“Fresh – that’s exactly the reaction we wanted”, says Pierre Rissient, assistant director of Jean?Luc Godard’s masterpiece Breathless which is being re-released to cinemas 50 years after it was made. It’s true; Breathless is a startling example of the French new wave and still has a lively, improvised feel to it.

It’s the story of a low-life gangster, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo, who steals a car in Marseille and drives to Paris, killing a policeman en route, to hook up with old flame Jean Seberg and dodge the cops. It’s classic b-movie stuff, but lifted by the sprightly, lively feel, moving camera and lovely performances.

Rissient was just 22 when he worked on the iconic film, Godard 29, and the Parisian is convinced that was a bit part of the film’s look and appeal. The sprightly 73-year-old explained: “We were all very young, so we could work strange hours and run up and down the streets of Paris with no problem. We made it in August, which in Paris is very quiet, there are fewer people around so we could work in a much freer way.”

In fact, as Rissient revealed, making the film look so innovative and lively came from a very unusual source: “The French post office had these little trolleys, for carrying and delivering the mail. So we grabbed one and had the cinematographer Raoul Coutard sitting in with his camera. It was quite funny, because we were wheeling him around the Champs Elysees after the actors and all you could see poking out of this trolley was the top of his head.”

The assistant director of Breathless – Pierre Rissient

The film has an iconic feel to it, partly because of the famous shot of Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo walking down the Champs Elysees, she in a Herald Tribune t-shirt, he in sunglasses, cigarette dangling from his lips. “She was a delight” Rissient said of his female star, “She could speak French with an American accent, but that was the part so she fitted it perfectly, and she had radiance – with almost no make-up. She had a bad life, I saw her years later and she was sad, and had an awful end, but she was a lovely girl.” Seberg committed suicide, whereas Belmondo is still working in France: “He was a student actor, he was very inexperienced, but it all worked,” Said Rissient.

As for the famously grumpy, sometimes violent Godard, Rissient said: “I never had a problem with him. We worked hard together and he liked to talk about movies, but I never saw that other side of him – never. I saw him years later and see him from time to time, and he is always nice to me.”

Rissient admitted that the many references in Breathless to film noir are no coincidence: “Of course, we were watching hundreds of film noirs, Humphrey Bogart films and marvellous American films. We were very influenced by them, totally – but we also wanted to make a French film. If you go from Kiss Me Deadly backwards (1955) that was the period were were heavily influenced by. But of course we were also watching French films. There was a period in the 1930s which is almost forgotten now, but was very strong in the history of French cinema and we loved those films too.”

A huge part of the reason Breathless looks so sharp is the jump-cutting. Rather than Belmondo’s character walking up to the cop, shooting him, getting in the car and driving away, we see the two of them together, a close-up of a gun, a falling body and a car zooming away. It’s a sort of filmic shorthand, and works brilliantly. At the time it must have looked revolutionary, but Rissient argued: “It’s obviously a very interesting part of the film, but I can’t say it was the first time anyone had ever done it. Some filmmakers had used this technique before, but it certainly works in our film. The reason we had to do it was because sometimes we had continuity issues, and the lighting was different or too difficult, like in the corridor scene, so we had to jump forward. It moves the story though.”

The influence of Breathless should not be underestimated. Between 1958 and 1963 an astonishing 170 French filmmakers directed their first features under the new wave banner. Rissient did not join them, waiting until 1977 to direct the first of two films, Alibis, but is happier thinking about his future than looking back too much. He is now involved in promoting South African film Life Above All, which received a lot of attention and acclaim at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. “I am not a businessman,” he said, “But I want to continue to support interesting films.”

Rissient may not be excited about looking back into the past too much, but is happy to answer one last question – about where Breathless stands in the history of cinema: “I think it was the start of a new chapter in French cinema, it kick-started the new wave of French films and was exciting – it was an exciting time. I like French cinema at the moment, but we were trying to do something new.”

Breathless: 50th Anniversary is out now in cinemas and on DVD/Blu-ray September 13th

MIKE MARTIN

John Lasseter—co-founder of Pixar, the history-making computer animation studio, chief creative officer of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios; and the principal creative advisor to Walt Disney Imagineering— is one busy guy. Always at the forefront of what can be accomplished within animation, Lasseter is so excited for Walt Disney Animation Studio’s release, THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG – on DVD and Blu-ray June 21st – which marks the return of the musical fairytale with a Princess at the centre.

