted every day
of my life. She goes, how I wish I'd gone
to college. And she was a beauty queen who was
a gorgeous a woman when she was young, and it
was all modeling and advertising and then right into Hollywood.
And she said, I never went to school. And she said,
and I consider it one of the most staggering acts
of self robbery you could imagine. I wish I had.
And you think about what Lennon might have men as
(06:19):
a writer had he and he had a more of
a formal education post high school. I think that's absolutely true.
I mean, he was a man of such enormous imagination
and energy and enterprise and creativity and courage that, as
you said, I mean, how had he benefited. On the
other hand, you know, once you start benefiting quotes and
(06:43):
quotes from a formal education, to some extent, it restricts
you and to some extent it prevents you from these
huge leaps of imagination that you might otherwise have when
you make a film, and you've made quite a few films,
when you're doing research about Wagner, it's different when you're
relying on what other people said about that person, and
(07:04):
you're having to sift through their conclusions and assertions about
someone who you don't get a chance to meet, and
then you meet the person and you write your own
film based on your observations. Can you describe the difference
between the two involved. The thing I've learned about making
films about people who are alive or appear to be alive,
I think is more accurate is that practically everybody you
(07:25):
talk to doesn't tell you the truth. They want their
footnote in the major story, as it were. I mean,
I can give you no I think about the perfect
example of this. I made a film about Stevinsky at
the request of Stevinsky's widow, and it was hoped to
be the definitive film about Stevinsky. And one of the
people I wanted to interview was a choreographer called sergeley Far.
(07:50):
He was it was the Aguilev's last great choreographer, and
he wants to be interviewed in French, which is fine,
but he also wants to be interviewed at the hotel
in Montre where Nabakov lived. And I later discovered that
he had never been to that hotel before, but he
thought it would be good for his image if I
interviewed him in the same hotel where Nabakov lived. Interesting, Interesting,
(08:14):
the bonkers. Anyway, the interview went well, but suddenly towards
the end of the interview he started to tell this story,
and he said, I arrived in Venice, I went over
to the leader. I looked up at the hotel where
Sergey Pavlovitch was de Aguilev was staying. He looked very
ill to me. I went back across the lagoon. I
(08:36):
found a doctor. We came, etcetera, etcetera, and then the
concluding remarks were And then in my arms on the
night of August twenty nine, and I was remember the
date because it happens to be my birthday. In my arms,
Sergey Pavlovitch Agilev died, and as he said died, tears
(08:58):
were pouring down his cheeks, I mean literally sobbing. And
I thought, but I don't say anything. I'll wait I'll
pause and see what it said. The problem with the
story is there's not a word of truth in it.
He wasn't he wasn't Do you do when you're recording
someone who's lying to you, just to just to hold
their just to hold their seat at the table of history?
(09:20):
Well exactly. But then the question is I knew that
the story was not true, but do I include it
in the film or do I not include it in
the film? Now, all of my films, without exception, have
no narration, so I can't have a narrator, even as
distinguished narrator as you, to say, well, actually, Chaps, that
story is not true. But it's a good story, isn't it.
(09:41):
Like what do you do? Eventually I included it knowing
it wasn't true, because you could see this that was
filmed in nineteen Diaguilefford died in so here we are
fifty some our years later, and you can still see
the pact that that extraordinary man Diagilev had on someone
(10:03):
like Surgeley far by the fact he's bursting into tears.
I mean, I got fed up with a number of
people I've met over the years in whose arms x
Y and Zai have died. I mean Rostropovich, the great
Cellis once told me in my arms procoffeev died completely
forgetting to mention that that couldn't possibly been true, because
(10:24):
when Procoffee have died, he died the same day as Stalin,
and the entire center of Moscow was cordoned off. So
how have Rostropovich smuggled himself in in order that Procoffee
could very conveniently die in his arms? Was a question
which I don't think he was prepared to answer. As
you well know. You know documentary filmmaking stories that involved
the past. You're going back and talking to rock and
(10:46):
roll stars about wood stuck. It doesn't matter what it is.
