What has impressed me most about the whole project is the commitment of the crew and the actors who came to it with a passion, with a deep concern for the subject, and even when it was emotionally very difficult for them, they weren’t afraid to push themselves beyond what felt safe. I think they loved this family and were heartbroken at its destruction. This is an important and universal subject – children are everywhere, victims are everywhere, parents are everywhere, but so are abusers.
Tim Roth May 1999 The War Zone Diary by
Alexander Stuart
Life before Tim For a book as undeniably dark and difficult as The War Zone is, the response it has provoked has been a remarkably positive force in my life.
Even the publication-year furor in 1989, when I was told my novel had won the Whitbread Best Novel Prize (now the Costa Book Award), only to have it snatched away because juror Jane Gardam so objected to my ‘repellent’ book that she complained to Whitbread itself that it would reflect poorly on them as a “family company” (a brewery, no less) if The War Zone were to win, was probably more prestigious – and certainly more interesting – than winning the prize itself.
Although originally commissioned on the strength of a fifteenpage outline for Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson at Hamish Hamilton in the UK, I had no idea when I finished The War Zone whether it would find an audience at all. My young son, Joe Buffalo, was sick with cancer for most of the writing of the novel, and only the fact that I felt driven to complete it, when I had no interest in anything other than spending time with him, gave me a sense that the book might have some worth.
The novel was published simultaneously in Britain and the United States, where, surprisingly, given my liberal use of English slang, it was better received than at home – until the Whitbread controversy prompted British newspapers that had previously ignored the book to break their silence.
Within months of publication, a friend introduced me to film producer Barbara Broccoli – daughter of the legendary James Bond producer, Cubby – who wanted to develop a film of the novel. I liked and trusted Barbara enormously – I made it a condition of our deal that she go down the helter-skelter with me on the pier in Brighton, where I lived at the time, and she did.
She commissioned me to adapt my novel as a screenplay. I wrote two drafts, but it was the same year that my son died, and aside from any problems the subject matter itself may have created in terms of developing a film, my heart wasn’t in it and I was difficult to deal with
– I remember arriving at one meeting so angry, it took an hour and a half to calm me down.
When Barbara’s option in the novel expired, another producer, Eric Abraham, approached me. As much a fan of writers as directors – a rare find in the film industry – Eric had a real enthusiasm for the book and also wanted me to adapt it myself. (It’s fairly unusual for authors to adapt their own material, often for good reason.) He was happy to involve director Nicolas Roeg, a friend I greatly admired as a filmmaker, and with whom I had made Insignificance a few years before.
Despite a reputation in the industry for being somewhat abrasive, Eric was enormously supportive over the next couple of years, as I wrote various drafts of the script and we attempted to find finance for what we knew would be a difficult film. Eric stayed on board when I separated from my long-term partner, Ann Totterdell (Joe’s mother), and moved from Brighton to Miami Beach, to rebuild my life after my son’s death.
Eric remained unfazed when – as part of a deal to involve a new director, Danny Boyle, who had just made Shallow Grave (and is now world-renowned for the multi-Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire) – another producer, Sarah Radclyffe, who was also a long-time friend of mine, became a part of the equation.
At the time of Danny’s involvement, after a period in which I had begun to wonder whether the film would ever get made, I felt a new excitement for the project. I was in Australia at the time, with my girlfriend (now my wife and the mother of our children), Charong Chow, who was studying abroad, and we both f lew to London to stay at Sarah’s house and meet with Danny.
Danny was a blast of fresh energy, with a commitment of his own to the subject matter of the book. As artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1990, he had called me once at home out of the blue and asked me to adapt The War Zone for the stage, but the stage rights were tied up with the film rights and I couldn’t do it.
Danny and I worked on various drafts of the screenplay during 1994 and early 1995, trying to crack some of the challenges the novel presented. Much of the power of the book came from the fact that Jessie is seen through Tom’s eyes – her strength and deeply-buried pain were harder to establish objectively in the script, as a role for a young actress. We had long discussions about how much Tom should know, and when.
One of our major changes – decided during a bus trip in Cuba, where Danny was showing Shallow Grave at the 1994 Havana Film Festival – was to end the film in Devon and resolve everything at the cottage, rather than jumping to the change of time and place (ironically, a Caribbean island) that I had used at the end of the novel.
Sadly, although Channel Four Films loved Danny ( Shallow Grave had been a big success for them), and had been interested in The War Zone for some time, we could not get the project to a stage where they would commit to financing it.
Finally, Danny had to choose between The War Zone and another film he had been developing, Trainspotting. I was devastated when he told us his decision, but it would be hard to argue that he made a mistake.
After Danny’s departure in 1995, I found it difficult to get excited by any other director that Sarah or Eric suggested, even threatening to walk away from the project entirely when I found one proposed director’s take on the material completely lacking in the passion I felt it needed. But the fact that Nic and Danny had worked so hard with me for so long sustained me with the belief that ultimately we’d find the right person.
