A 1932 novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song is regarded as a milestone of Scottish culture. It tells of the joys and sorrows of a young woman, Chris, growing up on a farm in the countryside. Davies maintains the novel’s balance between a realistic account of Scottish farming life in the early 20th century with an ecstatic appreciation of the beauty of the landscape and of nature’s power. With an exquisite, but repetitive, use of symmetrically frontal staging of his shots, Davies expresses his ambivalence towards these impeccably lit interiors, whether of farmhouse or church, that look on impassively at joy and sorrow. But Chris has a way out. Unlike the grand houses that ultimately trap House of Mirth’s Lily Bart, Chris has the land. And here an unexpected pagan aspect of Davies’ work reveals itself.
Audio transcription
For more interviews and talks, visit the Harvard Film Archive Visiting Artists Collection page.
David Pendleton 0:00
I'm David Pendleton, the programmer here at the Harvard Film Archive. And it's my great pleasure to welcome you to the first of two very special evenings here at the HFA with Terence Davies in person presenting his two newest films. I just have a bit of business to conduct. First of all, to remind you to please turn off any devices that you have on your person that might shed light or make noise, and leave them turned off while the house lights are down. We've had Terence Davies as a guest before, and we're very grateful to have him back again. These two nights come at the intersection of two special programs that we've been presenting, the first one called “Terence Davies [Transformations],” in which we've been looking at his films adapted from novels. Davies famously made his name first in England, with a semi-autobiographical trilogy of short films that actually projected forward to his old age between 1976 and 1983. And he revisited some of that material about growing up in a working-class Liverpool neighborhood and family shortly after World War Two, coming to terms with his sexuality, in two really classic films from the 80s and 90s, Distant Voices, Still Lives, in 1988, and The Long Day Closes, from 1993. And then he turned to this series of adaptations. And so we showed The Neon Bible from 1996, based on the John Kennedy Toole novel, and The House of Mirth, of course, based on the novel by Edith Wharton. And tonight's film, Sunset Song, is also based on a novel. In between, he returned to Liverpool for a documentary, Of Time and the City, and he also adapted a Terence Rattigan play, The Deep Blue Sea. But tonight's film is based on a classic Scottish novel written by Lewis Grassic Gibbon from 1932. It had its world premiere last, in 2015, and its U.S. premiere last year, and we're very grateful to be able to present it with Terence here. These adaptations, in a way, are a return to what was once called, were called “women's pictures,” possibly pejoratively. But I mean in the very sense, in a strong sense, these adaptations are films about women who fight back against the restrictions placed on them by their roles in society. And tomorrow night's film, which is Terence’s newest film, which is not a literary adaptation but follows along in the same vein is, of course, his biopic about Emily Dickinson, A Quiet Passion. And we're very proud that Harvard had a role to play in that film, with the collection of the Dickinson room at Houghton Library across the street, which is celebrating the 75th anniversary. So that's the other event that dovetails with Terence’s visit. We're very proud to be bringing all of this together. But now to get started with Sunset Song, I invite to the podium Mr. Terence Davies.
[APPLAUSE]
Terence Davies 3:22
Thank you. Well, in the 1970s, on BBC, on a Sunday night, they used to do a classic serial. And some of the books were quite obscure, even to an English audience. And in 1971, they did a six-part adaptation of Sunset Song, and I fell in love with it. Those days, you couldn't record anything. So I used to wait each week for the next episode. And I went out and bought the book. It's in fact the first part of a trilogy called A Scots Quair. And the two others are Cloud Howe and Grey Granite. And it is a very, very difficult book to read because it's written in the Doric tongue, which is what they used to speak in and around Aberdeenshire. I had to make that more, more English. Otherwise, no one would have understood it, quite frankly. And there's one character, a tiny character in the film, who speaks his lines in Doric. And even though I've written them, I have no idea what he's saying. But it's a difficult book to read. But it’s one of those books that is one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. And every time I think of it, I think of another great book that very few people have read, and it's an American book. It's called, Call It Sleep by Henry Roth, which was written in 1936. It didn't sell at all, and he spent the rest of his life teaching English at Albuquerque University. And it is one of the great novels of the 20th century, along with this. I do hope you enjoy it. In fact, all I ask is that you stay awake! Thank you for coming.
[APPLAUSE]
[AFTER FILM SCREENING:]
David Pendleton 5:22
Please join me in welcoming back Terence Davies!
