in the post war years. how did you discover searle? when i was six, somebody gave me a copy of hurrah for st trinian s, a collection of cartoons by ronald searle, for my birthday. that was it. the great thing about searle is that he was apart from being a great draughtsman he was a fantastic observer, and his style of drawing influenced my style. my handwriting to this day is influenced by ronald searle s style of handwriting. and what was he doing? i mean, just to evoke a sense of his style? well, there are two things, really. one is his observation of character, and his expression of character. but the other is his line. you know, he had a great. ..he had a range of different kinds of line, but he had a great facility to allow the pen marks to be themselves. you think about the characterisation that ronald searle comes up with in those drawings, those kind of quite
that one major thing that i always thought about films was, wouldn t it be great if you could have a film where the characters in the film were like real people, not like actors? and the other thing, which is of far, far less significance, or of no importance at all, is that watching westerns, you know, because of the nature of the number of frames on a length of film, the wheels on the, on a vehicle or a stagecoach would go around backwards. yes. and i used to think, sit there thinking, when i make films, they ll go round the right way. now that was from a very early age. what sort of age? 0h, little. i mean, six, seven, eight. the first big cultural influence that you ve picked, that you suggest has had a formative effect on your work, is ronald searle. illustrator, artist, best known for st trinian s, for creating st trinian s and for the molesworth books, and also contributing illustrations and drawings to so many books and magazines over the years,
and that s what i do. so i can t talk about a direct correlation between this ronald searle character or that character in one of my films. it s about a way of looking at life, really. the next big turning point, the next big influence, drawing, life drawing. just tell us about that class. well, here s the thing. i went to rada, i acted for a bit, including in a couple of films. i then went to camberwell art school on the foundation course for a year. i then went to a year in the theatre design department of the central school of arts and crafts, and i went to the london film school, all within four years. for me, what was. ..i mean, of those various kinds of study, the only year i spent, the only thing i did, which wasn t directly related to theatre or film, was the foundation course at camberwell. but it was there that i had a really seminal experience as an artist.
spindly characters. they re sort of etiolated figures. is there a link, do you think, in those characters, between those characters and some of the characters that you create in your films? i think the important thing about searle being an inspiration, or, if you like, an influence on me, it s not so much about specific characters. it s about a way of looking at the world. i mean, if you look at my characters in my films, and indeed plays. ..it s never i never allow it to be described as naturalism, it s realism, it gets to the essence of what s real. i mean, you have to believe in it being absolutely real when you see in the moment when you see it. but there s a certain, there s an edge, there s a distillation. there s a heightening, which is a natural thing for an artist like ronald searle to do.
thought about films was, wouldn t it be great if you could have a film where the characters in the film were like real people, not like actors? and the other thing, which is of far, far less significance, or of no importance at all, is that watching westerns, you know, because of the nature of the number of frames on a length of film, the wheels on the, on a vehicle or a stagecoach would go around backwards. yes. and i used to think, sit there thinking, when i make films, they ll go round the right way. now that was from a very early age. what sort of age? the first big cultural influence that you ve picked, that you suggest has had a formative effect on your work, is ronald searle. illustrator, artist, best known for st trinian s, for creating st trinian s and for the molesworth books, and also contributing illustrations and drawings to so many books and magazines over the years, in the post war years. when i was six, somebody gave me a copy of hurrah for st trinian s, a collection