Michael Winterbottom: Interviews

Michael Winterbottom Gets Naked

71 Michael Winterbottom Gets Naked Stephen Rodrick/2005 From The New York Times Magazine, © 3 July 2005 The New York Times. All rights reserved . Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of the Material without express written permission is prohibited. On a bleak British afternoon last fall, Michael Winterbottom and his small crew were preparing for filming on the top floor of Felbrigg Hall, a possibly haunted seventeeth-century manor in eastern England. Winterbottom , one of England’s most prominent independent filmmakers, was directing an adaptation of Laurence Sterne’s often-cited, rarely read novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, aptly described by the comedian Steve Coogan, who plays Shandy in Winterbottom’s film, as “a postmodern novel written before there was a modern.” (The cast includes the critically acclaimed British actors Jeremy Northam, Shirley Henderson, and Stephen Fry, all working at scale just so they can be in a Winterbottom film.) Sterne’s book has frequently been described as unfilmable, which is precisely what interested Winterbottom. Published in 1760, Tristram Shandy is the memoir of an eighteenth-century country gentleman who wishes to share his “life and opinions” but is so overcome by the urge to tell digressive, often saucy stories about his father, Walter (a harmless but eccentric pedant), his Uncle Toby (who rides a hobbyhorse and obsesses over an old war wound), and his own conception (which was botched when his mother asked his father if he had remembered to rewind the clock at the moment of climax) that he barely manages to get to his own birth before the book’s end. It features many of the avant-garde flourishes now associated with writers like Dave Eggers and Jonathan Safran Foer. There are drawings, blank pages, and a page of solid black after a beloved character dies. In keeping with the meta vibe, Coogan plays Tristram, Walter, and a version of himself 72 michael winterbottom: inter views interacting with the film’s crew and co-stars. The day’s scene had Coogan /Walter leaving the birth of Tristram, walking off-camera and meeting his (Coogan, the charactor’s) wife, Jenny, played by Kelly Macdonald , who is breast-feeding their baby, being played by a six-month-old baby named Daisy. While the set was being prepared, Winterbottom, who often doesn’t realize he’s mumbling rapid-fire instructions to himself in his Lancashire accent, approached Daisy’s mother, who was standing just off-camera, and whispered something to her. She made a startled face and then retreated into Daisy’s diaper bag. A moment later, she handed Winterbottom a pacifier dunked in her breast milk. With a naughty grin, he approached Macdonald. “So, maybe we can just put it down there,” Winterbottom said, motioning the pacifier toward Macdonald’s bra. “She can just suck on it next to your breast, and it will look better.” The set went quiet as Winterbottom awaited Macdonald’s response. Macdonald, a pixieish Scot, initially looked as if she might swoon onto the period furniture, but she agreed. Nearby, a manor staff member tsked her disapproval. A producer from BBC Films girded the crew for an eruption. “I’m a mother,” she whispered. “When that baby realizes there’s no milk there, she is going to scream bloody murder.” The scene began and, just as predicted, Daisy wailed at speed-metal decibels. She turned a light shade of purple, seeking succor that was not forthcoming. Winterbottom didn’t seem to notice. As with many of his films, Winterbottom was shooting this movie, titled A Cock and Bull Story, in a jumpy, hand-held documentary style. He burrowed his head into the back of his cinematographer, Marcel Zyskind, moving him into the exact position he wanted. After the scene was finished, Macdonald was near tears, but Winterbottom had a wide smile on his face. “The baby screaming is perfect for the scene, perfect,” he said. “One more time.” The atmosphere on the Cock and Bull Story set was chaotic and exuberant . Andrew Eaton, Winterbottom’s best friend and longtime producing partner—together they run Revolution Films—had just returned from London with news that the film’s already bare-bones $3.5 million budget needed to be cut by another $1 million. Simultaneously, Winterbottom ’s previous film, 9 Songs, was causing a national furor. The film, which is scheduled to open in the United States on July...