Perversely, it was when I flew to Los Angeles in early 1996 to discuss with Kiefer Sutherland an entirely different undertaking, a screenplay of Bill Buford’s stunning account of soccer hooliganism, Among the Thugs, that I got my answer – and The War Zone was finally up and running.
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Enter Roth
Tuesday March 5, 1996 One of the great days! The meeting with Kiefer and Alliance went well this morning – I think they’re going to commission me to write the script of Among the Thugs.
I feel so good by the end of the meeting, I ask to check my hotel voicemail before we leave the room. There are six messages from Tim Roth, whom I’ve never met, saying he’s just read my novel, The War Zone, and wants to direct it as a film. Each message as he tries to reach me grows a little more discouraged – ‘I know you’re only in town for a couple of days. Let’s meet.’ He leaves his number, his mobile number, his agent’s number. I call back immediately, talk to him, and arrange to meet at 8:00 tonight in the bar of the Bel Age Hotel.
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Now I’m really excited. I call my friend, Susan Ruskin, and meet her for lunch. Move out of my hotel and into her house for a night. I meet Tim at 8:00 p.m. as arranged. He seems much the same in life as on screen – down-to-earth, friendly, still very English despite having lived in LA for six years. I tell him I saw him at the Groucho Club in London a year before. I’d wanted to go up to him and tell him how good I thought he was in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction (which I don’t usually do – I never approach actors), but someone distracted me. Tim tells me he was probably drunk anyway!
We start talking about The War Zone. He loves the book and has a powerful understanding of its themes. He wants to make an uncompromising film about abuse – something that will confront the audience, let them feel the pain. He relates the novel directly to my experience of losing my son, Joe Buffalo. He talks openly and sensitively about the pain I went through, and his strength of feeling and compassion make me feel in turn that he would bring that commitment to the screen.
He wants to foc
us on the children, make us understand what Jessie and Tom are going through. I think he sees Jessie as more immediately a victim than she appears in the book. He says she’s damaged – which is how I’ve always seen her, but I wanted the discovery to come late, so that you think she’s strong and frighteningly powerful, then you realize why she’s who she is and how she is.
In the novel, I wanted to push the idea of Jessie’s apparent power and culpability, in order to make Dad’s guilt more complex – not simply because I wanted to suggest at the end that the abuse may have been going on all her life, but also to underline the fact that no parent ever escapes the responsibility of being a parent, no parent must ever cross that line.
But I can live with Tim’s approach, because of the emotion I feel he will bring to the film, and because I know that, from a writer’s perspective, filmmaking involves giving up ownership. There’s just no choice, unless you direct the material yourself: it’s a director’s medium and a collaborative effort.
We start discussing films we love, such as My Life as a Dog and Days of Heaven – the way they make you see the world through a child’s eyes. And Tim talks passionately about two of the directors who have most influenced him – Alan Clarke, for whom he made his stunning debut in Made in Britain, and Mike Leigh, for whom he made Meantime – plus a third, Ken Loach, who greatly inspired him.
Talking to him, I never question in my mind whether he can direct – he’s never done it before, and actors don’t always make the best directors, but there’s something about Tim, his confidence, the integrity and power he’s always brought to his roles, that blows away any doubts. More than anything there’s an honesty to him that makes me feel that I can trust him.
He wants to start working on The War Zone right away: he’s impatient to get on, though he has other films to do first as an actor, maybe a year and a half of commitments. For the first time – or at least the first time since Danny dropped out – I absolutely believe that The War Zone will happen. Tim has a passion for it that goes far beyond the film industry – he seems to need to make this film, the way I needed to write the book when Joe Buffalo was sick. And on a practical level, the fact that he’s currently Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Rob Roy, makes me feel secure that, even on such a potentially difficult project, someone in this kudos-driven industry will back him.
This feeling is underlined by the number of times Tim is approached while we talk in the Bel Age bar. A woman comes up, says she’s a fan, mentions the Oscars, and asks for his autograph. She is not alone. Then the manager of the bar approaches us as we are leaving and says, ‘You’re a legend, Mr Roth, a legend.’ I didn’t know people actually said things like that!
Tim follows me out in his car and as we hit Sunset Boulevard, he pulls alongside and shouts, ‘That’s the spot where Gary and Kiefer got arrested’ – a reference to a story I’ve mentioned, which Kiefer Sutherland told me earlier in the day, about his getting arrested with Gary Oldman after Kiefer’s marital near-miss with Julia Roberts. I drive back to Susan’s house, not quite believing the day I’ve just had.
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Wednesday March 13, 1996 This past week, I have been in LA, back home with Charong in Miami Beach for about 24 hours, then in Boston visiting Charong’s cousin Cathy, and in New York visiting our friends, Frankie and Andre.
Tonight I call Tim from a payphone at Madison Square Garden, where we are seeing Oasis play live. He will go to England for meetings about The War Zone as soon as the Oscars are over on March 25, then I will go to LA in April to start mapping out our first draft of the screenplay together.