You know, memory becomes this watercolor, it becomes this very
very blurry, undeveloped polaroid, and that's how they remember it.
That's absolutely true. I made a film with great English
composer William Walton, and Walton arguably is most famous for
having written coronation marches for various queens and kings, and
(11:10):
the first big hit he had was for the coronation
of George the Six, Queen Elizabeth's father, for which he
wrote Crown Imperial Right. So I now go to it.
I'm now interviewing Walton, who very old but very articulately.
So also spoke very very slowly, so I won't do that.
But he said, you know, I wrote that thing called
Crown Imperial for whatever he was called. It's called George
(11:35):
the six. William, Oh, yeah, yes, George is something or other.
And then I wrote another one for his daughter, what
was she called, Queen Elizabeth the Second? Oh? Yes, yes,
and that was called orb and Scepter. And now I'm
writing another one for the next king, Charles something or other,
(11:56):
and that's called the Bed Majestical. So I it, William,
Wait a second, where'd you get these wonderful titles from, Oh,
dear boy, don't be so silly? Crown Imperial Orban Sceptor
bed Majestical. It's a line from Henry the Five. There's
no line at all, but it's just a great thought,
(12:16):
you know that the three Since he wrote the music
for Lawrence Olivier's film version of Henry the Fifth, you're
beginning to terrify me. That should be down in all
the British history, now which it's been recounted by the Brits.
How much of it is true well British history very
little filmmaker Tony Palmer. If you love hearing stories of
(12:37):
how directors approached their work, be sure to check out
my conversation with Stephen Daldry. His films include Billy Elliott,
The Hours, The Reader and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
I love editing you do. It's my favorite bit of pressure.
Is a film is written three times. You write it
(12:58):
to start it, and you rewrite it as you make it,
and then you do the final and proper right as
you put it all together. And it's like a jigsaw puzzle.
And I would imagine that the experience of editing makes
anyone a better filmmaker in terms of teaching you what
you need to have in the can people say to me,
you know, what should I do to learn how to
make a film? Just getting by final clup pro and
just start shooting stuff and then just start editing, and
(13:20):
you'll learn everything you need to know about making a
movie from editing. Here more of my conversation with Stephen
Daldry at Here's the Thing dot Org. After the Break,
Tony Palmer talks about the enduring trait he believes all
great artists possess. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
(13:51):
here's the thing. Tony Palmer's prolific work includes not one
or two, but three films about British composer Benjamin britt
Britain was the subject of Palmer's very first film, which
was released in nineteen sixty seven. He was in his
mid twenties then and making his way up the ranks
at the BBC. Now, the very first film I made
(14:13):
I actually inherited. I had worked with my boss Humphrey Burton,
who was biographer of Lenard Burnstein, amongst others. He and
I were developing a film about Benjamin Britain. Britain had
always resisted having a film made about him at home.
He didn't mind coming into a studio, he didn't mind
(14:34):
being filmed in a concert, but no way was anybody
going to get anywhere near his home. You know why
he wanted privacy, Yeah, absolutely, I mean he was already
in a classical world, incredibly famous, especially after the war
requim and he just didn't need it, didn't want it.
I was also told, interestingly enough, I should never ever
(14:55):
mentioned to Britain the name of john S Lessingship wonderful
director John S Lessingshire, because he had made a ten
minute little film about Britain and I think eight or
fifty nine, which Britain apparently had absolutely hated, and every
time I looked at the film, I couldn't see why
he hated it. Many years later, Peter Pears, Britain's lover
and the great tenor, said to me, well, he's not
(15:18):
sure whether Ben made a pass at Lessinger or Slessinger
made a pass at Ben, but it had gone wrong,
so that's why you can't there was something afoot anyway,
Humphrey Burton had spent years trying to set up a
film about Benjamin Britain. Seven was the opening of the
big new concert hall, which is now one of the
(15:39):
great concert halls of the world, and it was going
to be what is in effect state occasion. The Queen
was coming members of the royal family and it was
going to be the grand inauguration of this wonderful, wonderful
concert or so Britain was eventually persuaded that we'd be
there filming the Queen anyway, so you might as well
go along with this and give us a bit of help.