[APPLAUSE and CHEERS]
Terence Davies
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
David Pendleton
Thank you for sharing that with us, Terence. And thank you for being here tonight.
Terence Davies
Thank you for asking me.
David Pendleton
Welcome. I thought I'd start by asking a couple of questions. And then we'll open it up to the audience. I wanted to go back to this shift that I see in your career between the early autobiographical films, and then the later films that are mostly adaptations. And the way in which these later films often form kind of a cycle to me. I'm wondering... can you talk a little bit about that shift from autobiography to adaptation?
Terence Davies 6:17
Well, you never do make that shift. Because everything you do is informed by what you've seen. So you can't be absolutely pure. What you do is you try and bring to the piece, whatever it is, something that you feel strongly about. I mean, where Sunset Song is concerned, it's about the nature of families. In fact, all the great stories are about families, even Greek tragedy. They’re basically about families. Because families are the greatest source of all drama, and all suffering, so that's where you start. But I was influenced very heavily by the American musical, because you know, my sisters loved American musicals. And my first film, at seven, was Singin’ in the Rain. What an introduction. What an introduction! You know, so it’s all of that, as well. Sometimes when they’re overtly autobiographical, like the early films, then obviously I'm drawing on my family's memories and my own. But when you do something else, you see things in there that you think, oh, yes, I recognize that. For instance: silence. When someone wants a reply from someone, and they refuse to answer. I mean, it’s silence that is absolutely cruel, because you're longing for silence to be broken. I know that, because my father was extremely violent, you know, and there would be these black silences. And you’d think, “Oh, Christ, what is he going to do now?” So I know that. I know the cruelty of fathers. I know the love of mothers. My mother was a wonderful woman, very strong, but never hard. That's what actresses fail to understand now. Hardness is not the same as strength. Those two things are not analogous. And so all those things are part of what you've experienced, including song. I was brought up on the Great American Songbook which is one of the great cultural gifts to the world. I mean, songwriter after songwriter, writing these fabulous lyrics. It's breathtaking! It's as good as the Austro-German symphonic tradition. It's that good! Unfortunately, when rock and roll came around, I was eleven. I was taken to see Jailhouse Rock, and I cringed all the way through the ninety minutes. I thought, isn't he awful? And why is he twitching around like this? And then the Beatles came along, and they were even worse!
[LAUGHTER]
Terence Davies
So every bit of you comes into that.
David Pendleton 9:06
Right. I mean, certainly there are things that carry over from the more overtly autobiographical films, as you say, like the violent father and the long-suffering mother. I'm curious about the adaptations that you've chosen, always have, at least so far, a female protagonist. Well, I guess The Neon Bible is maybe sort of a transitional period, which is that there's a young man who's the protagonist, but he's surrounded by women. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about is that a conscious choice of yours? Are you naturally drawn to material that features female protagonists?
Terence Davies 9:42
No, because the stories find you. They just happen to be about women. And I'm the youngest of ten, seven surviving. And I love my brothers, but I was very close to my mother and my sisters, especially when on a Friday night, my sisters’ friends will come around and I was allowed to go for the makeup. You know, I can smell Friday nights. Particularly the nylons, they were always American tan, 15 denier, no seams, because seams were considered very tarty in the 50s, which is why I never wore them.
[LAUGHTER]
No, I think I warm—like a lot of gay men—towards women because I like their company. Especially women in England from the northwest, they've got fabulous senses of humor, and mercifully not that obsessed by sport, which I find killing beyond belief. You know. How people can get worked up about it, I just don't know. And when you see some of the things that are in the Olympics now: solo synchronized swimming? I'm sorry, they need help!
[LAUGHTER]
David Pendleton 10:52
That's really an Olympic sport, solo synchronized swimming?
Terence Davies
Yes it is!
David Pendleton
I didn’t realize that. Well, because what strikes me about the films with the female protagonist is what I said at the beginning. The way in which it enables you to dramatize this, the standoff between these people, and their refusal to accept the restrictions that society places on them. And it seems to me that Chris, in Sunset Song, does a little bit better than much of your other protagonists. And I'm wondering if you can talk about–
Terence Davies 11:28
But what's interesting about any drama is, they're not saying, “Oh, I'm going to stand against the world and all that.” That doesn't take place. Something more interesting takes place inside the person involved. They'll think, “I'm not going to do this. I won't do it, you won't force me to.” This is very true of Emily Dickinson. She said, “I will not be forced to piety!” But it's not something that's overt. It has to be felt, it has to be organic. And it's not just the actor or the actress, or the direction, or the script. There's something much more subtle going on. And it's the texture within the mise-en-scène behind the actors. You don't notice that. You feel it. And that's what has to be felt.