John, how did THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG come about?
Ed Catmull and I, the day I returned to the Walt Disney Animation Studios, said that we wanted to bring back John Musker and Ron Clements. So, once we brought them back, I empowered them to come up with their own project. I mentioned to them one idea that I had, just a nugget of an idea at Pixar. I love the story of “The Frog Prince,” and I love New Orleans. And I thought that it would be a great place to set a story like that…and that’s all I mentioned to them. We always ask for the directors to come back to us with not just one idea, but three ideas…and they came back with nine ideas. These guys were so prolific, they’re fantastic. And one of them was THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG—they had this wonderful twist on the story, where the main character, Tiana, kisses the frog, but she’s not a real princess, she gets turned into a frog as well. That was their clever twist on it. They wanted it to be a musical, set in New Orleans, and they wanted Randy Newman to write the music which, of course, I loved, because I’ve worked with Randy Newman on all of the movies that I’ve directed. Randy grew up in both New Orleans and Los Angeles. He would go every summer to New Orleans, so he knows the city and its music. It’s like he was born with it. It’s in his DNA, and so I think he was a phenomenal choice for it.

Why the return to fairy tale animation now?
I’ve always loved animation it’s the reason why I do what I do for a living – the films of Walt Disney. This art form is so spectacular and beautiful. And I never quite understood the feeling amongst animation studios that audiences today only wanted to see computer animation. It’s never about the medium that a film is made in, it’s about the story. It’s about how good the movie is. And so one of the first things that I did when I came back to the Walt Disney Animation Studios was to ask John Musker and Ron Clements to come back to the studio and just empowered them to say, “Come up with a movie that you really want to tell.” And THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG was born. In glorious Disney fairy tale animation. It’s just spectacular.

How is THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG a continuation of this incredibly rich legacy that is Disney Animation?
You know, what’s exciting about THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, is that it’s the return to the sincere fairy tale. It’s a return to the musical, which hasn’t been done in quite a while. You know, it’s so classically Disney in every way, yet it’s brand new, it’s something you’ve never seen before. And that’s what’s so exciting about this. When you sit and watch THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, I mean, I helped make the movie, but I sit there and I watch it and I think, “I forgot how much I love this!” It’s all those things combined, the animation, the sincere fairy tale, the musical, the great characters, the talking animals, the princess, the prince, all these things combined, it’s so classically Disney yet it’s so completely original.

Tell me a little bit more about the story of THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG
The story of THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG is about a fantastic character named Tiana. She is such a strong character. She’s a waitress, but she wants to own her own restaurant. It was her father’s dream that she’s carried on, and she works double, triple shifts to raise money to buy this old sugar mill that she thought would make a great great restaurant right in New Orleans. And on the verge of getting her restaurant, someone buys it out from under her and her entire dream is just pulled out from under her.

So at this moment, she does what she said she would never do, she wishes on the evening star, which is what her best friend Charlotte always does, because Charlotte only wants to marry a prince—Tiana is more practical—but she finally does wish upon an evening star. And then, she looks down and sees a frog and thinks, “Oh great, a practical joker,” you know. And she’s at a masquerade ball and she’s dressed as a princess. She looks down and she says, “I take it you want a kiss now,” and the frog answers, [IN A FRENCH ACCENT] “Kissing would be nice, yes?”

And it freaks her out because this frog is talking, and she finds out this is a frog that claims he’s actually a prince. So he cons her into kissing her. But instead of the frog turning into a prince, she actually turns into a frog, because she’s not a real princess, it was a costume party. So now here’s a prince, and here’s Tiana as a frog, and they have to travel the Bayou to turn this spell around, they have to find this voodoo fairy godmother named Mama Odie to reverse the spell that Dr. Facilier, the evil voodoo practitioner, has put on the prince, and now, Tiana.

Along the way they meet this fantastic alligator named Louis, who’s a jazz trumpet-playing alligator, and he’s hilarious, he’s fantastic. And they also meet a firefly, a Cajun firefly named Ray. And these two become close friends with Tiana and Prince Naveen. And it turns into this fantastic journey for them to become human again. And along the way, they might fall in love. I don’t want to give away the ending. And I’m not gonna say anymore than that.

Could you talk about the filmmakers?
It was really exciting to get John Musker and Ron Clements to come back to the Studio. I went to College with John Musker, so we’ve known each other for a long, long time. I think they are Disney. When you think about the movies they made, especially THE LITTLE MERMAID and ALADDIN, I mean, those are two of the great Disney animated films. And I think that it was so exciting to get them to come back to the Disney Studios.

