27  Jonathan Morris

The conversation with Jonathan took place in his home in a northern suburb of London on a quiet Sunday morning, before three generations of his family gathered for lunch. Much of his distinguished career has been dedicated to a sustained and fruitful collaboration as the editor for that very special film-maker, Ken Loach.

I was born on 6th of March 1949 at home in Hendon. Parents considered themselves to be middle class – were probably working class; Jewish. My father was a tailor and shopkeeper – mother was a housewife and occasional helper in the children’s wear shop. Elder brother, by six years, Anthony, who now works with me as my assistant, and a brother ten years younger, so quite a span.

First desires and inspiration would have been Fred Astaire, I’m afraid, and I did dance a bit like Billy Elliot – tap dance – and was at the age of twelve in ‘Oliver’¹ with Ron Moody, Georgia Brown and the rest of the crowd on stage. By co-incidence years later I discovered that Ken Loach, who I work with, was actually understudying Lance Percival in the theatre next door in St Martin’s Lane, which is an amazing co-incidence, in a review show called ‘One over the Eight’,² which you might remember, which starred Sheila Hancock and Kenneth Williams, which funnily enough I had seen at the Hippodrome, Golders Green a bit before that, because my mother used to arouse my interest in film and theatre particularly – she loved all that and we’d go and see shows.

At eleven I passed, the eleven plus, went to a very good grammar school which I didn’t like at all – called Christ’s College – by co-incidence one of the boys in the year above me is now the Chief Rabbi, but that’s another story. They weren’t very happy with me doing professional acting – and I came out of ‘Oliver’ after three months, to my annoyance. They said either carry on with your acting and leave the School – I had a snotty headmaster – or stay at the school and come out of ‘Oliver’. So I was due to go to the States with the show – so I didn’t do that, and I did one film after that as an actor – I was in Judy Garland’s last film. Judy Garland and Dirk Bogarde directed by Ronald Neame – a film called ‘I Could Go on Singing’³ – her last film – not a very good film I’m afraid, but that wasn’t really down to me, but my eight guineas a day for ten days was fantastic. Then a lot of acting at school and played football as well of course.

I went into the lower sixth and after one year, my brother, who at this time was now working on ‘The Saint’⁴ TV series at Elstree Studios said there’s a trainee job in the summer if you’re interested. So I did that, I absolutely loved it and didn’t go back to school – took the trainees job – the business was so busy they could give me the job on a contract basis so within weeks I was the second assistant trainee on something called ‘The Baron’,⁵ and kind of went on from there – I enjoyed it so much. I didn’t have the courage to become an actor basically – I really would – I still do – I tell Ken come on sort something out for me, but I don’t think I’d be brave enough to be an actor – I’ve got a lot of respect for actors and anyone who lays their emotions on the line as they do. I don’t think people realise sometimes how much they expose of themselves – not physically – emotionally really. So I’ve got a lot of time for actors.

RC:So you were straight into the cutting rooms.

JM:Yes – I think I was in the union by October having started in July, which was like unheard of.

RC:Did you immediately feel comfortable in the cutting rooms?

JM:I loved it – I absolutely loved it. I still think that was one of my most enjoyable times in the business. It was quite regimented. I like things to be structured – rushes, sound pick em up 8:30 – picture arrive from the laboratories at about a quarter to ten – rushes viewing in the theatre with the producer, who I was petrified of – just because I was a young kid – at eleven o’clock. So you had a real structured day. After that was numbering the rushes, logging the rushes and breaking down the rushes for the editor. Then at 5:30 you’d be done – I quite enjoyed it. I wanted to be in show biz and that’s where I was.

Editing really suited me as opposed to any other aspect of film-making in that I quite value family life. I quite value being able to go to the school concert and not being on location. I valued being able to read the kids a story at seven o’clock when you got home. Almost any other grade in film-making you can’t rely on that. The only time you’re home is when you’re out of work. Pathetic though that might be it is one of the reasons I stayed in editing.

RC:When did you begin to feel that you were learning from somebody?