As it were so was all set up and then
(16:01):
we were due to start filming on a Monday, and
on the previous Wednesday, Humphrey Burton, who was making the film,
he got fired by the BBC. And he got fired
because it had been leaked to London Evening Press that
he was off to set up a commercial radio station. Now,
if you'd worked for the BBC, the notion that you
(16:22):
were going to abandon ship and go and set up
a commercial radio station, television station, that was anathema and
there were cries of betrayal, betrayal, betrayal. So I'm sort
of sitting in Oldboro and Suffolk, where Britain lived, thinking
what the hell do I do. Humphrey Burton, my boss
to them out is going to make the film is fine?
And I was also in a hotel that had no
(16:44):
phone in the room, so there was an endless knocks
on the door. There's a phone call for you come downstairs,
and then it was a man probably doesn't mean too
much of your American listeners, but the man called Hugh
Weldon was one of the greats of public service broadcasting,
and it was Hugh Olden on the phone. Now, apart
from Hugh Weldon, being the head of television. Effectively, he
(17:06):
was also a military cross. I mean, he was a
very distinguished soldier. So the conversation went a bit like this, partner, Yes, sir,
don't panic, I said, no, I'm not panicking. He said,
the cavalry are coming, and then slammed the phone down.
I had no idea what that do. So I go
back upstairs, still now in a state of real panic.
(17:27):
Twenty minutes later, knock knock on the door, and I said,
to the poor manager of the hotel, who kept running
up downstairs, I said, I don't care who it is,
but I'm not coming. He said, I think you'll want
to take this call. I said, why, who is it?
It's Mr Brittain on the phone. So I go, I
knew Britain by now. Yeah, I knew him by now,
but so, I mean, I wasn't thrown by that, but
I thought of having to explain myself. And when he
(17:50):
comes on the phone, he says, Tony always called me.
Tony said, don't worry, We've heard nothing to worry about.
I think you should come up and have tea in
our house with me and Peter and we'll discuss what
we do. And I remember two things from from that
t One he couldn't sit still. He was cutting this
really beautiful fruitcake, which I remember I can taste it
(18:11):
even today. And then the second thing was the two
of them were giggling all the time while telling me,
don't worry, we'll get you through it. We'll get you
through it. So I said fine. Years and years later,
after Britain had died and I began to make other
films about Britain, especially with Peter Peers, and I asked, Peter,
remember that occasion. Why were you giggling? You know? Was
(18:31):
it something I was wearing, something I said, or did
I smell wrong? He said no, he said, you missed
the point. He said. We never wanted to make that film.
Humphrey had talked us into it, and we thought, now
we're stout with you and you're clearly an idiot and
have no idea what you're doing. We'll go along with it.
We stuck with We stuck with the B squad. Here,
(18:52):
B squad, the D s. God absolutely, So this is
your Bruno Walter moment at the Carnegie Hall. You get
summoned to conduct, you step up. This is your Leonard
Bernstein moment to step into the sunlight and take over.
How did it go? What was the experience like for you? Well,
I mean direct. It was, in fact the first color
(19:14):
film of the BBC ever to be networked in America.
It went out as a Bell Telephone Hour, which was
a tremendous thrill, and I mean it was not unsuccessful,
but unfortunately it came to the attention of one John
Lennon who summoned me again and said now then, he said,
now that you're well established at the BBC, I just
(19:36):
made one quite short films about fifty five minutes. Now
you're going to do something serious. And I said, right, what?
And he said, there are all these musicians who ought
to appear on the BBC. Either they refused to appear
on the BBC or they don't like the idea of
appearing on the BBCO and Morris the same, And I said,
(19:58):
like who. He said, well, can you imagine Jimmie Hendrix
appearing on the BBC? And I said, tell me what
the problem is. He said, well, you know, you're the
camera and over there is Jimmie Hendrix playing as wonderfully
as he does. But between the camera and Jimmie Hendrix.