In the end, when they came back, we just wanted them back at the Studio, because they belong at the Disney Studios. So when they came back, I said, I want you to do a movie that you really want to do, something from your heart. And so we had talked about a bunch of ideas and there was just a nugget of an idea that I have had up at Pixar, which is to do a retelling of “The Frog Prince” set in New Orleans, and that’s all I had.

And so I just mentioned that to them and they took it and created the most original and fresh twist to the story, and they came up with THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG. And they wanted it set in New Orleans and they wanted it to be a Musical. So it was so exciting. I think John Musker and Ron Clements are just phenomenal in their leadership, their storytelling, their creativity, their knowledge of animation, their knowledge of filmmaking, it’s just fantastic.

Tell us about Tiana –
I’m so proud of Tiana. Tiana is such a strong character. She is the newest Disney Princess, but unlike the other Disney Princesses, she’s not waiting around for a Prince to come. She starts out not even a Princess. She’s a waitress that wants her own restaurant. It’s a dream her father had and she works so hard for this, and what she learns through this adventure is that life is a balance of things, of hard work, but also love. You can’t live without love and she just grows tremendously as a character through this movie. And she’s so beautiful, the way she’s designed and the way she’s drawn. I’m so proud of this character.

And Prince Naveen?
Every fairy tale needs to have a Prince and we have a fantastic Prince. Prince Naveen, from the mythical country of Maldonia, and he is terrific. He’s so fun. He’s sort of this playboy, a rich kid character, but he has been turned into a frog by the evil Dr. Facilier. But through being a frog, he learns a lot from Tiana. He learns a lot about responsibility and he falls truly in love for the first time in his life. And he’s just such a funny character.

Talk about the two sides of magic.
One of the things I love about putting the film in New Orleans is the magic. And we have both sides — the dark and the light — side of magic in New Orleans. And so we have Dr. Facilier, the bad guy and he is, I tell you, he is one of the best Disney villains that’s ever been done. He’s so charismatic, charming. He has a musical number and it just stops the show, it’s so beautifully animated. Then we have the sort of Fairy Godmother, you might say. Mama Odie, and she is just so funny and so charming. And she lives in the deepest, darkest part of the bayou in this shrimp boat that’s stuck up into this tree. And she has her seeing-eye snake, Ju Ju with her. She’s really funny, she steals the show.

And the two characters they meet in the bayou?
After Tiana and Prince Naveen are turned into frogs, they travel the bayou looking for Mama Odie to turn them back into humans. On the way, they meet two characters who are just phenomenal. One is an alligator – that is a jazz playing alligator—he plays a trumpet, his name is Louis. And he is so sweet, so funny, and he wants to be human, too, so he could play jazz with all the big bands. He’s kind of a scaredy cat, but that’s what so charming about him. He’s so funny.

And they also meet a Cajun firefly named Ray, and he’s got so much heart—he’s lovesick, he’s so madly in love with the love of his life. The main characters learn a lot about true love from Ray—he’s really just so funny and so sweet.

You returned in 2006 and now it’s 2009. It took you only three years to make this beautiful film?
Yes.

Is it a risk to bring back a classic animated movie?
Animation, for me, it’s a wonderful art form. I never understood why the studios wanted to stop making animation, you know? Maybe they felt that the audiences around the world only wanted to watch computer animation. I didn’t understand that, because I don’t think ever in the history of cinema did the medium of a film make that film entertaining or not. What I’ve always felt is, what audiences like to watch are really good movies. And my partner at Pixar, Andrew Stanton, said this—and I thought it was true—that it seemed like 2D animation became the scapegoat for bad storytelling. What I don’t want to watch are bad movies. I believe that if there’s a studio in the world that should be doing the highest quality classic animation, it’s the studio that started it all, the Walt Disney Animation Studios. This is a gorgeous art form. Now, there are subject matters that lend themselves to classic animation, and subject matters that lend themselves to computer animation. And at Pixar, we’ve always prided ourselves on choosing the right subject matter for computer animation at that place and time, because computer animation is constantly growing in what we can do. And that’s why back in 1991, when we started Toy Story, everything that was produced by computer animation looked like plastic, so why not make the main characters plastic, you know, toys? It’s perfect, right? And so it’s that kind of knowledge. Knowledge of what the computer can and can’t do. And the same goes for classic animation. To be honest, look at Snow White, newly out on HD and Blu-Ray DVD. Honestly, look at the dwarfs, like Dopey, at how brilliant those dwarfs are, with the squash and stretch. Even today, that would be really, really hard to do in computer animation. There is some things you can and can’t do. And I think when you watch, for instance, the character Louis in THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, the way he’s animated, that would be very hard to do in computer animation. Plus, I think the painted backgrounds are absolutely stunningly beautiful. There’s something really special about this medium. I don’t believe audiences have grown past it. I think what audiences love is to be entertained—thoroughly, deeply entertained, and that’s what I’ve always set out to do. And I think there’s something really special about a sincere fairy tale, and something special about a musical, and we haven’t seen that in a while. I think it’s really great, so I’m excited.