I took this story, I'd seen it on television in 1971. And there were certain parts of it that I didn't include at all. Chae, for instance, is very, very politically aware and wants socialism, wants the social revolution to come. We couldn't put that in, that would have been a narrative cul-de-sac. And I was restricted to two hours. I was not allowed to make a film longer than two hours. And apart from the ending credits, the film is actually one hour—fifty-nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds. With the credits, three and a half. They go on forever!
David Pendleton 13:03
But you do have some reference of Scotland and a tradition of resistance within Scotland. I mean, the lesson about the French Revolution at the beginning, and then the discussion of pacifism and socialism later on. So, I mean there is a political aspect, a little bit.
Terence Davies
But a very small one.
David Pendleton
Right.
Terence Davies 13:22
Because I'm not a political filmmaker. I'm too emotional to be political. I've always been socialist, and I always will be. But I can't write about that. I mean, there is a scene where there is a bit of this politicking going on. And it was just awful! It was just awful. And it takes place by this car. Now, I know nothing about cars because I don't drive. But have you ever heard the noise a 1910 Renault makes? Not only does it drown out all dialogue, it drowns out all noise for thirty miles. I mean, they’re enormously noisy, you couldn't hear any of the dialogue. And you have to hand-do it, at the front, like this. And the man who owned it, did it and it sparked straight away. This poor actor was going like this for what seemed to be hours. He's probably still there, trying to make this bloody car go! So I knew, I thought, the principles, the political bit of it has got to go, because he couldn't get the car going. I got this fit of giggles, and I said, “Look, can someone say ‘cut’? Because I'm just too embarrassed.” And then everybody got the giggles, and we were all sitting in this tiny little tent laughing. I thought, “This is ridiculous! I've got to go and say “cut.” After all, like, it is my job!
David Pendleton 14:49
[LAUGHING] Can you tell us a little bit about what makes up the texture of the mise-en-scène that you talk about, that you use very subtly from film to film. I mean this film has much more of the outdoors in it than your films usually do, as well as a strong sense of community around characters.
Terence Davies 15:05
Well, Andy Harris, who designed it for me, said, “Have you ever seen any paintings by a man called Hammershøi?” And I said, “No.” He’s Danish, active at the end of the 19th century, and the early part of the 20th. And I said, “Well, you know, can I see them?” And they are quite extraordinary. They're like Vermeer, but with a kind of smudged atmosphere, very often empty. Doors opening to nothing, Windows opening to nothing. If there is a subject, it's usually a woman, with her back to the viewer. They are ravishingly beautiful. And I just said, “The interiors have got to look like that,” which we shot all on digital. But the exteriors, we shot on 65 mil. The last time that will ever be used. Because at that point, digital was not as good as film. Now, it's infinitely better. I mean, it's as important as the coming of sound. I mean, it's really fantastic. What they can do is simply extraordinary! You know, particularly getting rid of people. [LAUGHS]
None of the actors, of course, were used to handling horses. Of course they weren't. So we had to have a tether, and a man at the end of this tether. And I said, “Well, you know, what do we do?” And this lad, he seemed a lad to me, anyway, said, “Well, in post, we can take the man out.” “HOW?” And they did it all the time! It was quite extraordinary. So that's where the interiors came from. And there’s also influence by the Dutch school, because I love Vermeer. And de Hooch. And even van Ruisdael, who’s actually quite dark. So all those things are there, because they tell you something that is felt. There's a wonderful film, which was made in 1949 in England called It Always Rains on Sunday. And it's set in this little house in Bethnal Green. And the interiors are suffocating! This suffocating wallpaper! And you don't overtly notice that. But your inner eye notices it. So it tells you a great deal without even the actors saying anything. Just that alone! So all those things are part of trying to get the look right. What did it feel like? And I always say to the actors, “I don't want you to act, I want you to be.” Which is much more difficult. You know? And I want these people to look as though they wear these clothes. Because there's nothing worse than these endless adaptations of bloody Jane Austen. You know, where they just, they come on the screen, and they look as though they've just come from hair, makeup and costume. You think, “I don’t believe in this at all.” They don't look as though they wear these things at all. And I was once sent a Jane Austen adaptation, and the opening scene was this maid coming down the stairs with a jug of water. She slips, the jug falls, water everywhere. I said to the person who sent it to us, “Well, the first thing she would have done, she would have been emptying the chamber pots, and that's a much more interesting opening.” He said, “Oh, we can't have that, they didn't go to the toilet then.” I said, “Well what did they do, implode?”