JM:Straight away. The first person – the guy that taught me when I was a second assistant trainee on ‘The Baron’ was the fellow I was replacing, and his name was Richard Hymns, who is now an Academy Award winner⁶ several times – he ended up in San Francisco, married an American girl, sound editor – I haven’t seen him for over thirty years – works with Spielberg regularly. He was the first person who taught me anything and it was basically the shiny side of the mag up – dull side down⁷ and this took me several weeks to master (laughs). Rewinding a roll of film – do you remember?

RC:Absolutely – getting a flat tight rewind.

JM:Absolutely the little things that have to be done.

RC:But this was Moviola days.

JM:Yes, well actually Ciniola.⁸ I’ll tell you a funny story about Moviolas – when I was working on this corridor at Elstree one of the editors was a chap called Ted Hunter. Known often on credits as Inman Hunter⁹ and as it turned out very influential in my career. The nicest man – bit of an Alistair Sim look-alike. He was working on a Ciniola on ‘The Saint’ – you remember the Ciniola – silver – with a minute screen – tiny. One day he gets in on a Monday morning and his Ciniola had been replaced by a Hollywood Moviola – fantastic with that terrific brake – green – square picture – much bigger – twice the size probably and a bit quieter. He got in touch with the producer and said what’s this, and they said well marvellous we’ve given you a new machine – terrific. He said no, I don’t want that – I want my Ciniola back. They said oh really, okay and they gave him his Ciniola back. Then he confided in a few of us – we said why on earth. He said no Johnny boy, once you get one of those machines in the room you’ll have the director in there all the time! I don’t know how he would have coped with a Steenbeck or Avid.

This guy was very influential. I assisted him in about 1970–71. We were working on documentaries on 16mm which I hadn’t touched before – frightened the life out of me – bootlaces as we called it, as you remember. We were coming to the end and I didn’t have much going – it was quiet in the early 1970s – the Americans withdrew a lot, and he said look Johnny boy – on the old Union Job Sheet – there’s a job here ATV,¹⁰ assistant editor, why don’t you apply for that. I said I don’t want to work in TV and be on this 16mm all the time, no – he said go on – so I said alright, so to keep him quiet I applied – I got an interview, which I was very relaxed at, because I didn’t want the job – then I got a phone call the next day when I was first week on a feature as first assistant – it was a TV spin-off with Irene Handl and Wilfred Pickles – ‘For the Love of Ada’¹¹ – so it was hardly big time, but it was five months work – quite good money. But ATV were saying you’ve got the job – can you start next Monday and I said what – I’m not even sure I want the job. I said can you give me some time to think about it. They said we’ll give you twenty four hours. At this time I was just about to get engaged. It was half the money I was earning. I spoke to my father he said no, don’t bother with that, but my future father-in-law said take it because he was happy with me getting a staff job. So I did and that was the best decision I ever made. Not only was I there eleven years – I would have been there now if the franchises hadn’t changed – but within four years I was editing and within seven or eight years I was working with people like Ken Loach, David Munro, John Pilger, Adrian Cowell, Anthony Thomas – Charles Denton¹² was my mentor and it was actually my University – ATV was when I became, I was going to say politicised, its a bit strong, but compared to what I was its true. It was my University – brilliant, brilliant – terrific place. Very, very lucky to make that decision.

I was all of a sudden working on documentaries and I was put in with a good editor – good in every sense – called Mike Nunn.¹³ He was the kind of editor who after he got to know me a while said ‘do you want to cut this sequence?’ the kind of thing you would never have got on a feature or a TV series because there wasn’t the time and the editors were busy doing their job, they hadn’t got time to bring people along – to nurture them like they would in a staff job.

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That’s how I got to know Ken Loach – and I got to work for him because Roger James¹⁴ said I would be the best man for the job and Ken, for once, didn’t know where to start.

RC:So what was he doing at that time?

JM:It wasn’t at his best of times – it was the late 1970s. He’d had a really tough time in the early 1970s on a personal level. He did a drama for ATV called ‘Gamekeeper’¹⁵ and he’d been allocated what was their number one editor in the corridor at Elstree Studios, Roger James, and he got on very well with Roger who then got promoted to be assistant to the Head of Documentaries, and eventually became the Head of Central Documentaries and is a mate of mine to this day. After Roger had been promoted he couldn’t do any more editing even though Ken tried to get Roger to come back to do it – he wasn’t allowed by the Union so he was then allocated another editor and after a week or two Ken wasn’t happy and then he comes to me. Great, you know – I’ve got this famous awe-inspiring director who ends up with me and it’s a documentary called ‘Auditions’.¹⁶ Just a little film following three dancers looking for work.

