Terrence Davies is busier than ever. It has been four years since we’ve had a film from the 70-year-old British filmmaker, and that’s a relatively short period of time considering that, in the past, there were often five to eight year gaps between works. “Sunset Song,” his latest, opens on May 13, but he already has another film — “A Quiet Passion,” about Emily Dickinson — that premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February, and two other projects in the works: one about the English poet Siegfried Sassoon, the other an adaptation of Richard McCann’s novel “Mother of Sorrows.” In two years, it’s possible that we might have more films from Davies than we’ve had in the last decade.And we need more. Davies is one of the most consistently ambitious and rigorous filmmakers working today. Each film is an emotional experience, a singular work that, like all great works of art, changes, transforms, and deepens over time. From the period of his early, more directly personal work — “Distant Voices, Still Live” (1988), “The Long Day Closes” (1992) — through his breathtaking later adaptations — “The Neon Bible” (1995), “The House of Mirth” (2000), “The Deep Blue Sea” (2001) — nobody has made films like Davies, and nobody ever will.With “Sunset Song,” based on the 1932 novel by the Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon, we find ourselves in the hands of a filmmaker who is thrillingly in complete control of the medium, and the passion is clear. The film centers on Chris Guthrie (Agyness Deyn), who, around the time of World War I, must struggle away from the shackles of family to find independence and forgiveness. Despite a lot of gut-wrenching pain and moments of extreme turmoil, the film frames familiar Davies themes — patriarchy, family, religion, and war — within a tender and loving environment.While Davies was in New York for the opening of “Sunset Song” and a complete retrospective of his work at the Museum of the Moving Image, he spoke to ARTINFO about the necessary passion he must feel for a project, the problems with British film, and how he has changed as an artist over time.Are all your films personal?I couldn’t make them any other way. If I don’t feel passionate about them I can’t see them. I just don’t see them. It has to be felt because the process is so exhausting. I don’t know how jobbing directors do it. I just couldn’t do it. It has to be like that — if you feel inspired by it, you want other people to feel inspired by it too. I’ve always had wonderful crews and casts, but if you’re not passionate about it, I’m sure it shows. I think it’s had a detrimental effect on everybody.Does that moment of passion have to come immediately?It’s a mixture of things. With the autobiographical films, they were just what I wanted to do [at that time]. With other things that came later, like the Edith Wharton movie, I just think it’s her greatest novel and I love the belle époque. So in a way, that came to me. Recently, I was asked to do a film about Sigfried Sassoon. Ironically, when I went to drama school, you had to do a piece of Shakespeare and a piece of your own choice. I choose Sasson’s “Concert-Interpretation,” which is a poem about the first performance of “The Rite of Spring” in Britain in 1913 — it’s very funny and wonderful in English. As soon as I was asked to do the film, I thought, yes — I know it’s right. That’s immediate. But there were two or three books that have been sent to me where I thought, I just can’t see them. There is no point in me doing it — I wouldn’t know how to frame it, who is on the soundtrack, who to cast. It all falls apart. Things sort of find you.Has one found you recently?Out of the blue, I got this wonderful novel by Richard McCann, an American writer, called “Mother of Sorrows.” I was reading it and I thought, I’ll get to the end. I won’t be precipitous. And the end just confirmed it, so I said yes. And that is written, and the money will probably be raised next year while I do the film about Sassoon this year.When did you first encounter the novel “Sunset Song”?When I was 18, BBC1 always had a serial on Sunday night that was an adaptation of a book. I had never heard of [“Sunset Song”], but it was on for six weeks. In those days, you couldn’t record anything. I remember waiting each week. Vivien Heilbron played Chris, and she was wonderful. At that time I was still working as a lonely, lonely bookkeeper in an accountant’s office. I went out and bought the novel because I loved the serial. It’s actually a quite difficult novel to read because it’s in the dialect called Doric, and it’s hard going for the first 40 pages. Most Scots people have read it; outside of Scotland, not many. So obviously we had to make it a general Scottish accent [in the film], because if they spoke Doric you wouldn’t be able to understand it. But what I love about the story is that Chris is only around 14 when the book begins, and only about 21 when it ends. In seven years, she has gone through this