[LAUGHTER]
So that's what you've got, that's what you're up against. And this awful, stultifying tradition in Britain of period drama. It's utterly stultifying!
David Pendleton 18:38
But you find ways to work within it, and to make it absolutely fresh and feel vital. And there's a way in which I think this film, in particular, goes back to a lot of the concerns of classical cinema about this shift from a sort of agrarian or traditional society to a modern one. And I wonder if you can talk a little bit... There's much talk in the film about the unbroken cycle of seasons. And then it all gets broken towards the end by the war. And it's a very moving and still very present theme, I think.
Terence Davies 19:11
Well, I mean, if you're a farmer, your life is dominated by the seasons. It just is! I mean, I don't come from the country. So I don't know about those things. But the book tells you that. And when that is the constant, and she decides that she will stay on the land, she won't become a teacher, that is of huge importance to her. And what is terrifying in the book is the coming of the First World War. Because every town and village and hamlet in Britain lost a lot of young men. In the first battle of the Somme, 72,000 people were killed within the first hour. There were horrific casualties. You see those casualties now, and they're chilling even now, nearly 100 years later. So when he's forced, when he's conscripted, what do you do? I mean, your lifespan as an ordinary soldier was something like ten days. An officer, possibly two weeks. I mean, imagine that. And it's not explained in the novel either. He just comes back, and he's completely changed. Something has shifted in him. He's terrified!
David Pendleton 20:31
Because the first time he comes back, he hasn't even been to the battlefield yet, right?
Terence Davies
No, he hasn't.
David Pendleton
It’s just that the prospect of it has utterly changed him.
Terence Davies 20:40
And who wouldn’t be? You know. And we, you can't really reconstruct those trenches and what they were like. I mean, they're unbelievable. I mean, there was not only lice and filth. I mean, they were constantly wet, and men got foot rot. I mean, it was that awful. And you can't recreate that. And also, we shot a lot of it in Luxembourg. And again, because I'm not a farmer, I don't know about the earth. And I said, “Well, you know, I’d script it when he's being shot in a completely different way.” And they said, “No, well, if you churn up the earth, it is actually infertile for five years.” I said, “Oh, God.” Like what do we do? I said, “Well, could you give us part of a field that you're prepared to let us churn up?” He said, “Yes, but only this little bit.” And when we did it, actually, we did it in two lots. And we had terrible, terrible problems. The man with the rain, he couldn't get it right. And it dragged on for most of the morning. And you're freezing cold, you're covered in mud. You know, get the bloody thing going, so that we can go home. And halfway through, the camera stopped.
David Pendleton 22:02
It stopped moving?
Terence Davies 22:05
It just stopped. It was on a huge arm. “Okay, let's pick it up from there. Can you give me some rain?” “Yes,” and the rain petered out. And I was about to say, “Cut!” and Michael [INAUDIBLE]. And he was right, because the sun comes out, which I hadn't seen. You know, because I was so worried about this bloody rain. So serendipity can happen, and then, you're just lucky then. You're just lucky.
David Pendleton 22:31
But that shot over the battlefield is one of those great, what I think of as like these rhapsodic moments in your film, and it's interesting, because we think of literary adaptation as something very textual, but you find ways to make these films very visual, in shots like the opening shot, where she sits up out of the fields, or the shot over the battlefield. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit…. that's always seemed to me to be maybe something else that you brought from the musical, in some ways, the sense of a dancing camera in some ways, or...