Ken’s usually around all the time while you are editing, whether he’s looking out the window or not, he’s in there, but on this particular one because he was living in Bath and we were editing in Elstree it was a nightmare for him travelling up every day by train – three to four hours each way so he wasn’t as involved with the editing as he has been I suspect on almost everything else he’s ever done. So I didn’t get to create a great relationship. That was the first thing I did for him.

RC:Did you feel comfortable – immediately?

JM:No, no not at all.

RC:But you had done some cutting before then.

JM:Yes for three or four years. I was comfortable with most other directors I’d worked with. No, it was Ken – it was Ken Loach. Its difficult for me to remember back because we are good mates now in all sorts of things and we have a terrific time – a great laugh. But at that time I was just thirty. Ken was this man with a reputation. I thought he was quite severe and wasn’t sure if he had a sense of humour. Wasn’t aware of his sporting interests which we both share – cricket and football and because he’s someone you don’t get to know quickly and I suspect I’m not particularly either it was not that easy, and it took a year or two. Obviously he wasn’t too unhappy with me because we kept on working together. But Ken brings a lot of baggage with him which is none of his fault which is his serious – everyone thinks he’s very serious – people think his films are very serious those who don’t see them. Anyone who sees ‘Riff-Raff’¹⁷ or ‘My Name is Joe’¹⁸ or ‘Sweet Sixteen’¹⁹ there’s lots of comedy and lots of laughs and Ken is as interested in music hall comedians as he is in Trotsky.

But at that time it was difficult to discover his interests partly because we didn’t spend a lot of time together and also because I knew I was like third or fourth choice in the line up – it doesn’t help does it?

RC:No. So was it more documentaries after that for Ken?

JM:Yeah, all documentaries – after ‘Auditions’ we did ‘Questions of Leadership’ four programmes – banned by Channel 4, never shown. Then I did a film called ‘The Red and the Blue’ also for Channel 4 which was shown. A documentary called ‘Which Side are You On?’,²⁰ for The South Bank Show during the miners strike.

RC:What was ‘The Red and the Blue’ about?

JM:The party conferences – good actually – the Labour and Tory conferences of 1982. But ‘Which Side are You On?’ was commissioned by Melvyn Bragg²¹ and he was very shocked when he discovered how partisan it was! Don’t know why. He said basically we can’t show this on the South Bank Show and we sneaked it to a festival in Italy where it won a big award. Then London Weekend Television were getting press releases about a programme they hadn’t shown so they sold it to Channel 4 who felt, rather like BBC 2 being the minority channels, they could show rather more opinionated programming.

Ken still ended up on ‘The Right to Reply’²² programme where a police commissioner had questioned the validity of the sound effects of truncheons hitting heads and accused Ken of adding sound effects. Ken was very good and this guy was hoist by his own petard, basically because he eventually said that’s not the sound of truncheons hitting heads and ken said you obviously know the sound better than I do. So it was quite hilarious really.

Then there was a film about Northern Ireland for BBC 2, about getting the troops out and there were two films one for and one against that opinion and obviously Ken was doing troops out of Ireland. The first feature I did was ‘Fatherland’²³ which was about 1985–6. Of course, I was desperate to do a drama with Ken so I did that one and all of them since, except a couple of documentaries.

RC:You’ve said that you eventually found out about Ken’s interest in sport, did you begin to have conversations with him about the political slant of things?

JM:I’m not that political an animal but whenever I’ve worked on a documentary I’ve always thought it helps to get to know something about the subject. I did a film by Rex Bloomstein²⁴ on American Jewish humour and I thought wow this is right up my street, fantastic – there’s no effort to get into the subject. With ‘Questions of Leadership’ it was about the trade unions and very heavy subjects really. Now if you know you are going to be working on a series of four films for about nine months you’d better get interested in the subject otherwise its going to be a nightmare. I read the papers – you follow the stories and you maintain an interest in it. Now I’ve kind of tended to do that whatever I’ve been working on really.

