Case Study: Kevin Macdonald

Considering he's the grandson of legendary writer-director Emeric Pressburger, you might think Kevin Macdonald was destined to become a filmmaker. In fact Macdonald insists he fell into the documentary business via journalism, eventually going on to direct the critically acclaimed drama The Last King Of Scotland (2007). Here he reveals why winning an Oscar® almost ruined his career, saved it again and put him on the wrong side of Mick Jagger...

First interest in filmmaking...

"I was always interested in films, but I never really thought about being a filmmaker. I planned on being a journalist but I left college in 1989 and there was a recession in Britain, so I hatched this plan to go off and be a journalist in Latin America - I had this romantic vision of working in Buenos Aires. I went to Spain for a year to learn Spanish and I started doing bits and pieces of journalism there. When I came back to Britain - I never got to Latin America - I ended up with my brother [producer Andrew Macdonald] making little documentaries and spoof films on a Hi8 camera just for fun. One of those got seen by somebody at the BBC and from that they asked us to do this little seven-minute documentary, and from that came something else. I suppose I've always been interested in real life, real people, the oddities and strangeness of real life rather than what people can make up. Usually real life is more extraordinary than anything you can imagine. I suppose I fell into making documentaries through the back door."

Starting in documentaries...

"I went on to make a lot of documentaries that were about filmmakers and artists, profiles that were typical TV documentaries. But I got frustrated after a while with that pigeonhole - you know, making films where you're trying to show how somebody is a genius becomes a bit boring after a while. I wanted to make something about what was going on in the real world, I suppose. I then saw a film called When We Were Kings (1997), about Muhammad Ali and his fight with George Foreman in Zaire in 1974, and I found it a fantastically inspiring experience. There was another one called Hoop Dreams (1994) about basketball. Both of these films were exciting, emotional, compelling narratives, but they were real life as well; they were documentaries. And I thought, 'I'd like to do that.' So that's what I then set about trying to do."

Moving into features...

"I got together with a producer called John Battsek and we literally said, 'We're going to make a feature film that's a documentary. What's it going to be about?' We batted around various ideas. What happened is, I wanted to make something about terrorism in the '70s and he wanted to make something about sports because he's a real sports nut, and in the end he said, 'Why don't we make something about the Munich Olympic Games massacre?' I started doing some research on it and rapidly began to think, 'Hmm. Actually this is a really amazing story,' and nobody had really looked into it, because there are so many unanswered questions about what happened, so many conspiracy theories surrounding it. So we started making the film [One Day In September, 1999]."

On funding in the UK...

"It was very hard to raise the money because firstly everybody was saying, 'Look. You're not a very experienced director and you want us to give you all this money to make a feature film? And then, 'Who's ever heard of anyone going to see a documentary at the cinema?' I mean, it was all a bit crazy, very difficult. We started filming before we had all the money and juggling things around, but we eventually managed to piece together all the finance to finish the film."

On winning an Oscar®...

"One Day In September was very successful critically; it won an Academy Award for Best Documentary (2000) and got theatrical release in a lot of countries. It was great in that sense, but at the same time it was very controversial. If you handle anything to do with the Middle East, particularly to do with the Israeli-Palestinian problem, you can never get it right. You're always going to get attacked from both sides. Certainly that was my experience. I tried to make a balanced film that was about a specific incident and not historical context, and when you try and do that with the Israeli-Palestinian problem everyone gets up in arms about it and says, 'Well you haven't explained our grievances as to why we did this and then why...' Argh! It's terrible.

"I still vividly remember the day I woke up, and the film was about to come out in Britain, and I went and bought The Guardian and there on the front page of the reviews section in big red letters was: 'Edward Said: Why This Film Should Never Have Won An Oscar®' and then there was, like, three pages attacking the film. Of course Edward Said was this very famous, respected Palestinian academic, and I just thought, 'Oh, no. This is so awful. I don't want to be attacked by Edward Said.' And then in Israel we were on the front pages of the papers and, you know, the headlines were about 'Betrayal Of The Families Of The Victims'. People just milk this stuff so much."

On working with Mick Jagger...

"After One Day In September I made a really little film about a documentary filmmaker I love called Humphrey Jennings (2000), which was a really pleasant thing to do - just biding time really - and then I was asked by Mick Jagger to make a documentary about him [Being Mick, 2001]. It's the kind of thing you would never do in your right mind because it's never going to end happily, and sure enough it didn't end happily. But at the time I thought, 'What bliss to make a film that really doesn't matter'. I did have to say, 'Look, I'm going to make my own film and as long as you know that, then I'm happy to do this'. Naturally they say to you, 'Of course, of course. Do whatever you like', because they are indirectly paying for it, so they indirectly own it and they can do whatever they like with it. That's what happened with that film. I felt that what came out of it wasn't really mine. But it was a fascinating experience and I did very much like Mick Jagger and we had a great time doing it. It went from the sublime to the ridiculous, doing One Day In September and then doing that, mixing with hoity-toity celebrities on a beach in Cannes. It was preposterous and meaningless and a very nice way to come out of the heaviness and controversy of One Day In September."

On success...

"Winning an Oscar® really helped with getting the finance for my next feature, Touching The Void (2003). Someone sent me the book and said, 'I think there's a film in here and you'll absolutely love it.' I read it and it was fantastic, I thought, 'I have to make it.' So, winning the Oscar®, although it's pretty preposterous as a prize... you just mention the word Oscar® and people love it. Even now with The Last King Of Scotland (2007), the poster here in Britain says, 'From the Oscar®-winning director...', which I think is silly but people obviously think it helps. People take the film seriously because of that, I suppose. I often say that being an Oscar® winner is like being knighted in American celebrity culture, because forever afterwards in America, whenever they mention your name, they'll say 'Oscar®-winner Kevin Macdonald...' like it's the equivalent to 'Kevin Macdonald OBE'."

Working in Hollywood...

"I'm now working on my first real Hollywood feature. It's a remake, or inspired by, the BBC drama series State Of Play. Brad Pitt is starring as an investigative journalist. We're actually filming that in Washington and New York towards the end of the year.

"I'd like to keep a balance between making Hollywood movies and working on smaller projects. I think it's quite good for your soul because documentaries are a bit more like writing. Everything in a documentary is there because you put it there and because you want it like that, but in a feature film there's always so many other people around you the whole time. That can be great, and the sociability of making a feature film is one of the reasons to make one, but there's certainly something very nice about doing something small scale. I've got a couple of other projects that are smaller scale British films, but I think I'm the kind of person that wants to make films that are popular, not just for myself. I think if I can make something that is intelligent and interesting, and I can make it in the mainstream, then I'd like to try that. If you get a chance to do something that interests you in Hollywood, then why not try it once? If you don't like it, don't do it again."

Stella Papamichael | Published 17 May 07