« Just more enjoyment of the whiskey: David Lynch | Main | Embalming 2006: a long list, plus footnotes »
January 04, 2007
London to Brighton: FT sez most promising director
Who's the most promising new director in the world? The FT's Nigel Andrews picks London to Brighton director Paul Andrew Williams. [T]he idea that an accolade for the most promising director of 2006 could go to a Briton almost defies plausibility... Yet Paul Andrew Williams’s London to Brighton”divided critics between those who called it brilliant and those who called it brilliant-with-a- few-faults. It has pace, wit, style, conviction. As a gangster thriller it doesn’t try to be lovable: it presents its hoodlums as nasty thugs, not endearing mockneys. Ray Winstone is nowhere in sight... [An earlier] film won him a brief deal with Fox Searchlight... It was a year-long contract but Williams quit after 7 months (“The deal consisted of one 25-minute meeting...”) Back in Britain on [the dole, he wrote the screenplay for] London to Brighton in three days and filmed it for £80,000.
There was nothing glamorous about the shoot: 18-hour days battling with costs and weather, during which Williams, who had deferred his directing fee, went on collecting [unemployment]... Soon the man who never went to film school was having his first feature applauded by Sir Sean Connery and others at the Edinburgh Film Festival, where London to Brighton collected the Most Promising New Director award... [T]he very fact there is a new filmmaker from Britain for the world to take interest in is a little miracle, even a minor apocalypse." [More bio and a note of the 32-year-old Portsmouth-born director's likeness to the Scott brothers.]
Posted by Ray Pride at January 4, 2007 01:24 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)