Interview
Josie Rourke: 'I was fighting to put a period in a period movie'
Charlotte Higgins
Starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot
Robbie, Mary Queen of Scots is a historical epic with oral sex, menstruation
and a diverse cast – thanks to the director making a bold move
from cutting-edge theatre
Making a bold move:
Someone
who is bold is not afraid to do things which involve risk or danger. (audaç,
audaz)
Cutting-edge theatre: Cutting-edge
techniques or equipment are the most advanced that there are in a particular
field.(teatre d’avantguarda, teatro de vanguardia)
Wed 2 Jan 2019 06.01 GMT
Josie Rourke kicks off her
heels and sums up her current punishing schedule with the words:
“Bouts of talking about myself, punctuated by having my hair
done.” We are in a grand London hotel, where Rourke is stationed to
publicise her debut feature film. “The only point of reference I have for all
this is Notting Hill,” she says, referring to the scene in the film where Hugh
Grant sneaks into a similarly grand hotel and, after stumbling
into a press junket, introduces himself as a reporter
from Horse & Houndand finds himself interviewing the cast of a sci-fi movie
he hasn’t seen.
Kicks off her heels: She takes off his shoes
Having my hair done: Go to the hairdresser
Stumbling: If you stumble, you put your foot down awkwardly while you are walking
or running and nearly fall over.
Press junket: Also called film promotion or film junket. Is the practice of promotion
specifically in the film industry, and usually occurs in coordination with the
process of film distribution. Generally includes press releases, advertising
campaigns, merchandising, franchising, media and interviews with the key people
involved with the making of the film, like actors and directors.
All this highly controlled pizzazz contrasts comically with Rourke’s life as the
artistic director of a small London theatre, the Donmar Warehouse, “where we
walk to rehearsals and make our own tea”. The film is
Mary Queen of Scots, which stars Saoirse Ronan in the title role; directing it
has wrought many changes for the 42-year-old,
Salford-born Rourke – not least exchanging the familiar embrace
of a 250-seat theatre for a drenched Scottish
hillside. “I’d be trying to direct more actors than you can even fit into the
Donmar while it rained horizontally into my ear. I remember feeling that there
had to be a German compound noun for that feeling when fewer Highland cattle
than you had booked actually turn up.”
Pizzazz: If you
say that someone or something has pizzazz, you mean that they are very
exciting, energetic, and stylish.
Rehearsals: A
rehearsal of a play, dance, or piece of music is a practice of it in
preparation for a performance.
Wrought: If
something has wrought a change, it has made it happen. An archaic past tense
and past participle of work.
Embrace:Hold
Drenched: Completely
wet; soaked
The film follows the relationship
between the Scottish queen and Elizabeth I, played by Margot Robbie. This is
well-worked dramatic territory, and Rourke’s film is full of the exquisite
costumes, dramatic battle scenes and eye-catching locations one associates with
historical films, including occasional bursts of over-the-top
period campery for good measure,
such as David Tennant’s lavishly bearded John
Knox who rails furiously against the unnatural spectacle of a woman on the
throne. That “whore of Babylon”, he thunders, that “false Queen”.
Over-the-top: You
describe something as over the top when you think that it is exaggerated, and
therefore unacceptable.
Period
campery: (De època,
de época?
For good measure: If you say that something is done for good measure, you mean that it
is done in addition to a number of other things. In addition, as well, besides,
to boot +
Lavishly: Extravagant; prodigal; wasteful
In other ways, though, the film is
startlingly unconventional. For a start, Rourke has imported from British
theatre a principle still unfamiliar in cinema: colour-blind casting. Bess of
Hardwick, for example, is played by Gemma Chan, while Thomas Randolph,
Elizabeth’s agent at Mary’s court, is portrayed by Adrian Lester. This has not
gone down well in certain quarters. “I sometimes feel,” says Rourke, “that
people’s reaction to a person of colour in a film is more an index of their
prejudices than about having a real issue with authenticity.”
And anyway, she says, turning a
story into a film is already an exercise in make-believe. “Representation is an
act of the imagination. Margot Robbie is Australian. Saoirse Ronan is Irish.
Jack Lowden is Scottish and is playing an English person, which was probably
the weirdest thing for people on set.”