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Monday April 1, 1996 Tim calls, excited, from London to say that at his first meeting – with George Faber at the BBC – he was offered the money to make The War Zone. Although I haven’t doubted for a moment that he can direct, I think he is thrilled by this proof that he is being taken seriously. He is meeting with five or six other companies that might finance the film – including David Aukin at Channel Four Films, who has been involved with the project since Danny Boyle. It might be good to have a fresh start, but Channel Four has a great reputation with films as diverse as Trainspotting, Four Weddings and a Funeral, My Beautiful Laundrette, A World Apart and A Room with a View.
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Thursday April 4, 1996 Dixie Linder calls from Sarah Radclyffe’s office in London to say that Tim has established a great track record with his meetings with potential financiers – everyone he’s met wants to be involved with the film, even though it’s such a difficult subject.
Nothing is set yet, but I think Tim’s feeling is that we’ll probably go with Channel Four, because they seem to guarantee the greatest artistic freedom.
One of Tim’s conditions for doing this film has been that we avoid American finance, because even independent companies like Miramax tend to get heavily involved in shaping the script or, failing that, reshaping the film through editing (Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein’s nickname in the industry is ‘Harvey Scissorhands’).
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Saturday April 6,1996
I flew from Miami to LA yesterday to start working with Tim on outlining the new script. We meet at 11:00 this morning at Tim’s agent, Ilene Feldman’s offices on Sunset Boulevard, a wonderful place to work. It’s quiet, there’s no one about, the offices are decorated in a very relaxed, noncorporate style using mostly dark-wood furniture from Asia, and Ilene’s office has a fine view over Los Angeles.
Tim doesn’t want to see any of the scripts of The War Zone that I wrote for Danny Boyle, Nic Roeg or Barbara Broccoli – perhaps eight or nine drafts in all. He wants to start afresh from the novel, and his first advice to me is to go away and read my own book!
It’s funny; no one has ever suggested this before. Obviously, I’ve read it many times, from proofreading the various editions to working on the previous scripts, but Tim wants me to read everything, not just the parts I think have useful plot points or dialogue. With this in mind, he’s had a friend scan his lone paperback copy of the novel, blow it up to script format and make copies for both of us.
We ease into working together, with an hour or so before lunch, then take a break and a couple of beers, then back to it for the rest of the afternoon. I take notes, but have a cassette recorder running as insurance in case I miss anything. One of the first things we talk about is changing the season in the film from summer to winter.
Summer was always really important to me in the novel – the idea of a really hot, unusual, primal English summer, with Devon almost as a jungle: nature gone crazy. But because of the unpredictability of British summers, we’ve twice lost the chance to shoot the film with Danny Boyle, and moreover I’ve just seen the film Fargo and I love the idea of a totally fresh start on the script with a far bleaker natural backdrop.
This seems to fit absolutely with Tim’s thinking – he is already talking very precisely about how he’d like to shoot the film, using a widescreen format and powerful Turneresque landscapes. Later, he takes me to Book Soup on Sunset Boulevard, to leaf through art books, trying to find the exact mood he wants.
Another major discussion is of Dad’s profession. In the book, he’s an architect and this provides a target for some of Tom’s resentment toward him, but Tim wants the family to be closer to his own roots, more working-class, so we decide that Dad might instead work in architectural salvage, ripping valuable old pieces out of other people’s homes – and ripping them off in the process.
To some extent, this feels like another loss of authorship for me, since I have always wanted the family to be middle-class because the cliché of abuse is of a working-class family, whereas it happens in every class: just as much in the houses of the well-off as in a council house. But it’s important to Tim, and I feel that he, more than anyone, has to be comfortable with the milieu of the film.
We discuss structuring the film so that it’s essentially through Tom’s eyes, as in the book, so that we share not only Jessie’s pain, but
Tom’s discovery of and exclusion from the abuse that will tear his family apart.
We talk about the possibility of using voice-over – the novel is very internal, and it’s hard to capture the complexity of Tom’s situation without being inside his head. We both feel that voice-over can work spectacularly well in films such as Badlands or Goodfellas, but we’re not sure if we want it yet.
Every time I have doubts about where I might go with a particular moment, Tim tells me, ‘Go back to the novel. Look at what’s there, use that.’
I appreciate the fact that he trusts me: that I’m not interested simply in recreating the novel on screen, but rather in trying to get to the essence of it and translate it to a different medium. He obviously doesn’t feel that by encouraging me to go back to the book, I’ll wind up being too literary, the way some novelists are when they adapt their own material. Personally, I think my biggest liability when I adapt my own material is that I tend to want to throw everything out – even the parts that made it work in the first place – and start again.
Another encouraging aspect of working with Tim is that because of his position in the industry – and his confidence – he has established that I will work solely with him on the script. No one else will see it until both of us are happy with it, and then, if anyone has any issues, they will have to deal first with Tim, not me.
I have known the producers, Sarah Radclyffe, Dixie Linder and Eric Abraham, for several years, and I like working with them, but it’s liberating to be answerable to one person – and one person who is very clear in what he wants – rather than going through notes from four or five different points of view.
The War Zone: 20th Anniversary Edition Page 27