Terence Davies 23:00
Well, I thought, “Well, how do we fix her in the land?” And I have no idea where it came from. I thought, “She'll be lying down in wheat, and she'll sit up as we come towards her.” When the wind came and ruffled everybody, that was, again, that was just sheer luck. I didn't put that in. But what's incredibly important, is that you feel those things. They have to be felt. And I had some of the farmers say, “Well, you know, farmers would not walk through the field.” And of course, they wouldn't. They would have taken a path. I said, “But yes, you know, it's poetic license.” I want this to feel a huge thing when they go to the church and hope to be told to love your fellow man. In fact, the preacher basically told them, “You've got to hate these people, and you've got to go over there and kill them.” But the genesis of that scene goes back to when I was about fourteen or fifteen, and I started just listening to classical music. And on Radio 4, it was called “Your Hundred Best Tunes,” introduced by this man called [Alan Keith], who had this gorgeous voice. And it was just all the famous bits of classical music that everyone knows, you know, “Bolero,” “Lakmé,” and all that. And one Sunday night, they played “All in the April Evening,” which is the Glasgow Orpheus Choir, which was an amateur choir founded by an undertaker. And it's a fabulous choir, and it always stayed with me, and I thought, when I was writing that sequence, “That's where it's got to be used. It's got to be used there, because it's so fabulous.” You know, one or two really great songs, like “Oh Waly, Waly,” which I’ve used, and “Blow the Wind Southerly,” Kathleen Ferrier; she had one of the great voices of the world. I mean, not all, not all British folk songs are that good. A lot of them are, you know, “’twas on a Thursday morning, oh…!” and you think, oh, bugger off!
David Pendleton 25:16
But that's something else that you do again and again in your films is have these moments of public singing that are really quite wonderful. That's great. Again, another nod to the musical, I think.
Are there questions in the audience? There's one right in the middle. If you can wait just a second, we'll get a microphone to you so that everybody can hear you.
Audience 1 25:38
Thanks. Wonderful movie. Very moved. So you talk a lot about song. I actually watched one of your movies earlier today, The Long Day Closes. A lot of song in that. But the other thing I noticed was light. And particularly in this movie, not only was the light itself very beautiful, but there was also a few plot points where light is explicitly discussed, particularly that awful assault scene when Ewan comes back changed. And so, I don't know, could you tell us a little bit about your thoughts on that and what you were thinking about both the beautiful light and also sort of the garish light that happens sometimes, like that church scene when the light’s all of a sudden bright? If you could talk about that, that'd be great.
Terence Davies 26:25
Well, I'd said to the cinematographer, “This is the look I want to have for the interiors, anyway.” The exteriors, unfortunately, we had to go to New Zealand for the summer ones. And we got to New Zealand, and they'd had their worst weather for fifty years. I thought, Christ, I could have stayed at home and got this for free! But the exteriors were really important, and the way in which they were shot, and the light that you can get. And it was 65 mil, I mean, the last time that will ever be used now. And very often, it's just knowing when to stop and say, let's go for that. And what used to be lovely, we’re driving to and from the locations and—he’s a lovely lad, Michael—he’d say, “Stop! I want to take a photograph.” “Stop! I want to take a photograph.” It was just wonderful. But he was absolutely attuned to that feel of the light. And there's a wonderful Scottish word called “gloaming,” but it's not twilight, and it's not dark. It's the moment between those things. And we get it in the film twice. He got it, he got gloaming. So it was long conversations about what it should look like, and how we then get it. And sometimes it was just luck. You know, sometimes it was. I mean, sometimes, we set up a whole sequence. At the end, where she goes up to the top of the hill, and there's a big ceremony with a preacher and all that. Arthritic rain, arthritic winds, we couldn't keep upright, let alone anything else. And these standing stones, which we’d made out of polyester, kept falling over. So this scene is gonna get the elbow, I could tell! But you have to turn it to your advantage. I mean, it was awful shooting those scenes, but we got those images of just the mountains. That's all, nothing else. And the man playing the bagpipes at the end was something that we were going to have anyway. And luckily, we had an interesting sky. But a lot of the time, because I don't have big budgets, I have to capture it when it is, and sometimes things have to go, because I can't wait for three or four days to get good weather. In A Quiet Passion, when Emily died, she died in a high summer. And I’d seen it as this brilliant light, with these figures, all in black, moving through the cemetery. It wasn't brilliant sun. It was rather overcast. And because we were using an actual cemetery, we couldn't actually get far enough away from them to give this idea of this black mass moving, because you can't stand on people's graves. I mean, you can't. So it restricted that shot. And part of me thinks, “Oh, I wish we could have waited for the next day when the sun did come out.” But the money isn't there. I don't get lots of money, because I'm not, I'm not in the mainstream. I'm not a big name. And you just have to do what you can with the money that you're given.
David Pendleton 29:49
Other questions in the audience? Well, while you're thinking about it– Oh, sure, Daniel, if you want to ask a question. I can pull out a couple more while people are pondering.