There are an awful lot of gyrating new biles who
are in the ways, and that's insulting to Hendrix as
(20:21):
a man and also more particularly as a musician. And
for that reason, a great list of musicians said John,
will not appear on the BBC's your job to get
them on there without the gyrating new biles. And he
gave me this extraordinary list. Hendrix was one, Cream was another,
Frank Zappa was another. There's a story in a half,
(20:41):
Eric Byrdon and the animals Donovan. Now, at that point
none of these people had appeared on television on the BBC.
So we made a film Pink Floyd. It was the
first time Pink Floyd had he appeared on television. And
oddly enough I was at school with Roger Waters of
Pink Floyd, but he was the only one I knew
personally what year was this. So John said, well, I
(21:05):
will make the introductions, you make the film. So I
said fine. So I went back to the BBC slightly
riding the crest of a very small wave as a
result of the Benjamin Britten film, and said, now I'm
going to make a film called All My Loving which
is about the Beatles, I said, lying, It wasn't just
about the Beatles. It was about what that group of
(21:25):
people represented great musicians, great musicians, but also people who
were articulate and had something to say and wanted to
say it clearly and loudly on the BBC. So we
made the film. The BBC absolutely hated it. That was
predictable to some extent. David Amber wrote me a memo
(21:46):
which I've still got in which he said, this film
is a disgrace. Over my dead body, will this film
ever be shown on the BBC. He was then control
of the BBC and we were kept waiting for nine months.
We couldn't get it on the air. We were rescued
nine months or so later by the new head of music,
who was a man called John Culture who ran Decca
(22:07):
Record Company with whom I had worked and have become
a very good friend. And he looked at the film
and said, well, we have to get this on. We
have to get it on peak viewing our So we
were then taken to see the man who was a
controller of BBC one, I mean the main channel, who
said he'd obviously been very well brief because as I
went in He just waved his hand at me. I
(22:28):
don't want his discussion. He said, I will trade you
three fs to two pieces. In other words, if you
get rid of three f's, I'll let you have to
show the film. So that was that, and that caused,
if I may say so, a sensation that film. Now,
when you say that the BBC didn't want to show it,
did they not want to show anything on that subject?
(22:49):
They didn't want to show that. Did they offer you
any explanation? Nothing on that subject, nothing from that uber,
not those particular people. What was their reasoning. Their reasoning
was that popular music on television at that time consisted
of two shows, one of which was called Jukebox Jury,
where four people sat in the line and played a
(23:10):
new piece of music and they had to push a
button one to five. That was it. And then the
other thing was I mentioned the Top of the Pops
where you had all these gyrating new birds and no
real appreciation of the music itself. And what we had
presented in all my loving was very articulate. People names
I mentioned who had a lot to say about the
world in which they lived. Don't forget that's the time
(23:32):
of the Vietnam War. And other deeply divisive social issues.
They wanted to talk about it. They wanted to talk
about what they they thought their role as musicians was
in that society, and they weren't going to be shut up.
And that's what that film managed to express. And who,
by your estimation, was among the most articulate of the subjects, well,
(23:55):
I mean the two obvious ones who sweep to minded,
John Lennon and Paul McCartney. And McCartney had a lot
to say on that subject. But also the other one,
from a slightly oblique angle, was Frank Zappa. Now you
had you had a little bit of a lilt when
you talked about him before. What was the story with
Zappa that was amusing or interesting? Well, I mean I
later made I think the worst film in the entire
history of the universe, in spite of the fact that
(24:16):
has a colossal cult following called two hundred Motels. I
don't regret making Totels, but I mean I had a
deeply upsetting experience. Not many years ago, the one hundredth
anniversary of the premier of the Writers Spring caused me
to be invited to numerous orchestral organizations on the West
(24:37):
coast of America, mostly in California, which the most auspicious,
I suppose, was for the music school in Los in
u c. L A. And what did they perform? Right
A spring firebird? What did they do well? This was
a pure lecture. In most of the events, what happened
was they played bits of Stravinsky in the first half.
