The Generalist

Recorded in a hotel coffee lounge, a few doors away from the BBC’s Broadcasting House, this interview was an assignment for the NME, conducted shortly after the publication in paperback of ‘Life, the Universe and Everything’, the third book in the Hitchhiker’s sequence.

It began: ‘Douglas Adams is a carbon-based bipedal life form, well over six foot and burly with it, with what are politely called generous features. He's 30 and looks 40.’

When the waiter came, Douglas ordered a large champagne cocktail. It was around 11am. He asked me what I was having and I decided it was wise to drink the same. I think we had three each during the interview; it may have been four. Douglas seemed in full control, except he began talking more intensely. I had problems focusing.

This interview captures many delightful sides of Douglas, whose legacy through ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide’ continues to entrance, amuse and delight. He and it seem to have come from a simpler time. His integrity and inventiveness shines out of all his creations. He was very human.

''I suppose I'm a terrible worrier,' he told me, 'and by suggesting that underlying everyday events there are appalling explanations, that is my own way of attempting to justify that fact.'

Enjoy!

Read the original NME article
http://hqinfo.blogspot.com/2005/08/douglas-adams-carbon-based-bipedal_23.html

Files
Interview, MP3 size: 27.3mb, Length: 39:11

CDN Link - Direct Link

Few films in recent times have attracted as much condemnation as ‘The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael’ a first feature by two 25-year-old South Coast filmmakers (Thomas Clay and Joseph Young). It is graphic, powerful, disturbing, lyrical, realistic and accomplished. Shot almost exclusively in the rundown coastal port of Newhaven in East Sussex, this is a crack-ridden street-level grand guignol drama of considerable power.

The official film synopsis reads: ‘Three teenage boys are drawn into a world of temptation and violence. Bored, troubled, excluded, unable to accept or even to recognise moral boundaries, the boys' actions move inexorably towards a shocking act that will horrify their sleepy community and expose its deepest, hidden fears.’

One of the few British films to be selected for Critics Week at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, it was been feted by Liberation, sold throughout Europe and Latin America (and recently released in the UK with an 18 certificate). The British press has demonised it as a sickening threat to public morals. Recently Pete Bradshaw wrote in The Guardian: ‘The combination of high arthouse ambition, uncertain acting and brutal violence left me with a nasty taste in the mouth.’

The condemnation centres on an extremely graphic rape scene (shades of ‘A Clockwork Orange’) which is very hard to watch and disturbing in its intensity.

I was the first journalist to see the film (on a widescreen TV in Joe’s front room) and recorded this interview straight afterwards. I was still shaken by what I had just seen. The press barrage had yet to come.

I felt at that time it was a brave film and an accomplishment for two young filmmakers to have pulled off. The film made me feel uneasy and made me question my own judgements and feelings. Have filmmakers got a right to show unacceptable things in the name of art to wake us up to the reality of our brutal world? Is this a work of exploitation or a shocking view of the nature our times, told by young filmmakers closer to the street than their critics will ever be.

We thought long and hard about whether to run this interview. It is recorded in a noisy pub, the conversation is often a bit scattered and the sound quality is variable. On balance though, we thought it was important to be able to hear what the filmmakers themselves have to say about it all. After all, you're unlikely to hear them on mainstream radio. Let us know what you think.

The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael (U.K.)
A Boudu Film, Pull Back Camera production. (International sales: Wild Bunch, Paris.) Produced by Joseph Lang. Directed by Thomas Clay. Screenplay: Clay, Lang. With: Dan Spencer, Danny Dyer, Lesley Manville, Ryan Winsley, Charles Mnene, Miranda Wilson, Michael Howe, Stuart Laing, Rob Dixon, Ami Instone.

Read some of the press criticism of the film around the time of the Cannes screening, together with my judgements made at the time. http://hqinfo.blogspot.com/2005/06/great-ecstasy-of-robert-carmichael.html

Files
Interview, MP3 size: 26.1mb, Length: 37:28

CDN Link - Direct Link