Audience 2 30:03
[Thank you] so much. It's such a pleasure to be here and actually see you and hear you in person. Speaking of your feel for light and how you combine it with sound, I was wondering how you went about choosing the footage for Of Time and the City? I mean, no locations, you didn't have to shoot, you had to choose the footage. How did you go about getting that feel of light and sound? And the sound obviously is mostly your voice, which is a very unique thing in your movies.
Terence Davies 30:39
Well, you work out what you want, and because they were in 65 mil, we could do tests. You don't need to do that with digital now. But you had to do with film because the different stocks give you a different color image. So you've got to be very careful about stock. But most of the time, you've just got to hope. And sometimes you've got to go with it, and it's gray and raining, and there's literally nothing you can do. It's just luck. You know what you're aiming for, but what do you do if you've set up a sequence and it starts to rain? What can you do? You've got to shoot. Luckily, it wasn't too bad. But I wish I could control the weather by having a bigger budget. But you know, the more money you get, the more interference. I don't want someone saying, “I want a close-up of these two people.” I’d say, “Bugger off!” You've got what is in the script. That's what you've got. And I wouldn’t stand for that at all. But I knew from the word “go.” I mean, I'm not Hollywood material at all. I’m just not. I find it a terrifying place out there. Really quite frightening. Wonderful light. But that's about all you can say about it.
David Pendleton 32:02
[LAUGHING] I think part of the question that Daniel was asking, too, was looking back to your found footage film as, as it were, Of Time and the City, were you working with footage of Liverpool that was shot over several different decades?
Terence Davies 32:17
Yes, but what was wonderful about that was it was just extraordinary. Some of these scenes, I could have photographed. Really. It was really thrilling. And what was difficult was what to leave out. Because there was so much material all over Britain, and especially in that period at the end of the 50s, when all the slums were being pulled down, and these hideous high rises were being built. But some of it was just gorgeous. Some of it, at the magic hour, round about four or five o'clock, where the light is exquisitely soft. And you, all you have to do is just show that, because there’s so much there. There’s so much that's rich. So I was very lucky in what we found. And it was wonderful to see some of that footage. And the greatest surprise of all was, there were some women in their 80s, and they recognized the people on the screen, they’d worked with them, which was quite extraordinary. I thought, that is just marvelous, that you knew this person on the screen, and it's like sixty years ago.
David Pendleton 33:31
Other questions? I wanted to ask– Oh yeah, there's a question back there. And then one up here.
Audience 3 33:42
Actually, I have two quick questions, if that's all right. One is, we're very lucky to have two new Terence Davies films in the last year or so. And I'm wondering how that came to be, and whether you're planning to keep up that output. And the second question is, there was a book written about your work recently by Michael Koresky. And I'm wondering how that experience was for you. Whether you enjoyed going through that experience. And yeah, if you could talk about that.
David Pendleton 34:10
There were two questions. The first one was, we're incredibly lucky to have two films in quick succession by Terence Davies. And how did that come about? And can we hope that this output will increase? And then the other one was, what was it like having the Michael Koresky book about you written?
Terence Davies 34:28
Well, I was very flattered, indeed. But I mean, the two films have come out quickly by sheer accident, not in any way designed. We had absolutely no money for Sunset Song. And every single thing that could go wrong on that film, went wrong. It was agony, absolute agony, I can tell you. Every time the phone rang, I thought, “Well, what's it now? What's it going to be now?” And even the simplest things just seemed to be extraordinarily difficult to get. I mean, sheep. Never work with sheep!
[LAUGHTER]
We found this little place called Fettercairn, and it has an ornamental arch with two little alleys that go down into the main street. So I said to the shepherd, “Can the sheep go like this?” He said, “No, if you split a flock, they won't do anything.” “Okay, so well, could they stand here, and then go like that?” He said, “Yes.” They stood there and they didn't move! And I said, “Could they move, you know, down the street?” He said, “I'll ask them.” [LAUGHTER] I thought, “They’re sheep, for God's sake!” Anyway, he asked them, and they did! So they're obviously not as dim as they look. Although I really took against one sheep, which stood on the same spot and jumped up and down. And I became really obsessed with the sheep. I just thought, “Any more of this and you’re a sweater!”
[LAUGHTER]
So don't work with sheep! But everything that could go wrong, went wrong. And there were times when, honestly, you just thought, “We've been out in the rain all day. It's been muddy, we’re cold,” and you come back to the hotel absolutely filthy. And you thought, “This is not glamorous.” And the scene where he asks her to marry him, we were all terribly moved. And before I had time to say “cut,” the horse farted.