I then talked for twenty minutes, and then they play
(25:00):
the writer spring. But on this occasion it was just
purely a lecture, and I rambled on for about an
hour about Stevinsky and procoffee f and Sakovich and what
all the great Russian composer had undergone. Brachmaninov had suffered
in the twentieth century, partly as a result of Stalin
and others. So this was a very somber and serious address.
(25:21):
I don't think there were too many jokes. There were
three or four hundred, I can't remember, but that sort
of size audience. And at the end of the one
hour lecture, the interlocutor said, looking at the audience, said
would anybody like to ask Mr Palmer a question? And
one guy almost in the first row put his hand
up straight away and he said, yes, sir can you
tell me what Frank Zapple was? Like? I thought, I've
(25:44):
just been talking about thirty million dead in the on
all he wants to know Stalin tortured rockman enough and
you want to hear about it? Yeah, exactly, Well, don't
you go with the huskies? Go? Don't you eat that
yellow snow? I remember from Zapples from my part smoking days.
But when you've ex am in the world's the universes
of classical the late grape maestros and composers of the
(26:07):
repertoire and popular music, you know, there's nothing in my
mind like popular music in terms of its ephemeral nature.
There's many people who come up and they have that opportunity,
they take the stage, they have that moment to capture
the world's attention, and they go away. Most of them
don't make it. Most of them don't go to Mount
Olympus if you will. And the ones who do. I'm
wondering what do Stravinsky and Wagner and the Beatles and
(26:32):
the who have in common, meaning those that endure, What
do they have in common? Is it the same in
popular music as it is for classical music. Well I
can answer the question. I think slightly a tan genital way. Initially,
the thing that attracts me to all of these people
that I've made films about, whether you're talking about Maria
Carlos or Margot Fonte, Noor Stravinsky that you mentioned, or
(26:55):
even the Beatles, there's one element which they've all got,
which is courage, whether you're talking about intellectual courage, or
emotional courage, or artistic courage, or in some cases physical courage.
I remember Margot Fontein trying to explain to me one
day when she later in her life, when she was
(27:16):
just on tour as a solo star artist, sometimes with area,
sometimes not with neuro She'd say, you know, we'd go
to a new theater which we didn't know it's a
wooden stage, fine, but would moves and sometimes you have
little nails sticking up out of the wood. Now, if
they have not prepared the stage properly, or even if
(27:36):
they have not swept the stage properly, I'm standing in
the side of the stage and I'm hearing my music
coming up, and then I hear my cue and I
whoops off I go. If I land on one foot
and that foot slips or gets on a nail because
the stage has not been properly prepared. My career is over.
So in that single moment, there is an act of
(27:59):
physical courage which is beyond most of us. And I
think all the people that I've dealt with exhibit that
courage in one form or another, and that's something I'm
in all of attracted to want to celebrate. I mean,
I've sometimes been accused of making films where all I've
chosen to do is any great if you see what
(28:20):
I mean, I mean big film I made about Menu
and got me into a hell of a lot of trouble.
You're referring to the great violinist yr Whodi. Menu went correct? Correct?
So you did? You did a film about Menu went
and what happened? Well, in the end he didn't approve it.
Why Well, in his autobiography he makes two for me
or three fatal admissions. The one is he repeats over
(28:44):
and over again, and this became a kind of mantra
with him that I had this wonderfully idyllic childhood and
I grew up thinking the world was lovely. Secondly, that
if you look in the autobiography as published, you can
find no reference to his first wife. If you know,
her name was Nicholas, you can find Nicolas Nola, but
(29:07):
not menu In Nola. That was an interesting admission. And
the third thing was that I became very puzzled by
the fact that if you asked man in Street, well
you who he was still very active man in Street?
Who's the most famous violinist alive? Most of them, especially
(29:27):
in England, would say you who him? Anuin He was
an extraordinary man. I'm not that if you asked musicians
who is the greatest violinist of our time, I'm not
sure you who he would get in the top fifty.