It wasn’t just Ken who got me interested – it was John Pilger. Many of the film-makers – Alan Bell, John Ingram there were a lot of good guys there – it changed my outlook on a lot of things. On so many things – David Munro – these guys were passionate about all sorts of different things and you got interested in them. My father was like Ken’s father funnily enough – Ken’s father was a lower manager in a factory in Coventry and was right wing as was my father and a royalist and I’d been brought up to follow my parents line. As soon as I went to ATV and meeting these people brains you admire – whose intellect you admire – and you see they’re thinking something completely different – I’d better examine why they’d come to those conclusions. Over a period of time that’s what you do naturally enough. You think they’re bright guys – they’re people you admire – what’s there beliefs – um there’s something to this Socialism.

I’m not a great political animal but I certainly changed my beliefs from my early twenties to my late twenties because of the people I was meeting the same as people do at University a bit younger or can do and although I wasn’t living away from home I was working seven days a week, many hours a day with intellectuals. I don’t quite agree with John Pilger on everything but I can see where he’s coming from.

RC:The same thing happened to me. Although my father was a shoe repairer he still voted Tory.

JM:Exactly the same – its what they were aspiring to wasn’t it really. My father thought Ted Heath and Willie Whitelaw²⁵ were marvellous – they admired these people – you know, my father always thought unless you had the right accent how could you govern, which is a strange thing to think really.

RC:But is it possible to describe how you felt about the relationship of putting shots together and making material work and understanding the subject – it was always very important to me. I’ll just give you one example when I was a trainee assistant I noticed the next thing on the schedule was a documentary on Kierkegaard the philosopher and I brought a book on this guy into the cutting room.

JM:Yeah, very good.

RC:I thought it would be good to read up a bit, even though I wasn’t cutting it, I was the trainee. And the editor I was working with said, ‘I don’t mind you reading that but don’t have it around when the director comes in – he’ll think we are interested in the subject of the film’. I couldn’t believe it.

JM:How strange. On the other hand there is always this quite good aspect – if an editor knows nothing about the film, him being the kind of first viewer, whether it be a drama or a documentary, he’s sitting there first of all saying to the director what’s this all about – actually its one of the few trades where a little learning is quite good. If you knew too much about Kierkegaard then you might presume the audience knew where he was born and this happened or whatever, but you have to be very aware of what the audience might know – it’s a delicate balance.

When I was an assistant at ATV I was aware that editors jobs came up very rarely. There were only six editors at that time so it was dead men’s shoes – the department wasn’t expanding. I started there when I was twenty-three and I had been an assistant for six years already and I wanted to be an editor within another four years maximum – that would be ten years. So I thought there would be few jobs coming up I’d better be damn sure I get it when it does. So I went to International Affairs and Relations classes at the Burnt Oak Co-operative not far from here. I went with a friend of mine every Monday evening – it was a discussion class – brilliant – all sorts – there were char ladies there, there were doctors – fifteen of us with a chap we really liked called Guy Arnold who encouraged you to talk out about things which was very good because at that time I was a little bit shy, a little bit uncertain. It gave me a little bit of confidence, knowing a bit about International Affairs. So when I sat at the back of the viewing room with Charles Denton the Head of Documentary and John Pilger and John Ingram the producer, and the editor Mike Nunn and the PA Julie Stoner and then there was me, the assistant editor at the back of the room sat on a bench and Pilger’s doing a rough commentary to picture and he comes out with the line ‘Here in Bangladesh one-twelfth of the world’s population is doing … ‘ and I’m sitting there at the back thinking ‘one-twelfth of the world’s population – I don’t think so’. Now because I’d been to International Affairs classes I had a bit of confidence in myself so I said, ‘Excuse me everybody’, all the heads turn round, ‘I don’t think one-twelfth’ getting very nervous as I’m saying that, ‘of the worlds population is in Bangladesh’. John says, ‘Oh carry on, carry on’. Meanwhile the producer sent the PA, Julie, out to check. She comes back and says, ‘I’m sorry John was right, Its nowhere near that’. So John Pilger, who’s a mate of mine, he turns round and says, ‘Christ Jonathan, I’ve been using that fact in the Daily Mirror for years!’ (much laughter).

