An interview with ’71 director Yann Demange
With Channel 4’s acclaimed TV series Top Boy and Dead Set under his belt, Paris-born, London-raised director Yann Demange took his time picking exactly the right project for his debut feature, eventually settling on a script from Gregory Burke, produced by Angus Lamont and Robin Gutch. ’71 is a thriller starring Jack O’Connell as a British soldier left behind on the streets of Belfast in 1971.
Q. What’s the first film you can remember watching?
A. I hate these questions, because my memory fails me. I’ll mention a film and then somebody else will ask me and I’ll change my answer. Memory’s a tricky, unreliable thing and you keep re-moulding it, especially in situations like this where you want to have a good anecdote. E.T. was the first time I cried at the cinema. One of the first films I owned on VHS that I’d re-watch crazy amounts of times was The Warriors, I still love that film.
Q. Have you ever played the Warriors Playstation 2 game?
A. They’ve got The Warriors the game? I’m f***ing having that. I’m serious. I’m a huge fan, I’m trying to get my hands on an original poster of it. It’s funny who’s a fan of that film. I was lucky enough to meet one of my favourite living directors, Jacques Audiard, and it turns out he’s a massive fan of The Warriors too.
Q. What were the other big influences growing up?
A. I grew up in a French household — my mother still to this day can’t speak English — so I was exposed to a lot of French cinema when I was a kid. We moved from Paris to Streatham in the late ’70s. We weren’t a very literary family, but my mum’s always loved film. It was an immigrant household, and we had a VHS early, purely because mum was desperate to watch things in her own language. I remember watching The 400 Blows when I was very young and being affected by it. It remains one of my favourite films, but it would be a pretentious lie to say it was the first film I saw.
Q. Were there any particular genres that stood out for you?
A. I battered the B-movies, battered the Westerns, I’m a huge Western fan. I’ve always loved movies with central characters that hardly speak. Maybe that’s why I fell in love with the ’71 script and wanted to do the film.
“I wanted to push it more towards the shades of grey and make sure we humanise everyone. We have to try to identify with everybody and understand everyone’s point of view.”
Q. You’ve been directing TV for a long time — how did your first film come about?
A. The British film industry has been unbelievably kind to me. Tessa Ross sat me down years ago — I’m not exaggerating, six or seven years ago, after I did Criminal Justice — and she said, “Come on, I want to make your first film.” Lizzie Francke said the same thing to me at the BFI. For years, Dan MacRae at StudioCanal has been trying to find something for me. It’s amazing that eventually they all come on board to make my first film.
Film4 were the ones that developed it. It’s [Commissioning Executive] Sam Lavender’s baby actually, and he deserves a big-up. He’s another one kept with meeting me over the years. In a way Sam Lavender’s always been my point man, he’s the one who seemed to connect most to my work. And I had wonderful meetings with Tessa, she’s very nurturing.
Q. Did it take quite a long time to find something you liked?
A. Well, I thought I might not get a chance to make a second film — a lot of people don’t — so the first film’s got to really matter. So I took a long time to commit and started to feel like I’d never make one. I had things in development, and then you have that honest conversation with yourself and go ‘it’s just not good enough, we shouldn’t go forward with it.’ I had a lot of moments like that. With this, I saw something that could transcend the specificity of The Troubles and have universality. It felt personal and a story absolutely worth doing, worth going to battle for and trying to get it right.
Q. It’s impressive that you waited — there are too many films where it’s clear someone has jumped at the chance to make anything, good or bad.
A. You’ve got to respect film, it’s there forever. It’s got to earn its place and it’s got to have a reason to exist. I found out last week that at least six movies come out every Friday. You have to ask, ‘why are people going to come and see this one? Why does this film need to exist? Why am I going to make it?’ But when I read this script, I knew straight away. Then I met the producers Angus Lamont and Robin Gutch, amazing guys. Angus is so humble he’d never mention it, but he initiated the whole thing; the film is his idea and he approached Gregory Burke to write it.
Q. What was your input like before shooting started?
I wanted to push it more towards the shades of grey and make sure we humanise everyone. We have to try to identify with everybody and understand everyone’s point of view. I introduced the idea that Gary Hook had a younger brother, because you had to have a reason to root for him beyond just him trying to survive.
What was amazing was we collaborated and they vibed off it. I saw it with a completely different gaze — I’m not Anglo-Saxon, I’m half French, half Algerian, born in Paris. I didn’t have a clue what happened out there; it’s embarrassing. It’s not on the curriculum. So you have to make sure you don’t exploit a recent and painful period in someone’s history, when people were alive and lost loved ones, you can’t exploit it to make a cynical chase film, you can’t just make a genre movie.
“The ones that were really active and in the thick of it, they were between the ages of 17 and 22. I was like, ‘my god, they were just boys.’ That humanised it for me instantly.”
Q. What was it like developing the script with Greg?
Greg’s amazing, he’s so fast, and he loves movies. It’s hilarious, he’s a lauded playwright, but he prefers movies — I love that about him. He took about four or five passes in two or three months. The great thing about Greg is he never goes, ‘oh I’ve done my job now, I’ve delivered.’ I’d phone him on the set and say ‘I’ve just shot this, I think it affects that scene, what do you think?’ He was always writing, it was always evolving, there was always a back and forth in that respect. I’m lost without a writer. I’m not a writer-director, and that doesn’t bother me, I don’t have a hang-up about that, because I’d never have come up with this.
Q. Can we talk a little bit about the technical craft of the film and how you put together your team?
I’m glad you asked that. I’m really lucky in that I’ve worked with the same DoP for nine years, Tat Radcliffe — an amazing man, an amazing collaborator. He’s shot every piece of television I’ve ever done, and now he’s made my first film; I’m so pleased. He brings so much to it.
It’s the same with Chris Wyatt, my editor — these guys are my best friends in the world. Chris cut This Is England, and when I saw it, I was blown away by it, so I tracked him down and badgered him to work with me and I haven’t let go of him since. I’ve been working with Chris for nine years, he cuts everything. I hope I never make a film without him, he’s like a writer, he brings so much to it. These are the longest relationships I’ve had, they’re like marriages.
Q. The film also looks amazing — can you tell us about the production design, costume, make up, all that?
We had Jane Petrie from Top Boy in charge of costumes. I brought along the amazing makeup artist that I used on Dead Set, Emma Scott. I get really hung up about wigs in period films — oh my God, there’s nothing worse — and Emma didn’t use a single wig, she just used extensions. The production designer, Chris Oddy was a bit of a genius too — it’s the first time I’ve worked with him, and it won’t be the last, I hope.
Q. What different kinds of research did you do?
I did a lot of reading and watched a stupid amount of archive footage. It’s amazing what’s out there. But the key thing for me was meeting people. When I went to Belfast, I spent time meeting people that had been active on both sides, and then meeting families of victims, going to an inquiry about the McGurk’s pub bombing.
The key insight that clicked and drove a lot of the development and the casting was when I realised that the key players on both sides were young. The ones that were really active and in the thick of it, they were between the ages of 17 and 22. I was like, ‘my god, they were just boys.’ That humanised it for me instantly. The weight of it actually intimidated me, I had a couple of wobbles. So that’s why there was a lot of development on the script, to make sure I can stand by this in ten years’ time.