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Aussie director Russell Mulcahy has certainly had an interesting career. Starting off making music videos, he broke into the film world with his bizarre but effective 1984 horror movie Razorback, about a wild pig that terrorises the locals in the Aussie outback. He then hit the big time with Highlander (and we’ll ignore the fact he also made Highlander II), following it with Blue Ice and The Shadow.

In recent years he’s been prolific in both film and TV, getting a bit of a career resurgence recently with Resident Evil: Extinction, The Scorpion King: Rise Of A Warrior and the Golden Globe nominated TV movie, Prayers For Bobby, starring Sigourney Weaver.

His latest movie is the unusual neo-noir Give ‘Em Hell, Malone, starring Thomas Jane, Ving Rhames and Elsa Pataky. With the movie coming out on DVD on Monday May 17th in the UK, Movie Muser’s Tim Isaac spoke to Russell about Give ‘Em Hell, Malone, as well as his upcoming projects, including the pilot for a TV version of Teen Wolf, and Bait, a 3D movie featuring sharks attacking people in the supermarket (no really, it is).

So how did you get involved with Give ‘Em Hell, Malone?
We’d been trying another film on the road, based on a book I own called The Watcher, and while that was going on the script for Malone came along, so we decided to do that.

What did you think when you first read the script for Give ‘Em Hell, Malone, as it is quite unusual?
I guess that’s why I liked it. It seemed to be taking a different direction than is usual for that genre. With any movie I like to take the left hand fork, and Malone definitely gave me the opportunity to do that.

So how would you describe the film’s aesthetic? It’s a bit film noir, it’s a bit modern, it’s a bit 1940s…
Yeah, it’s modern noir. We wanted to set it in a no town, no time place, where the mixture of the classic noir world, plus the cell phones, plus everything else came together. It’s in its own world.

Are you a big fan of film noir?
Oh yes, I’m a fan of many genres, but obviously I grew up and loved films like Killers and many, many noir films. I think they broke the rules, and they generated cinematic creativity. Usually they were b-films and I think in the b-film genre you get a lot more room to experiment. It’s just a great genre to work in, both cinematically and also character-wise, I think.

Particularly visually, Malone is a very stylish movie. Did it take long to come up with the look of the film?
Umm, not really. Because Thomas Jane and I worked closely with Mark [Hosack], the writer, and also I’m good friends with Tim Bradsheet, who’s a wonderful graphic artist. So we were all on the same wavelength of where we wanted things to go.

The opening shoot-out is particularly impressive and kinetic. How do you go about designing and putting together something like that for a film, as it seems like an immensely complicated thing to do?
Well, I guess it’s partly setting up the situation, and also things like I wanted when the bullets hit, whether it’s a wall or a person, I wanted you to feel it. I wanted the camera to be there so it’s in your face, even to the point where it’s under the floor and you see all the bloody footprints as the feet walk over you. I just wanted grab the audience in the opening minutes and also show them different angles on that scenario.

You mentioned that Thomas Jane worked closely with you and the screenwriter, so was he involved in Malone from fairly early on in the process?
Very much so. We talked a lot about his look, the style of the cars, the guns, not so much the cinematic style, even though he’s now a director – he directed a film called Dark Country, which is really good – but he does have a very good visual style. Talking with Tim Bradsheet, we talked about colours, angles and just accentuating everything, so it was taking life and turning the volume up to 11.