So International Affairs classes gave me the confidence and when boards came up for a job I didn’t know – there’s about six assistants going for it all mates, all colleagues and people applying from outside – this was in June 1976 – and erm I went for my board. One of the assistants was a lovely woman called Hazel Sansom and she worked for the supervising editor, George Clark,²⁶ and they were quite close, and he obviously was going to go for her. Anyway, I got the news in a week or so, and its fantastic and I wandered down the corridor and I bumped into Richard Marquand, who directed the third Star Wars film,²⁷ he was working with Pilger, lovely man. I said ‘Richard, I got the job!’ he said ‘Of course you got the job, everyone knew you’d get the job’. So I went into George Clark, because I thought I should thank him, even though I think maybe he hadn’t gone for me. He said, ‘Don’t thank me, I didn’t go for you, bloody Charles Denton’ and I left the room. As it turned out Hazel was my assistant on ‘Which Side are You On’, the miners film, with Ken, years later.

RC:But its not just to do with helping you to get on in your career but taking an interest in the subject of the film affects your attitude to the work.

JM:Of course, ‘Land and Freedom’²⁸ for instance, I went and read ‘Homage to Catalonia’,²⁹ I mean I’d be silly not to wouldn’t I to just get a bit in my head about what’s going on. I don’t suspect it added anything to the film at all, but it did for me. So its for your own benefit.

RC:Is it possible to know what the relationship with Ken was built on – I mean clearly you became relaxed with each other and then it worked.

JM:It did work. I don’t know – I was lucky. I had to leave ATV when it became Central rather than go to the Midlands and Roger James offered me the series ‘Questions of Leadership’ and ‘The Red and the Blue’ with Ken. I said are you sure Ken will want me to do it, and Roger said don’t worry, Ken will want you to do it. It was a freelance series – he could have had anyone he wanted. So I left Central for that work with Ken. He was still travelling up from Bath and he would get in at 10:00, 10:15 and we would have a cappuccino and we got into a routine and we got to know each other and the relationship built from there really.

In the last ten or twelve years I’ve built my career around being available for Ken’s films. It had happened that people have said to me at Cannes or wherever do you do any other dramas at all and I’ve had to say until recently, years ago I did but no – that’s why I did ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’³⁰ for Phillipa Lowthorpe because I thought it was about time – there was a bit of a gap between Ken’s last one and this one and I knew I could fit it in. But I like to be available for Ken because first of all I know I’m going to have a good time and secondly, I know I’m going to be working on class with people who know what they’re doing. It’s not only Ken its Rebecca O’Brien³¹ now, the producer, who’s great, we have a terrific time, really nice person to work for. We do the music with George Fenton³² – it almost sounds too comfortable, but there’s nothing wrong with that – the films are edgy enough without anything else being edgy. So we have a good time, we don’t have anything of the executive producer crap that you do tend to have to put up with – I don’t know whether the guys like Jon Gregory³³ and Mick Audsley³⁴ have to put up with that on the kind of films they do.

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On ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ which was very good – it was a great challenge for me; it was a four-week shoot, it was shot on DV, I was cutting on Avid, I hadn’t worked with the director before, she’s very talented, but hadn’t done a lot of drama before, there was no script – it was totally improvised – I was getting three hours of rushes a day – which my assistant would digitise in the evening and I would have in front of me the next day and I had it assembled within three days of them finishing filming – I was very proud of myself!

RC:Three hours a day – were they shooting multi-camera or what?

JM:Sometimes two cameras, but it was DV – there were fifteen-minute takes – no script so once they were going she let ’em go – quite right, but I had to pick the scene out of it – I don’t know how I did it! It was a terrific challenge but a very good end product, but we had viewings – six, seven people in the room all charming all terrific all trying to be helpful, but nevertheless when you’ve got six people – what have you got – you’ve got six opinions – you’ve got a committee – and there wasn’t a huge amount of time, and at the end of it all one of the people is in charge, David Thompson,³⁵ very nice, helpful man and even then you think he’s satisfied with what you’ve got now, and they say you’ve got to send it off to Jane Tranter³⁶ now. This is yet more. Not only that but we’d finish our viewing at five o’clock and they’d all get their diaries out – so when are we coming to look at it again – two days time – so you’ve got these pages of notes – we could always do the changes, but there was never any time to consider what they wanted. Strangely enough, for us there was no time to look at the film – there was no time to think okay this morning we’ll look at the film – we were too busy doing things.