So where was this? Yeah? So where was this disparity?
What was the problem. I went to a particular concert
(29:47):
where he and the leader of the particular orchestra he
was playing with played a Mozart double concerto. He was
making lots of wrong notes. I think he was almost
making it up as he goes along. The other guy,
who the leader of the orchestra, was of course absolutely
spot on. But your eye and your ear went to Yehudi.
Didn't matter who the other guy was, You went to Yehudi.
(30:10):
But the thing that upset you who he was? That
we found he had two sisters, one of whom was Hepsiba,
who was a very good pianist, and she had died
of cancer, and I discovered that he hadn't gone to
her funeral, and in fact, he never mentioned it. Then
I discovered that in his autobiography he talks about playing
(30:33):
for displaced persons after the war, and through my Benjamin
Britain connection, I knew and I was certain that Britain
and Menuin had actually gone to play in the newly
liberated concentration camps, not displaced persons, the actual concentration camps. There.
(30:54):
They were in bergen Belson months or so after it
was liberated. Now, Yehudi means the Jew, so you can
imagine the shock that that had on him. But that's
why he didn't mention it. But I thought it was
important to try and understand the man who was in
front of us. But then the fatal observation was to me,
(31:14):
it was the fatal observation was that he had had
this happy childhood. His two sisters, Hepster was dead, died
of cancy, had another sister called Yalta who was the
little one. And we'd tracked down Yalta and we interviewed her,
and she told a totally different stories. She said, our
childhood was a nightmare. You know, we were locked in cupboards,
We were prevented from meeting other children because they weren't
(31:36):
good enough for us. It was a horror story, she said,
And she articulated this quite extensively. And ye who he
had said, he didn't know that. He knew that we
had interviewed his younger sister, but he obviously didn't know
what she'd said. But he kept saying. At the end
of the filming, I'm going to persuade my mother, who
(31:58):
is only I think, to allow you to film her
and me together. Are you happy about that? She lived
in Los Gatos in California, So I said fine. So
we dutifully trooped off to Lost Catos to film you HOODI.
And there there this midget who was five foot arrived
wearing black glasses, black clothes, looking really menacing, and she
(32:21):
invited into her house for tea, and before anything had
got going, luckily the camera was running by now she
began to tell Yahudi off in front of us, don't
do that. That's very silly. What who do you think
you are? And you just saw it in one. So
our portrait of Rhodimnuin was, if I say Watts and all,
it wasn't there to diminish him in any way whatsoever.
(32:43):
It was to celebrate the man. How had he managed
to do this in this background? Margaret Fontein was the same.
How did it come about that the most one of
the most famous ballerinas of her time finished up in
a mud hut in Panama when there was no water,
no no running water, no telephone, nothing. He was living
off cornflicts. How did that happen? And we have to
(33:06):
try and understand it? Director Tony Palmer, If you're enjoying
this conversation, be sure to follow Here's the Thing on
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you
get your podcasts. When we come back, Tony Palmer discusses
his seven hour and forty five minute film about Richard Wagner.
(33:30):
It starred Richard Burton, Lawrence Olivier and Vanessa Redgrave. The
l A Time has called it one of the most
beautiful films ever made. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening
(33:53):
to Here's the Thing. When you make over on films
in the course of a career, there are operat tunities
to experiment with different styles of storytelling, and while Tony
Palmer has certainly been adventurous, one thing he decided he
would not use in his films his voiceover narration. The
story has to speak for itself. I mean this My job,
(34:16):
as it were, is to present the evidence and let
you make up your mind. I mean, at no point
in the menu and film, since we talked about it,
does anybody say anything derogatory of menu in other than
the eyewitnesses as it were. And then at the end
you have to decide, you know, was this guy's goody
two shoes as he just hiding really important moments in
(34:36):
his past. It makes your job quite difficult. But I
mean I I don't only make films about music, but
I mean the music films I've made, I would consider
the music as an essential narrative point part of the film.