The film definitely has the sense of being the start of a series. Is there likely to be a sequel, and if so would you like to direct it?
Oh yeah. We had a great time. We had a wonderful supporting cast come in, people I’ve worked with before, like Leland Orser. A lot of people just jumped on board and came up for the weekend or came up for three days and did their bit, so it was a lot of reuniting with people I’ve worked with before. It was just a very simple idea. What I like about these films is that they seem to be complicated, but they’re actually about a very simple premise, and keeping the audience wondering why the simple premise is so important to someone.

I was looking over your filmography, and it seems you’ve delved into a lot of different genres over the years. Was that a conscious choice on your part?
Well, probably. To be honest my favourite genre is the horror-thriller genre, and they’re the films I gravitate to as a filmgoer. But I also do love making films on much more sober, more human subjects, such as a Geoffrey Rush film I did called Swimming Upstream, and then even exploring humour and comedy such as The Real McCoy or Queer As Folk [US TV version]. So yeah, I have various tastes, which is like my iPod on shuffle, where it’ll go anywhere. I’m pretty eclectic in my tastes.

So you don’t have any preconceptions about, ‘I want to do this sort of film next’, it’s more about what comes along and what excites you…
It comes down to what I would like to see. Generally I feel, since I was a kid, that I like the creepy movies, but I like most genres and feel comfortable with them, and that when I direct them I’m expanding my knowledge as a filmmaker and as a human being. I think it helps one grow not to just get stuck in one genre.

You made a very different sort of film just before Give ‘Em Hell, Malone, called Prayer For Bobby…
Again yeah, a very passionate human story. It has Sigourney Weaver in a true story, and again done completely from the heart. What I stopped doing, well, not that I ever really started, but you have to wake in the morning and go to the set feeling like you’re making this film from your heart. The budget and whatever takes second place. It’s whether you’re feeling it in your soul, because that’s where the inspiration comes from. And sometimes it can be just because it’s going to be pure fun, fabulous entertainment. But those sort of films, like Prayers For Bobby, hold a great personal responsibility, and are more nerve wracking, because it is such a real tangible subject [it’s about a religious mother coming to terms with her son’s death, after he kills himself when she rejects his burgeoning gay identity].  Whereas Malone, it’s fun doing it, and you’re dealing with wonderful fiction and you can stretch your boundaries and make your world bigger.

Is it correct you’re working on the TV remake of Teen Wolf?
We’ve just finished the pilot for Teen Wolf for MTV, which is branching out and doing more dramatic pieces. The pilot is not really a remake of the Michael J. Fox film. It’s still about teenagers, but this isn’t so much about the humour. This is much more scary and has a more serious tone. Obviously it still has humour in it, but we’re going for a much more serious tone and more scary.

So if the tone is going to be quite different, do you think the people, particularly on the internet, who are going ‘don’t touch my 80s classic’…
Well, I love the 80s one too. So we have not gone and tried to remake that. Instead it’s inspired by it, and then we take it at a different angle, so it’s a lot more real. The kids are real. The situation is more real. It’s taken seriously – in an entertaining way and with some humour in too – but it’s more a mix of horror and some good humour. We always said though that it had to feel real and very ‘now’, so the music is very modern, except when it goes into score, and then it becomes very cinematic. But the classic Michael J. Fox movie is its own wonderful and very much cherished entity, and the new version is its own creature.

I also understand you’ve got a movie called Bait coming up?
Yes, I actually wrote the script for Bait. We’re actually filming it in Australia, in the water, in a giant tank. It’s basically about sharks in supermarket and its car park. Basically the supermarket and the car park is one level below street level, and people are trapped in there with a bunch of tiger sharks.

It does sound like an inspired b-movie premise.
Yeah, and we’re shooting it in 3D. It’s gonna be quite an adventure in many respects. It’s got a lot of shocks and it’s gonna be quite a ride, so I’m looking forward to it. We’re still in pre-production at the moment. I’m currently in LA putting the finishing touches on the Teen Wolf pilot, and then we start shooting Bait June 1st in Australia, so that won’t be out until next year. I’m very passionate about it, firstly because I wrote it, and secondly because I think it’s a very original piece. I want to make sure people are scared of the supermarket!

Thank you, Russell.

Give ‘Em Hell Malone is released on DVD on 17th May courtesy of Momentum Pictures.