extraordinary change — and at the end, she forgives all suffering. It’s about forgiveness and hope that comes with forgiveness. That’s what I loved about the book. There’s something so wonderful about, in the face of everything, you forgive and you find hope. I found that extraordinarily moving.Is it true that you first tried to make the film after “The House of Mirth”?Yes. It was a low time in Britain. I didn’t work for nearly 10 years. The problem with British film is that it’s always at the mercy of some new fad. When I first started, all those years ago, it was semiology. What a complete waste of time. And then Robert McKee, which caused even more damage with that nonsense that he talks about. Culturally, Britain always looks to America for validation. We shouldn’t be doing that. We should be looking at our stories, the stories that derive from our islands and making them. That doesn’t mean that if you make a generic film, and you do it well and it makes a lot of money, it’s invalidated. But that’s not the only reason to make a film. When I first tried to make “Sunset Song,” the UK Film Council was set up, which basically tried to compete with Hollywood. It was a complete and utter waste of time, this idea that we have to make films that make money: if we all knew what films would make money, we would be earning lots and lots of it. The whole point is that you can’t predict that and nor should you. So it was a very hostile environment. In the end, part of me thought that if “The House of Mirth” were the last film I do it wouldn’t be a bad film to end on. I almost gave up.Did that period change your way of thinking about film?It was only when we were making [“Of Time and City”] that I realized I had changed in some way. I still can’t explain it. I was writing the commentary as we were getting the archival material, and it was this immense sense of freedom. I still can’t work out what it was, but I was different. Then luckily, after 18 years, we got the money to make “Sunset Song.” And it wasn’t enough money, and it was very difficult. Money buys you time and we didn’t have it. Everything that could have gone wrong on this film went wrong. Thank god we had a wonderful cast, wonderful crews, and, actually, enormous support from the people who put up money, particularly the bond company. They can close a film down like that [slaps hand on table]. Not having enough money, I’ll never do it again. If we can’t have another four days, and you we can’t raise the money, it’s not worth doing. It was a great strain. Thank goodness the film is half decent [laughs].What is the biggest challenge of adaptation?You have to catch what the essence of the story is and stick to that. You invent things, but I do try to be as truthful to the book as possible. Not just the written narrative but its feeling, its sub-textual meaning. That seems to me to be a wonderful way of doing it. If you look at, say, “The Heiress,” that’s not the end of the Henry James book. But my god, it’s better than the end of the novella. It’s fabulous, and fabulously cinematic.Are you ever concerned about adding your own things to a text that, in many cases, is well known? I only ever do three drafts, and then a polish [of a script]. Things get dropped and added. But when you’re writing it, it’s felt. You just know something is right and will stay in. It may be shortened or lengthened, but it must be felt. If I don’t feel it, it doesn’t go in. that’s the problem with notes — do this, this, and this. That’s television, which has nothing to do with drama. But it’s always thrilling when you think: I know exactly how this sequence should be. I usually write one big sequence before I write the entire thing. With the film about Siegfried Sassoon, the whole of the opening and the closing sequences are already done. They came first — I immediately knew how to begin and end the film. It’s the bit in the middle that might be difficult [laughs].Do you have a writing routine?If I’m not working on a project I’m usually reading a lot of poetry. I write poetry now too. I reread “The Four Quartets” at least once a month. I love the sonnets — I’m in the process of learning eight, I’ve learned four now. I love them so much. And sometimes you just don’t do anything. Then some tiny little thing [happens], and you go look at your notes. It’s extraordinary; I still find it magical. It can be a tiny thing, and you wonder, why did I think of that? But that’s the joy of writing.Do you notice changes in yourself as an artist?You get older, that changes you. But passion becomes different. I couldn’t do it without passion — you need to have passion and a sense of humor, without those you’re dead anyway. Perhaps the passion becomes deeper because you become aware of that which you truly love. That’s inevitable — you can’t describe it. Your early passions are all over the place. So I’ve changed — I’ve gotten older, and I’m getting miserable, which is always comfortable.
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