Interview with director Stephen Weeks

Stephen Weeks, film director of British origin, left for London as an18-year-old and worked there as an author and producer of TV commercials. When he was 22, he directed full-length horror “I, Monster” (1971) starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing (having already directed his first cinema film “1917” when he was 20). He wrote and directed “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” (1972) produced by Carlo Ponti, and In India he filmed the supernatural-themed horror “Ghost story” (1974) and later also worked with Sean Connery on the historical fantasy “Sword of the Valiant” (1984).

What inspired you to become a film director?

Through my childhood I was more interested in history and architecture than film, though I did think I might become a film art director. When I was 16 I was responsible for a landmark conservation event in having the demolition of an historic building stopped in my town and got onto television as a result. I soon suggested that I could make a series of short TV pieces on threatened buildings – so by the time I had reached 18 I had 12 short TV films to my credit. However, the films were getting more filmic than sticking to the subject, and I skipped university to work in film. In those days there were no dedicated film schools in the UK, so I started work at the J Walter Thompson advertising agency producing and directing test commercials – while at weekends making my own films which, while I was 19 and 20 included ‘Victorian Church’ (1967), ‘Flesh’ (1968) and ‘Two at Thursday’ (1968). I left JWT to work as a commercials director for an outside studio and there I set up ‘1917’ – a film set in the first world war in France which I made 1968-69. Christopher Lee saw the film and recommended me to Milton Subotsky of Amicus Productions and my first full-length cinema feature, ‘I Monster’, was offered to me as director.

You told me you personally met master directors such as Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator) or Robert Wise (Body Snatcher, The Haunting, West Side Story). When you were at the beginning of your career, did you have any film-maker you considered as your idol and tried to learn something from his/her work?

Film directors don’t often get to meet other directors – but I made an effort to meet some Hollywood greats such as Tay Garnett, who had started in the silent era working for Mack Sennett; Henry Hathaway who had directed ‘Lives of a Bengal Lancer’ in 1934; Robert Wise who had edited Citizen Kane and whose film ‘The Haunting’ I greatly admired. I have obviously met a lot of directors over the span of my life, including Roman Polanski, Ridley Scott and Adrian Lyne. However, the director I most admired when I was in my 20s was Jiri Menzel (this was long before I had any involvement with the Czechs) for ‘Closely Watched Trains’. In my early years that film was top equal with ‘Captains Courageous’, directed by Victor Fleming in 1937 – a Hollywood studio film, and Fellini’s ‘Juliet of the Spirits’. These three films were highly influential on my development as a director. Incidentally, I met Ridley Scott in a bar one night in Jamaica when we were both young directors there to shoot commercials.

There are two horrors in your filmography. What is your opinion about this genre?

I never really liked the notion of genre films. I never went to see films because they were some genre or other – so I never really watched all the Hammer films for instance. I tend to like films simply as good films – so ‘The Haunting’ or ‘The Changeling’ aren’t horror films for me, but more psychologicall/supernatural thrillers. Horror films of the ‘Friday 13th’ / slasher kind I don’t like – even Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’ which is only a slightly better quality slasher movie. However, the so-called horror genre has given an opportunity for the gothic, the romantic, the melancholy of places to find continued markets for film-makers – and since I love all that stuff, then that’s good.

It´s really admirable you were able to film your first full-length piece horror “I, Monster”, when ou were just 22 years old. This historical film inspired by the novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was quite a big production and the filming itself sure was not easy. How did you feel about it back then?

I was simply glad to be working in the main-stream, at a regular film studio (Shepperton Studios, nr London) and to learn my craft with well-known actors and to be able to have sets built and to experiment. However, I learned only after starting the picture that several other directors (including Peter Duffel – ‘The House That Dripped Blood’ etc) that Milton Subotsky’s supposed 3D system had rightly put them off. The system didn’t – and couldn’t – work; the Art Director, Tony Curtis, thought it worked the other way round so built the sets the counter-direction for it; and the idea that the camera must keep moving (and always left to right too!) was obviously impossible. I quietly abandoned it half-way through shooting and nobody ever mentioned it again! There was quite a bit of antipathy towards me at the studios as I was the youngest person on the set most of the time – and the director! But I did get through it in the end, even though Milton Subotsky never imagined that directors would want to work in the cutting room, or select the graphics (for the titles etc) and so on… but on all my previous films I had done everything and believed that all creative decisions on a film should be by the director.

Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were starring in “I, Monster”, who are now both horror genre icons. They played together in such classics as “TheHorror of Dracula” or “The Curse of Frankenstein”. Current film-watchers know Christopher Lee as Saruman from the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. When you were working together with those two, what was it like?

They were both remarkable actors. Peter Cushing, especially, was a dream to work with – a real ‘gentleman’. Like most British stars they had both done theatre work and were technically very skilled at their work. Christopher Lee was a little more difficult as he was a bigger star – but I believe his role in ‘I, Monster’ is one of his best performances.

You filmed the “I, Monster” with the British production company Amicus, which was rather focused on horror genre films like the Hammer film-studio. What do you think was the difference in horrors produced by those two studios?

I suppose Subotsky’s choice of subjects was more interesting. Amicus never slid into a genre such as Dracula and vampires like Hammer did. Subotsky read a great deal, had several thousand books at his house so he was constantly on the look out for unusual subjects.

Your second horror the “Ghost Story” is a tale about a haunted house. You were awarded a Prize of the International Critics' Jury for it. What do you think a good ghost film story should have?

Well, ghost stories should leave the viewer with a sense of mystery. Not everything should be seen, too: a shadow is more frightening that some actual monster. A good example is the movie ‘The Sixth Sense’ (1999). I love the classic ghost stories of M R James (such as the collection ‘Ghost Stories of an Antiquary’). I hope my film offers this sense of disquiet, of unease. Duller, for example (character in the film) cannot see ghosts – he is, perhaps, insensitive and for that reason he goes off… yet just as he is going he looks up and sees the ghost of Sophie Crickworth at a window and then, later in the film, Talbot actually sees Duller as one of the lunatics in Borden’s asylum…

Every film director has a different view and methods how to create spectres on the screen. Current film makers often use digital effects. Can you tell us, how you were creating ghosts in '70s and what is your most favourite way of depicting the supernatural?

Ghost Story was made on a very tight budget so all the effects were shot through the camera. Two instances: at the very end the suitcase snaps open and out comes the hand of the doll – that was simple to do: we shot it backwards. The doll’s arm was pulled into the case, the lid was allowed to drop, the catch was pulled in using some fishing line – then all this was reversed. Then, when the doll grabs Talbot and pulls him towards the asylum: we were shooting the film in India and I found a little Indian girl who had never worn shoes before. Then, dressed as the doll, she was slowly pulled back by Larry Dann (Talbot), but as if they were facing forwards – and again the whole thing was reversed, so their muscles were working backwards… so it just looks odd, slightly peculiar – which is what I wanted. But all these effects we had to shoot ‘blind’, ie without knowing how they would work out as it took more than two weeks to see our rushes on the film and in those days there was no video-assist.

In “Ghost Story” you use motif of a porcelain doll, that comes alive and is creeping out one of the main characters. Can you reveal us, what things are you afraid of?

I’m not frightened by what other people might find as creepy buildings – old castles, churches etc. I like history too much to be worried by it. The last time I did get the creeps in a building, however, was in an old zamek at Bustehrad – it was the castle where the SS troops who had killed the inhabitants of Lidice were housed. I was there on my own, having climbed a high wall to get in. There was something terrifying about the place; I can’t explain it – but I was suddenly seized with a desire to get out.

Have you ever experienced something supernatural?

Yes. I was once hypnotised and talked for two hours about a life I had supposedly lived in Konigsberg (today Karliningrad) sometime in the 15th century. Historians confirmed that what I had said appeared to be correct – that was strange. In my castle in Wales something would walk down the oak staircase and you could hear the footsteps, and yet there was no one to be seen. I ‘saw’ it, as did several friends. And on my own once, at a ruined medieval castle in England, I grabbed the latch of a door only to find it grabbed from the other side by something. A companion was able to look under the door, but there was no one there! I wrestled with this thing for a few moments, and then latch was propelled from the door and landed on the floor. Strange too.

Thank You very much for the interview and I am wishing You all the best for Your career!