Working For the Yankee Dollar: An Interview with Writer/Director Richard Jobson

Judge Adam Arseneau

June 14th, 2005

Ex-Skids front man Richard Jobson wrote, directed, produced, and contributed his own music for Sixteen Years of Alcohol, a semi-autobiographic tale of alcohol-fueled redemption on the streets of Edinburgh, his first feature film, released on DVD by Tartan Video.

Suffering a hard childhood, Frankie (Kevin McKidd, Trainspotting) turns to the streets as the leader of a street gang of skinhead hooligans, but soon finds solace in the last place he ever dreamed...the arms of a woman. Trying to abandon the violence of his past, he quits the drink and tries to move on with his life...only to find the past has a nasty way of catching up with you.

DVD Verdict was fortunate enough to speak to Mr. Jobson in the UK after a long night of post-production work on his new film, A Woman in Winter. He was kind enough to take a few minutes to be interviewed by Judge Adam Arseneau.

DVD Verdict: Tell me about how Sixteen Years of Alcohol came to be. What was the material originally based on?

Richard Jobson: It was originally based on a book which I wrote in 1987. It was a book that many people wanted to turn into a film, but I didn't really want them to do that. I thought they were going to take a particular route into the film; a very British social realism route. And a college of mine, Wong Kai-War...you know who he is, right?

DVDV: Of course.

RJ: Well, I love his films, and he had read my book, and contacted me. He really encouraged me to turn the book into the film. So with his advice, I had a go, and with a bit of help from Tartan Films...I did it!

DVDV: It is true that British films have a long-standing tradition of social realism in cinema, especially dealing with the serious subjects touched on in your film. Why steer away from the traditional presentation and develop the film in a more emotional and artistically expressive fashion?

RJ: I've always been attracted to a very specific aesthetic in filmmaking. My influences are Stanley Kubrick, Terrence Malick, and Wong Kai-War; a very different kind of mix of stuff that I like. So if you really look at those three directors, and what they had in common, they all had a very strong and poetic visual approach, and none of them ever go for what I would call a "gritty realism." Quite the opposite; it's more of an abstraction they go for.

Malick taught me to be brave enough to be poetic with your films and not be embarrassed by that. Kubrick led me to believe that you could have very clear aesthetic visually, a grammar that you could tell a story with, without using a lot of dialogue. And I've always been very attracted to the East Asian style of filmmaking.

DVDV: Reading some critical reviews of your film, you seemed to take a lot of hit for utilizing the dreaded "voice over" narrator in your film, which seems to be slightly out of fashion in British cinema. Why the insistence?

RJ: I think that's just my style -- if I have a style at this point -- and that's just how I chose to do it. In the UK, it's regarded that a film that needs narration doesn't work...(Laughs) It wasn't very popular with the executives...too poetic and not based in the tradition of British filmmaking. But I'm really not interested in making that kind of film. There are people here in the UK, like Ken Loach and Michael Winterbottom, that do that kind of thing very well, but I'm not very interested in following in their footsteps like that. Not that I don't like their work! (Laughs)

There's also a bit of pop culture in my heart...I was brought up on John Carpenter movies and Walter Hill movies. I think I've always been more influenced by American filmmaking in the 1970s and East Asian filmmaking...a much bigger influence on me than British films.

DVDV: Right on.

RJ: They're not bad influences, are they? (Laughs)

DVDV: Why the decision to shoot on digital film?

RJ: Well, two reasons: one, obviously, is economics; and the second one was that I wanted to try a lot of stuff with effects, and to do that on film would have been quite difficult. I use a lot of digital stills in my film, and I wanted to go for a particular digital aesthetic, to prove that high definition, in the right hands, shot anamorphic is quite beautiful.

It's been kind of an experiment. I'm now on my third film as a director, and I've never shot on film. I have absolutely no interest in shooting on 35mm...none whatsoever. I am only interested in high definition. It is really the future, no doubt about it. In the UK, they have high definition digital projectors in the cinema now, and when you transfer your high definition masters to DVD? It's absolutely pure, isn't it?