Lester, she adds, was an obvious
first choice to play a shrewd diplomatic go-between. “Adrian was Peter Brook’s Hamlet. He knows more
about this period in history, because of his depth of experience as a classical
actor, than anyone else did on that set, except for perhaps Simon Russell Beale, who turned up one day to read Mary’s death warrant. Because of his exquisite finesse and subtlety as an
actor, he is better equipped to play an ambassador than anyone else I can think
of. Why would you not harness that talent
and knowledge?”
Shrewd: Astute
Go-between: A go-between is a person who takes messages between people who are
unable or unwilling to meet each other.
Simon
Russell Beale: Simon
Russell Beale (born 1961) is an English actor, author and music historian. Beale
has been described by The Independent as "the greatest stage actor of his
generation.
Turn up: If you
say that someone or something turns up, you mean that they arrive, often
unexpectedly or after you have been waiting a long time.
Death warrant: A death
warrant is an official document which orders that someone is to be executed as
a punishment for a crime.
Harness: Join
The other departure from convention reflects Rourke’s
feminist eye. Her film is based on My Heart Is My Own, a biography of Mary by
Cambridge history don John Guy that
attempts to rescue the Scottish Catholic queen from some of the more lurid claims made about her, some promoted by the English
Protestant court.
Don: A don is a lecturer at Oxford or Cambridge University in England.
Lurid: If you
say that something is lurid, you are critical of it because it involves a lot
of violence, sex, or shocking detail.
“What’s happened to Mary is that
she’s got a bit stuck in Tate Britain,”
says Rourke. “She’s a bit like one of those pre-Raphaelite paintings, of which
I’m not a great fan, where she is kind of a prone
victim who has either
just been killed or is
ready for sex. She has become either
a femme fatale governed by sexual appetites, or someone who is too wilful
to be competent. Elizabeth is usually set up as a counterpoint,
portrayed as iron-willed, calculating. I don’t think
any of those things are quite true.”
Stick / stuck / stuck: If something which can usually be moved sticks, it
becomes fixed in one position.
Tate Britain: Known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from
1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery.
Prone: Disposed to
Wilful: Obstinate
Counterpoint: Something that is a counterpoint to something else contrasts with it
in a satisfying way.
Iron-willed: The same than iron
Rourke attempts to present a more
subtle story, not just about “strong women”, but about two people who were also
“gigantically vulnerable, sometimes confused about what to do, trying to work
out what the political landscape was, fighting for the rights of their own
bodies – stuff that we do now that is sometimes missing from those narratives.”
The film has much to say about bodies:
about the queens’ different calculations about marriage and producing an heir;
about the violence done to women by men; about sexual pleasure; about physical closeness between women friends; about clothing as a
projection of power and desirability. When I last saw Rourke, several months
previously, she had been arguing with producers over the edit. She wanted to
include scenes that showed Mary having her period, and another that showed her
being given oral sex.
Closeness: Familiarity, nearness, intimacy
“I was fighting for a period in a
period movie,” she says. “Those were instructive discussions about how honest
we were being about women’s bodies and what they do, women’s pleasure and what
that is, and a queen’s body as a political canvas. I felt that
was something I hadn’t seen before, that I just really wanted to show. There
are not many of us who know what it feels like to be a crowned head of Europe –
but what we do know is what it’s like to fight for the rights of our bodies.”
Canvas: A piece of canvas or a similar material on which a painting is done,
usually in oils
She
got her way in the end:
the scenes are still there. “We need to show this stuff. It does need
normalising. A journalist asked me how hard it was to shoot the scene where
Mary has her period, and my answer was, ‘Not hard at all!’ There were six women in that room,
and it was probably the thing that just most easily staged itself. But it does
continue to freak some people out.”
As for the cunnilingus scene, Rourke
did not employ an intimacy director – a safeguarding role increasingly being
discussed in the performing arts. Rather, she worked with the choreographer
Wayne McGregor, who was movement director for the film. “I don’t think I’ve
ever done a sex scene without a movement director, without treating it as a
piece of choreography,” she says. “I hope the sex scenes feel truthful and
alive. To think in a language of movement helps remove embarrassment,
discomfort or shame.”
Rourke is still in a tiny minority as a woman director in the mainstream film
industry. But she is optimistic that this will change – and quickly. She was in
her mid-30s when she became artistic director of the Donmar in 2012. “My
experience in theatre is that the door opened a crack and let a few of us in –
and people just kept flowing through. It’s important that this film succeeds,
not because I am desperate for it to succeed, but so they will let a few more
women through. That is the pressure I feel.”
Tiny:
Mary Queen of Scots is released on
18 January.
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