In the last ten years since Ken went to Parallax with Sally Hibbin³⁷ as well, they’ve now got it sussed. They’ve got about six investors from various countries, and nobody’s got a fortune riding on it and they come and have a look and we do have suggestions – from the writer as well, Paul Laverty³⁸ – all suggestions considered. Invariably time is allowed for it. We have Roger Smith³⁹ the writer he comes in and has a look, and they are people who’s opinion we value, but nobody says do this – nobody says that to Ken, and he’s very fortunate, and it’s brilliant.

I’ve been for interviews where I’ve said to the producer I’m actually a directors editor and I’ve known that they won’t like that, but I’ve thought I’ve got to tell them and I think I’m not going to get this. I’ve always considered myself as working for the director. I suppose its part of the ATV training really. I had six-and-a-half years of freelance editing before ATV when I learnt the technical stuff of films and cutting room procedure but not much else, between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three, but at ATV I learnt the rest of it really.

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RC:During that period when you first got into the cutting rooms were you beginning to be aware of cinema more than just as audience?

JM:I always loved the cinema. My parents being shopkeepers, Thursday was half-day and they used to pick me up from school and we used to go to a matinee at Temple Fortune Odeon. So films were part of my life. I have to remember the 1960s when I use to watch ‘Play for Today’ and ‘Kes’⁴⁰ was one of my first dates with my wife – I remember where it was – ABC Golders Green. As a young person in the film industry working on what was disposable, rubbishy films I always dreamt of working on films like ‘Kes’ like Ken’s ‘The Price of Coal’,⁴¹ like all of Mike Leigh’s⁴² TV stuff, actually – loved those things. Then I saw ‘The Conformist’, Bertolucci,⁴³ which blew me away and ‘Z’, Costa-Gavras.⁴⁴

I was always very partisan, its part of my nature. Its like football, Arsenal is everything. I’ve always been very partisan and although I’m saying some of the films I worked on at Pinewood⁴⁵ in the 1970s were rubbish I’m sure I didn’t think they were then, but they were I’m afraid.

RC:Well there is this thing isn’t there, that all of us are proud of our craft and when you are involved in a film in a sense you suspend absolute judgement – you do a good job on whatever it is.

JM:Yes, well I was still young then and I was always horrified when you took the reels up to the projectionist and he said, ‘what heap of rubbish is this then?’ And I would think oh, charming – this is my film, and that is the other thing that I’ve always considered, and I’ve always thought it was very important for anybody on a film, whether it’s the boom swinger, the gaffer or whatever, is that they should think its their film, and I’ve always thought whatever I’m working on its my film. Ken always says films are collaborative and I think you put a lot more effort into things if you think its yours.

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I did work on one good film in the 1960s. It was the first film I was a dubbing assistant on. It was a nightmare job – it was like ninety-nine per cent post-sync and that was ‘Witchfinder General’, Michael Reeves,⁴⁶ and I didn’t get a credit, because as a dubbing assistant I joined after the roller was made.

RC:Now out on DVD and looking beautiful!

JM:Is it really – well its ninety-nine per cent post-sync that film and I was making the loops – what a job that was and they bought cheap spacing, I remember, which we were told you could use either way up and when they got to the dubb they discovered you couldn’t and the emulsion was coming off on the head, and we had to switch it all round, which wasn’t that simple because they were diagonal joins, a nightmare job, dubbing at Warwick with Hugh Strain,⁴⁷ but a good film and I met Hilary Dwyer⁴⁸ a year or two back on the plane to Cannes. I spoke to her about it – she looked really good. Of course, Mike Reeves died soon after.

That was made by Tigon⁴⁹ where I worked on a number of films and one of the executive producers used to ring me up when I was synching up rushes and the question would be ‘Any tits today?’ and the answer would be yes or no; if there were he’d come to see rushes – so I’ve worked at all ends of the film business you know!