The music drives the story forward. I mean rachaman and
Off since you mentioned him, I mean Rachamanov provided me
(34:58):
with plenty of musical evidence for that actually happened in
his life, and so I was able to construct a
film entirely around pieces of music. I mean a lot
of people talking and a lot of I hope, very
pretty shots of where he lived and what he did,
especially in Russia. But it's it's it's essentially the music
is the driving force, the narrative of the film that
(35:19):
makes it. It's it's not easy, it's difficult, but I'm
a better editor. I think that I am a director,
and I mean I can edit to our film in
ten fourteen days simply because it's very clear in my
mind what I want to do. Because I could sing
most of whatever composer I'm working on, I could sing
the music backwards. So when you're making a film that
(35:39):
seven hours and forty five minutes, the Wagner film, does
the length of the film present itself prior to the making.
So for example, now you do a podcast for like
Netflix or I Heart of Someone, and they'll say to
you literally, they'll say, we only break even after five episodes.
We don't make any money the graviest episode six, seven,
and eight, and we don't care how you have, how
(36:00):
loaded it needs to be, how much you have to
stretch it out, how much you have to kind of
pump oh, you know, very true, And they'll say, we
need an eight episodes shure, even if there is an
eight episodes there in the story. Now in your case,
tell us about the length and the scope of your
incredible project about er Well. I mean, if you're if
you're dumb enough or stupid enough to make films about composers,
(36:23):
I've made a few. Then as far as the nineteenth
century is concerned, the shadow of Wagner hangs over everything.
You can't avoid it. At some point, you've got to
face up to it and do it. Wagner, of course,
is immensely complicated because of what happened to his music
in the third right, among others, and so that makes
trying to find a perspective on the story of Wagner difficult.
(36:46):
The other thing which is difficult is that I think
at the time that we made the film, which was
for the hundred anniversary of his death, we reckon that
there were more books about Wagner than any other person
who had ever lived, including Jesus Christ and including Napoleon.
So you're suddenly faced with this mountain of information. When
(37:10):
we were planning the film about Vargner, we didn't really
know that it would be either that short or that long.
We just knew it was a big subject would require
big film, and so we were lucky in that I
had already been approached by Vittorio Seraro, great Oscar winning cameraman.
Have you got a project that would interest me? Yes, sir,
I have. It's called I'm there, he said. So we
(37:32):
got Victoria's Steraro straight away. Richard Burton, oddly enough, was
not the first choice. It was Albert Finnie, who I
had worked with before, wouldn't give me a start date,
and of course we were under some pressure to have
a start date that we could stick to. And in
fact that the whole film of seven hours forty five minutes,
it only took seven months to film. I mean it
wasn't long, and about three months then to edit. But
(37:54):
going back to the main subject. When we started on
the project, I mentioned this chat earlier deck John Culshaw.
John Culshaw had recorded many of Wagner operas, and he
took me to meet Wagner's grandson, Wolfgang. And Wolfgang and
I got very drunk with John Culshaw and Volkang's wife.
I think he was then his mistress, but became his
(38:15):
wife at a hotel in Bustledorff. And at the end
of this long drunken lunch, he said, making this film,
you'll find two important pieces of advice. He said. The
one is that as you go on, you were discovered
that everybody, without exception, knows exactly where my grandfather was
(38:36):
on the third Thursday of the fourth month of eighteen
seventy two. He said, you will even find and it
turned out to be true. You will even find somebody
who knows how many eggs he had for breakfast and
how long he cooked the eggs for. That was turned
out to be absolutely true. But then the other thing
he said was you have to understand about my grandfather
(38:56):
that if he were alive today, we're talking about the
end of He said, it's the only one place he
would want to work. He'd go to Hollywood straight away.
Hollywood all has all the technical needs and money and
so on and so on. He'd be straight in there
in Hollywood. I think that would have been a shock
for Hollywood. But nonetheless, those two pieces of advice were kept.