[LAUGHTER]
And it was an opinion. I could tell! So it's because the delay in the post was entirely dependent on us getting more money to finish it. I managed to get the Emily Dickinson film shot and cut because not a single thing went wrong. Nothing. It was just miraculous. And I have got two films on the go. [LAUGHS] One is based on a lovely novel by Richard McCann, who is an American, called Mother of Sorrows. And we're casting that now. And I've been asked to write a film about Siegfried Sassoon, who was one of the three great war poets in England. There was Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and Rupert Brooke. The last two were killed, but Sassoon survived. And like a lot of men of his period, who was gay, he got married, and then converted to Catholicism, of all things. So those are the two I'm doing. But I think I am in danger of becoming prolific.
[LAUGHTER[
David Pendleton 37:35
That's some of the best news I've heard in a long time! There's a question over here, too.
Audience 4 37:45
Hello, it's an honor to see you. It's the second time I've seen you here. This is also the second time I've seen Sunset Song. And the single image that sticks out to me more than any other, both times, is during the wedding reception, when Chris is singing, and it fades from her singing amidst all the people to her and Ewan by themselves. And that…I'm sorry, I'm a little flustered. That one scene really stood out as a grace note that reminded me a lot of one of my favorites, How Green Was My Valley. And I was wondering if you could talk about if that was at all an influence, and how you came to think of that specific scene, because it just seems like there was such a elegance to the simplicity of that one fade.
David Pendleton 38:57
He’s asking about the moment in the wedding in the barn when Chris is singing, and then there's the dissolve to Chris and Guthrie.
Terence Davies 39:06
Well, in the book, she does sing at the wedding. And I think she sings a different song though. But that is a very ancient poem. During the reign of Henry the Eighth, there was a rebellion in Scotland. And he sent this army up, and the Scots were annihilated at Flodden. And it was a Scottish noblewoman who wrote this “The Flowers of the Forest Are All Wheeled Away.” I mean, they were just slaughtered. And I'd never heard a recording of it. And I wrote it in the script, and I said to one of the producers, “Could you find me a recording of this song?” And he sent me three. One was a set of bagpipes. There was another vocal version, which was not good. And then this one by a man called Ronnie. I was just knocked out by it! I thought, “We've got to use that.” I mean, it's just fabulous! You can't understand a word of it, but it doesn't matter. For me, it was exactly like the first time I heard Schubert, it was “Nacht und Träume.” I don't speak German. But I know what that song is about. And you know what that song is about, irregardless of whether you can understand the words or not. And I had to use it. I just had to. But that was part of the book. He just said, “He sang ‘The Flowers of the Forest.’” And what's not in the book is when he says to Chae, before he’s shot, “What was the song she sang? What was that song?” And you've got to use it there. It cries out to be used there. And equally, the shots that follow, her holding his clothes, that's not in the book; that's me. And the light coming up in the house, that's not in the book; that's me. I've no idea where they come from. I'm glad they came! [LAUGHS] You never know when an idea comes. You never do. But you've got to be open. You've got to be open. And wonderful things happen.
In the Emily film, she goes to her best friend Vyrling Buffam’s wedding. And we found this beautiful American church, classic American interior, just exquisite. But the scene was for inside and out, but outside was all modern. And we didn't have the money to dress it. So I said, “Okay, we'll just shoot everything in the church.” And we set up the master. And the camera was on tracks. And they'd forgotten to put the brake on. And it slid down like this. I thought, “That's the shot. That's it!” And when she sits down, we go down with her. Don't need anything else! But you've got to be open to that. Just as you've got to be open to when they do something that you hadn't thought of. I mean, in the script, she says—when she finds out he's been killed—“It's a lie. It's a lie.” She says it twice. And she just kept on saying it. She kept on, and you think, yes. You go on saying it as long as you like! It's much more exciting. That's when it's thrilling, when people do things that you haven't thought of. That's, oh! I can't tell you.
David Pendleton 42:32
Thank you. Are there any last questions? I think this is a marvelous moment to wrap up and we'll save something for tomorrow, when we'll be watching A Quiet Passion. So thank you, Terence. Thanks to all of you for your questions and attention.
[APPLAUSE]
Terence Davies
Thank you. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
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Sunset Song
