Mes nerves!

John Gardner

We published John Gardner's 'The Thief of Time' on 12 June.  He has a long career in theatre, radio, television and film -- experiences which brought him into contact with Anne Bancroft, Michelle Lee, Robert Powell, Tony Lobianco and 'the one and only' Franco Zeffirelli.  He has won several awards for his work.  He once interviewed Sir Richard Attenborough on his relationship with Diana, Princess of Wales; Sir Richard is 'an absolutely charming, totally honest human being.'  His experience with French contracts has not been happy.  He now lives in the South West of France, where he published The A-Z of Frenchness on his website, www.books4freeonline.com.  Here Gardner reviews strange business practices in the film world and bizarre behaviour that make the country a 'writer's paradise'.

France is a funny old place. It boasts about its great literary heritage but if you Google French writers you get a dramatically short list of 26 whereas the same exercise produces a more respectable 93 in the UK.

They have a film industry that turns out literally ten times more films per year than the UK yet produces less gems, pro rata, than the UK. Jean de Florette, Manon des Sources, Les Flics, Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles, Tell No One compete with British films The Full Monty, Notting Hill, Love Actually, Richard Loncraine’s superb Richard Third, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Train Spotting, Shirley Valentine, Bend it Like Beckham. The language is of course a deciding factor in making a film commercially successful but if the script or talent isn’t there then the language really doesn’t matter. No one will watch it.

I presented a script for a film based in France to a Warner Bros executive in London many years ago. He thought it had potential and carried the script personally to his opposite number in France from whence it disappeared. No number of phone calls, e-mails or letters were ever responded to by the French – ever. (Shockingly bad business manners!) Warners UK were frustrated by the arrogance of their French counterparts but helpless. In a survey of 62 countries judging the confidence of doing business with those countries France sat shamefully at position 61.

I once asked a film producer, given this attitude by the French, how do they manage co-productions. The reply was terse, “The French way or no way!” But despite their strange business practices things do get done and they produce some masterpieces such as, Joyeux Noël. So this is not all bad news for the writer. France is so different, so weird, so utterly bizarre at times that it amazes me other writers have not based very many more stories in France. No matter how creative or ‘off the wall’ you get someone in France will have done even stranger things. It is a paradise for love stories, sci-fi and spy type adventures. All you need do is inject some politics, a good helping of madness and some very sour faced people and it will be believable. I could not make up some of the things I have witnessed here, and who but a Frenchman could write a book entitled, “Les Miserables”?

Who needs James Bond dashing from Moscow to the Caribbean, from Peking to London when France with its huge nuclear industry, its close ties with China, its paranoid fear of Green Peace and a Government of dandies offers incredible scope for writers to cast off the shackles and discover new genres. Neil Gaiman would probably be very happy here!

The Americans tried to capture some of that essence with their French Connection films and were surprisingly successful in creating the atmosphere of bad working conditions, even worse toilets and general bumbling that are such genuine parts of France. Consider a modern version of something much the same with a President living in royal splendour, his private army, The Gendarmes, enjoying a budget that would keep several fair sized countries out of the clutches of the world bank and a police force whose officers share computers that don’t always work in conditions that can only be described, if one is being kind, as squalid. (That particular police station is in Paris) Now add a story so unbelievable, so bizarre involving politicians, whores, the Chinese, large scale money laundering, nuclear secrets and you have something that will be so much tamer than the truth but will make riveting reading or viewing.

France is a writer’s paradise. It is impossible to suffer a ‘block’ while in France. Just go for a walk and watch the madness unfold before your eyes. Take a camera and record the moments because afterwards you won’t be able to believe what you saw.  Let me give you a few examples; on a long, straight, very good road, in the middle of the day in perfect weather we witnessed two cars collide head on. No rhyme, no reason just sudden death in the afternoon. I watched a group of French youths play on a beach with a group of Spanish youths. The Spanish boys ran into the sea for some distance and dived under water. A French youth went in about 2 meters from the beach and did the same thing. Result? He buried his head in the sand neatly catching a rock on the way. He was dragged out bleeding and clearly concussed. Obviously he couldn’t work out that if the water is not yet up to your knees it is generally best not to leap in the air and dive in head first. I met a carpenter missing half a finger. I asked him how it happened and he explained how he held a piece of wood in position as he passed it over his table saw. It was blindingly obvious his finger would directly cross the blade. Not to him and he merrily zipped it off. No slip, no accident, a conscious decision. You couldn’t make it up!

Jacque Tati was the master observer of France. He was the ultimate French voyeur and even he, as he said, only scratched the surface of that thing that is France: its follies, insanities and madness. Paris presents itself as a modern city sitting proud on the mainland of Europe. In reality it is an ancient and somewhat smelly sprawl where the buildings are far too big riddled with paranoia, xenophobia, lying and willingness to stab any back just as soon as it is turned. Where else could you get such a heady mix all waiting for a dollop of politics and topped off with a dash of psychobabble? “Mes nerves!”

A seemingly endless trough of irresistible fodder for writers!