(39:19):
They would like Manchester. They kept me going and kept
me sane all the time. Richard Burton was very confused
about why I'd chosen him. What role do Burton and
Olivier and Vanessa Redgrave play if you have no announcers,
what do they do with their hosts on camera? No,
it's a drama. It's not a documentary. It's a drama.
So Richard Richard Burton plays Richard Wagner, Vanessa Redgrave plays Kozma,
(39:45):
his wife, and the Three Great Nights Olivia, Richardson and Gilgud.
They played the three Ministers of Luding, the second of
Bavaria and Ludwing the second later in life, was Wagner's
principal patron. In fact, the famous Ring Cycle is dedicated
to my co creator, Ludwiger Bavarious. An extraordinary situation. Once
(40:07):
Olivia was on board, of course, everybody wanted to be
in the film because they wanted to be with Olivia
or they wanted to be with Burton. Richard got a
bit annoyed by this, and it said to me one day,
said why the hell did you choose me? And I said, well, Richard, Firstly,
you're both called Richard, how about that? Secondly, you talked
too much, how about that? Thirdly you definitely drink too much.
(40:29):
And fourthly, you have an indescribable charm, as I'm sure
the original Wagner did, otherwise he couldn't have got away
with what he did. And lastly, I said, don't take
this the wrong way. You both have a strong element
of genius and that I want to celebrate. I mean,
the crucial point about the Wagner film is that it
(40:52):
explores as a drama written by a very good English
dramatist called Charles Wood who wrote Charge the Light Brigade
you might know who actually wrote the Beatles film Help
is that it explores what was the politics of Germany
at that time, in the middle of the nineteenth century,
and Wagner was absolutely determined to unify Germany, to make
(41:14):
it a power in the land. And having failed to
do that by burning down an opera house, which is
what he did, or he was involved in the burning
down of an opera, then issuing endless pamphlets about this,
that and everything you ever heard of, finally thought, well,
there any way to do it is to write a
huge music drama, the ring Cycle for for operas, because
(41:34):
that will show them, that will show them what the
real purpose of being a united Germany is. And of
course that led to Pitland, that made it very, very complicated.
But I think that the most telling image in the
whole film. This was a guy who had wanted notices
published all over Germany, dead or alive, Wagner five dollars.
(41:56):
That was certainly a part of it. He was on
the run from creditors, from political adversaries, from people who
wanted to do him down. Finally, in August eighteen seventy six,
this time, and little man, he was only about five
ft three or five ft four, stood on the top
of a hill behind which was this theater he had
(42:16):
built with Ludwig's money, the theater in Byroid, and the
crowned heads of Europe came up to say hello, Mr Bagnets,
and honor to meet you. Can you imagine an artist
sent to stage greeting the crown heads of Europe. I
mean that that's never happened, since it probably happened a
(42:37):
bit in the time of the Greeks, but that's it.
This was an artist, a musician, a composer, and yet
he was sent to stage, not all these conniving, mendacious
politicians courtiers. Now you spent your entire career over there.
If you were, you never lived in America, you never
lived in Los Angeles and made films in California. Well,
(42:57):
I did a huge series called All You Need Is Love,
The History of American Popular Music, where I mean I
was camped in the United States for a year tracking
down everybody. But you never wanted to relocate here and
make film. You've made documentary films and narrative films. You
never wanted to become just a regular filmmaker shooting narrative
films over here and make I think I would want
(43:17):
to say that I never had the opportunity. Nobody ever
asked me. I mean, I just kind of plodded on
doing my own things. I mean, I've worked at the BBC.
As I mentioned, I left the BBC after about five
years because I felt it was very restricting. And I've
been a freelance ever since. And as you mentioned, I
mean I've made rather a lot of films. I mean,
I mean about a hundred and twenty films entirely as
a freelance, trying to find the money than doing it,
(43:40):
than getting it on television, and so on and so
on and so on. I'm a one man band, a
one man band. Indeed. This episode was produced by Kathleen Russo,
Kerry Donahue, and Zach McNeice. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.
I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing. Is brought to you
(44:00):
by iHeart Radio
Host
Alec Baldwin
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.