A lot of directors are now turning towards HD, even the big guys in the United States...although a lot of them are inclined to copy what they have achieved in 35mm, which I think is a mistake. You will never get the same result. You have to treat high definition as a form, texture, and a medium all its own, and it can deliver a very particular kind of results. I love it. The things you can do with a small amount of money now are incredible. I think people still think of handheld as a little bit grungy, and not very pure. I've never shot a "hand held" shot in my entire (short) career yet. I'm not interested in that kind of aesthetic.

DVDV: I'd like to talk about the music in your film. The music feels like such a contributor to the tone and pacing of the film, and is clearly very important to Frankie, so much so that the music itself feels like a secondary character in its own right.

RJ: I think that's very well observed. You're right in that sense. A lot of people use music in their films now as a kind of wallpaper, in the background to give it a bit of atmosphere. To me, the music is really embedded into the narrative. When Bryan Ferry sings "Love Is The Drug," love is the drug at that point in time. When Iggy Pop sings "Raw Power," raw power is the thing. When Lou Reed sings "Pale Blue Eyes," the guy is looking in his own pale blue eyes -- it's all very reflective of how the central character feels at that moment in time. The music really is part of him.

It is of absolute paramount importance for me not to use music in a way that, first of all, is insulting to the creators of the music, and secondly, as a kind of cynical marketing device. I think a lot of commercial filmmakers use music really, really badly nowadays, so badly that it's almost insulting to the writers.

Of course, this is also reflective of the fact that I used to be a singer in a punk band. (Laughs)

DVDV: And getting not only to write, direct, and produce your own film, but also contribute your own personal music to your film! That must be an experience in and of itself.

RJ: (Laughs) Well yeah! Most people who were in bands, I think, are really big film people; they really love cinema. I think they're just natural bedfellows. For me, being a kid was being in a punk band and watching John Carpenter movies. If we weren't playing music, we were in the cinema.

DVDV: This is a complex film, especially on the subject of redemption; Frankie tries so hard to find some sense of peace in his life, to transcend his past, and it keeps rearing its head back on him. Do you think we can walk away from our past? Or are we doomed to repeat our mistakes?

RJ: I think life goes in cycles, and breaking the cycle; well, that's the trick. In some ways, people are drawn to their own destruction. I think that's the problem with a lot of people who find themselves in similar circumstances, just locked into it, not able to break free. I think Frankie really tries to break free from it. I didn't really want the film to be pessimistic; I wanted it to be more beautiful in its message, since he kind of gets there in the end. He realizes the most important thing in life is love. A little too late, maybe, but he does realize it.

DVDV: A small and intimate asks a lot from your actors in terms of dedication and passion for the material. Are you happy with the performances you got from your cast?

RJ: I had a very small amount of money to work with, but I managed to give it to great actors, like Kevin McKidd, Susan Lynch, and Laura Fraser. They got really involved in the film and really responded to the poetry of it, and they really took a chance on me. I didn't really have a track record, and nobody really knew if I could actually do this. I was very lucky in that sense, especially with Kevin McKidd. He does such a great job. He's really amazing. He pretty much became Frankie. I've made other films since, and I've not had such great luck, finding that kind of lead. (Laughs) Kevin really understood what I was going for.

A problem I've had making films since is that people are always looking for reality. I told Kevin on the set that I don't create reality. I create my version of reality, and you've just got to inhabit that world. And he did. (Laughs) He was pretty incredible.

DVDV: Any final thoughts?

RJ: Eh, not really! I mean, it's been so long! I wrote it back in 1987, and it was filmed back in 2003...it's been quite a journey. That little movie has been quite well received all over the world, and I'm quite amazed that people have responded, and that it's done so well.

I guess people see something in the film that means something in their own life. But again, the film is sort of heightened story; it's not really supposed to be realism. I don't think I'm quite capable of making that kind of film. I think that takes a certain amount of integrity, and I don't have enough of that. (Laughs)

DVDV: It's been a pleasure, sir! Thanks for taking the time to speak to us!

RJ: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me!