Since he emerged to great acclaim in Alan Clarke’s Scum 30 years ago, Ray Winstone has become one of Britain’s busiest and most popular screen actors.  Key highlights in his film career include Nil By Mouth, The War Zone, Sexy Beast, Last Orders, Cold Mountain, The Proposition, The Departed, Beowulf and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

In 44 Inch Chest (released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on Monday May 10th) he plays Colin, whose life is turned upside down when his wife Liz (Joanne Whalley) reveals that she is leaving him for her young French lover (Melvil Poupaud). He reacts  violently, and his close knit group of friends (played by Ian McShane, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson and Stephen Dillane) rally round to offer their support. They kidnap the cuckold, whom they call Loverboy, and in a deserted house spend the evening deciding what terrible revenge to take upon him.

How long have you been connected with 44 Inch Chest?
I was aware of the script about seven or eight years ago, after Sexy Beast because it’s by the same writers, Louis Mellis and David Scinto. I love their writing, so I got hold of it and read it. We knew it was going to be a very difficult film to make anyway because it feels like a stage play in some ways. That’s where director Malcolm Venville came in. It’s staged the way it is because it’s in someone’s head, a lot of it.  Whether you get that when you watch the film is kind of irrelevant, in a way.

You and Ian McShane were pitching the script to potential financiers weren’t you?
It took quite a while to get the film off the ground, between me and Ian McShane. I was punting it a lot.  You go into places and they ask what you’ve got and you say you’ve got this. I was sitting in the Chateau Marmont in LA one day having a drink, as you do, and I came across Richard Brown, who became one of the producers on the film. He asked what I had and I showed him this. The title alone gets people interested because they think they’re going to get a gangster film. He said ‘send it to me,’ so I did. Then my agent in America also represents Malcolm, so that’s how I met him. He’s got some soul, which I think the film needed, and it all kind of fell into place from there. That’s how your luck goes sometimes, you meet the right person in the right place, and it kind of took off. But it was still a very difficult film to make in  a way because you’re in one location most of the time.

That’s true, the story unfolds in one dingy room with this group of guys goading each other on to do something nasty to Loverboy, doesn’t it?
It’s very difficult to stage that. How many times can you move people around a room without it feeling like you’re looking out front and staging a play? But I think Malcolm achieved it with his vision and his eye for film.

Did you enjoy your role as producer on this?
Not really. I like doing what I do. I’m an executive producer, which means you don’t get paid basically, but I’m very proud to be associated with this kind of film. To be a part of it from the beginning, that’s an accolade that me and Ian McShane deserve. So that’s okay, I can live with that. The process of actually making the film, and turning up every day and going to work with the talent that we had around us was phenomenal.

As far as the casting goes, did you quickly settle on the actors that you ended up with?
There were a lot of people approached to play these parts. Some read the script and didn’t get it, or didn’t like it. They didn’t like the language, for whatever reasons, and that’s fine as well. My Dad would probably say ‘what do I want to go to the cinema and listen to swearing for?’. I think the film’s got a lot more in it than that, that just happens to be the way people speak in certain places.

How do you address the issue of the strong language in the film, and the dark implications of the action?
To me it’s like listening to Shakespeare in a way, without the five beats. There’s something very poetic about the way these boys write, I just wish there were more writers like them. Sometimes all you hear about a script is that an actor gets it and strips it and strips it and all that’s left is the visuals. That’s fantastic, that’s cinema, but it’s also great to listen to the words. I love films like A Man For All Seasons, Robert Bolt wrote a script that stands up today and that’s all dialogue. Okay this is a working man’s version, dare I say it, it’s a film that hopefully keeps you locked in on the dialogue because visually there’s nowhere else you can go other than that room.  But I think it’s shot in a way that complements it.

In the end it is a film about conscience isn’t it?
It’s about conscience, it’s about a man having a breakdown, and a man who loves someone too much. It’s a really funny subject, one I haven’t seen before. It’s a very different film than any I’ve seen before, about actually smothering someone you love. In a way it reminds me a lot of The War Zone, a film I did about incest. It’s getting to know someone within the film and maybe feeling sorry for them. Seeing the pain he’s in through that love, and then finding out what he actually did – and asking yourself how you feel about him afterwards.

How was it for Melvil Poupaud, playing the French guy on the receiving end of some brutal treatment?
Several people were offered the part, it really needed a fine actor and a brave actor as well, to come in and not speak a word. It’s all physical, it’s all body language. Originally it was going to be an Italian waiter, but there’s something about the French [chuckles]. Melvil’s a talent, a big star in France, so it was a very brave thing for him to come and do this, sitting there and listening to us waffle on all day with a bag on his head.

Was it not intense for you too, playing a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown?
That’s the thing about the part, because from beginning to end you’re in a certain state, with this nervous breakdown. He’s getting worse and worse as the film goes on. That’s the killer, really. But I kind of enjoy being intense because I’m not that intense when I’m not working. Of course it was tiring. By the time I finished I was completely shattered but that’s only for a couple of days. Whenever you finish a job and your holiday’s about to start your body knows it and turns off for a while.”

The film also conveys the complex relationship between these five friends doesn’t it, with a lot unsaid, and issues underlying their threatened abuse of their kidnap victim?
I think you get to know them as the film goes on, what they’re about. It’s that thing of your mates egging you on, ‘Who is he?  Do the bastard!’.  Some people do it and some don’t, without giving too much away. They’re all geezers.  When the time comes, it takes a certain sort of man – if you want to call him a man – to kill someone, or hurt someone. There’s people who are capable of that, but do you put them in the same category as another human being?  I don’t know.

How did Joanne Whalley feel as the only woman on set?
She’s a top girl. She’s one of the geezers, a stunning girl and a great actress. I love her to death.

How did you feel about your character, Colin, by the end of the film?
I felt for him, I did, even with what he did I felt for him. He can be a bit of pussy can’t he, over loving. But there for the grace of God can go anyone of us, I guess.

Does it seem curious to you now that you’re able to use your name to help get films like this made and at the same go off to work with the likes of Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese?
Crazy, innit?

Is this the kind of stuff you’d never have dared dream of when you were starting out?
I wouldn’t have even thought about it, it didn’t even enter my head. Getting a film like Scum, when I was 17 or 18, I didn’t even understand what it was. I was playing this geezer in a film. I had no idea, no concept of that or where it would take me. I’d have loved it, loved to have been a film actor, but people like me didn’t do that.

Did you not even take someone like Michael Caine as your example?
He was a great influence, I love Michael Caine. And then later on Bob Hoskins and all that. But I never put myself into that bracket because they were real actors, proper actors, good actors. I never saw myself as that because I suppose it was all a little bit of a game.

Was there a moment when you suddenly considered yourself as having ‘made it’ as  a film actor yourself?
I could never believe I’d be on a film set at all, let alone one with Scorsese or Gary Oldman and Tim Roth. I like them, and they’re really talented boys. And just down to working with Malcolm Venville on this, they’re geniuses, really clever people. You’re just a cog in that wheel going along, and hopefully you’ll become a part of that and help make the film they want to make and help turn it into something special. I think you feel like that on any film you do.”

How does Hollywood regard you, do you think?
A little fat geezer from the East End!  I don’t know, I get a really good reception there. It’s almost like they understand me more than the industry does here, I get that vibe about it but that’s okay.  They look at us English actors with a lot of respect, you know, and  they’re ready to take a bit more of a chance on the parts that we play. Here you have to create the work for yourself, and then it can be a little bit cruel, but that’s life.

44 INCH CHEST is out on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on Monday, May 10th, 2011.

And you could win a copy of the Blu-ray in out great comp – to find out how CLICK HERE.

For the first part of Mike Martin’s interview with Jenny Agutter, click here.

Say the words The Railway Children to an adult and you will usually get the response “aaah, sweet film”, but watch the digitally remastered version and you might see a different film says its star Jenny Agutter.

The great British actress, who plays older sibling Bobbie Waterbury in the Children’s classic, says watching the cleaned-up film again even surprised her: “It’s a slightly darker film than the one we all have in our heads I think – that’s what makes it a great film. It’s very honest, harsh even sometimes.”

Explaining how she had forgotten certain scenes Agutter explained: “The scene where us children are collecting for Mr Perks for a present, and he perceives it as charity, which he cannot abide – that’s quite a tough, hard scene. He cannot abide the thought of these children thinking of him in that way. Of course (director) Lionel Jeffries is such a genius he manages to sneak in some humour – when we are out collecting things we ask one man, who replies ‘Perks? Can’t stand the man!”

The Railway Children tells of a family who are moved out of their comfortable Edwardian home to go and live in the country when the head of the family mysteriously disappears. There are some scenes that still shock Agutter: “The maid – we have a horrible maid, who slaps my brother round the face – it’s unpleasant stuff, but you need that to feel for these children. There is also Aunt Emma, who is scary but in a more comedy way.”

The remastered edition looks better than ever, surprising given the film’s limited budget says Agutter: “We had a great cinematographer in Arrthur Ibbetson, he should have won a Bafta. We had a budget of £350,000 which was tiny, but he managed to make it look so good. The costumes too were just lovely.”

The timeless appeal of the story has a simple key says Agutter: “It’s really about the loss of innocence – children losing their child-like quality. My character in the film is absolutely about this, there’s a real journey there, she is forced to behave like an adult even though she is really just a child.”

A little-known fact is that Agutter had already played the part, in a TV series which came out before the film – and the rehearsal proved useful. “The film is much better than the TV series,” she insisted, “Because the film was the vision of one man – Lionel. He wrote a tight script and directed it, he made the film he wanted to make. So many times you get interference and the film ends up being ok but not great, but here it was his film, very much so.”

Jeffries created a great atmosphere on set and that comes across said Agutter: “It always comes from the top, and he let me and Sally Thomsett be ourselves, we got on really well. Even though she is older than me she is like a child, and I acted like her older sister, so it really worked I think. It’s such a shame Lionel isn’t here to meet up with us all again.”

The Railway Children: 40th Anniversary was out in cinemas 2nd April, and on DVD and Blu-ray 3rd May.

There’s little doubt Jamie Foxx is quite the dude. He’s won an Oscar for Ray and found success in drama, comedy and music. In Law Abiding Citizen, which is out on DVD and Blu-ray today (April 12th, 2010), he plays Nick Rice, the assistant District Attorney who Gerard Butler’s Clyde Shelton blames for the light sentence the killers of him family received, and who therefore is the subject of his cendetta. We spoke to Foxx about working with Butler and how he went about becoming a hotshot lawyer.

Tell us about working with Gerard Butler on LAW ABIDING CITIZEN?
At the end of the day the film all comes down to Gerry Butler.  We’re going live this movie through him.  We’re going to live through his emotions.  We’re going to live through his love of his daughter and his wife that he lost and also the anger that engulfs his whole being and so it’s really on him.  He’s doing a great job and then we react off of him.

He told me you and him had a lot of fun boys nights out.
His take on life is great he just, he embraces it and then he’s a spiritual cat as well.  He went to India and got in touch with his spirituality, which is great!

And what about your director, F. Gary Gray?
His eye is incredible. When you see the movie it looks great. Right off the bat you see it’s epic. He shoots it epic and not a lot of directors are able to do that. And his sensibility of how actors work is incredible.

So the film’s got some style?
The way the film looks. It just, you feel it, it’s heavy it’s deep. And the way he’s shooting you get the feeling that the city of Philadelphia is a character.  Those courtrooms we’re coming in and out of, he makes them come to life. Some of the shots are just incredible.

How did you prepare for your role as a hot-shot District Attorney?
I talked to DAs and I talked to defence attorneys.  They have a very, very different outlook on each other. My defence attorney teams, they hate DA’s because they think that DA’s are all about what they do – putting people in jail, the system. And DA’s despise defence attorneys because they handle some of the most scummy, law breaking people in the world. It’s an interesting world. They’re gladiators, and you know, they have to fight it our every day in court. You have to have that tough skin.

Was this helpful in developing your character, Nick Rice?
Well, we all understand that he’s a highly competitive guy.  He’s doing everything he can to get his conviction rate up to 99 – 100% and he’s moving up the career ladder, but the problem with that is when you start to take all of the emotion out of it, situation like Clyde’s (GERARD BUTLER) can happen.  I spoke to the defence lawyers to find out how they felt about prosecutors and they talked about how arrogant they thought they were.  I used that to develop the character, especially in the beginning of the film.

When you were doing your research into the justice system did you find the film to contain any truth?
Well, the thing is, the justice system is not a perfect system.  It has a lot of flaws to it and it’s the best system we’ve got, but at certain points its justice just can’t be served the way we want it to be served all the time.

The film plays incredibly well to audiences, people just go crazy.  Do you think it’s because there are so many shocking scenes this movie?
I think so and I think that’s what we need.  We’ve become so sensitive and I just want to collectively kick the whole society in the balls right now with a big steel shoed shoe.  I know the chances that F Gary took and to see the smiles he would have on his face and when Gerard’s character kills the guy in the cell, they were all laughing, “this is crazy!” You know its just time for that.

So after working on so many films over the years, do you prefer comedies or dramas?
Dramas are great but when you’ve got a great comedy there isn’t anything like it!

CLICK HERE to read our interview with Gerard Butler

Momentum Picture releases Law Abiding Citizen on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on April 12th, 2010