It was three brothers, Gerry Levy, Howard Lanning and Denis Lanning and their little company in D’Arblay Street⁵⁰ and it was wonderful training. It was two rooms. First one in, which was supposed to be me, would sweep the floor and I thought, I was nineteen I’d been an assistant for two years, what’s this – sweep the floor, and one morning I got in after the Managing Director, Gerry Levy, and he was sweeping the floor and I thought, well, if he can do it I can do it. It was good training.

RC:You mentioned being a dubbing assistant there – as you developed in your career did you develop an attitude to the value of sound?

JM:Yes, of course. You probably laid all your tracks at the BBC, well we track-laid at ATV and I used to enjoy that very much. First of all it gave you a week or two away from the director, didn’t it, so it was really enjoyable. The first thing I cut as an editor was a comedy series for Ned Sherrin⁵¹ called ‘The Rather Reassuring Programme’ – six-and-a-half hours went out on a Saturday evening – this is me – first job – network series Saturday evenings at 9:30, which is amazing to get that really and it was very good fun, but the sound was very important. It was all drama. Lots of actors who became famous like Tom Conti, Nigel Hawthorne, Bill Fraser, John Le Mesurier, Ronald Lacey.

I had recorded sound effects for ‘Witchfinder General’ which were censored. There was lots going on in that. Someone was sick – the splash – it was censored – we had to tone it down. All sorts of things. John Trevelyan⁵² used to come into the cutting a lot there. I was a first assistant on a film called ‘What’s Good for the Goose’ – Norman Wisdom,⁵³ sex comedy – those phrases don’t go together do they?

RC:No, not really.

JM:But that’s what it was a Norman Wisdom sex comedy for Tigon with Sally Geeson.⁵⁴ It wasn’t unsuccessful – the director was Menahem Golan⁵⁵ and I was the first assistant and John Trevelyan came into the cutting room to discuss a few things. One of them he wasn’t very happy about. Sally Geeson saying to Norman Wisdom ‘Do you Frugg?’ So I’m in there – we’re showing it to him on the Moviola – we didn’t have Steenbecks – and he says ‘What’s this Frugg? You can’t say that, do you Frugg – we all know what she means’. Denis the editor said, ‘It’s a dance John’. He looks at me, John Trevelyan, because I was nineteen or twenty, ‘What is this dance the Frugg – do you know it?’ I said, ‘Yes it’s a dance’ He said ‘Is it – could you do it for me?’ I sad, ‘No sorry I can’t’. I mean, honestly.

RC:I thought you might have risen to the occasion, Fred Astaire and all that!

JM:But it was a dance, The Frugg, and it got through. Funnily enough I was at an awards do in February – The South Bank Show awards and ‘Sweet Sixteen’ was nominated and I sat next to Norman Wisdom. I said to him ‘You won’t remember me’, but I was the first assistant editor on ‘What’s Good for the Goose’. He said, ‘No, I’ve got no trouble remembering you – I’ve got trouble remembering what happened yesterday though!’ But it was funny after all those years to be sat next to him again.

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RC:I remember going to the cinema at the French Institute when Ken Loach – they did a series called Carte Blanche when famous people could choose to show their favourite films and he chose …

JM:The Czech film ‘Fireman’s Ball’.⁵⁶

RC:No, actually he chose ‘Mouchette’ by Robert Bresson⁵⁷ and I remember his introduction because he was quite apologetic saying I haven’t seen this film for fifteen, maybe twenty years I hope it stands up, and I was interested in what he connected to. In a way looking at Ken’s work and your work with him its very difficult to imagine such a particular view of the world finding a place elsewhere, especially in Hollywood, although of course the Europeans admire his work tremendously. His films are never simply entertainment – they are always about something in a way that so much of cinema isn’t. With Ken there is always a deeper agenda.

JM:No I know, well he’s famously quoted – strangely I didn’t expect this to come from Vadim Jean, who made ‘Leon the Pig Farmer’⁵⁸ – being enormously impressed by Ken saying at some do or other, ‘Its not how can we make a film, its why are we making this film’, which is terrific but its not what most would think. Its got to have something more to it than just making an entertainment. Although he can do all that stuff really well. I mean they are the easiest scenes that I have to cut, when there’s a punch up in a bar. In ‘Joe’ there’s a big punch up and one of the young critics said Loach does the fight scene better than John Woo and they are a piece of cake for him he shoots them in no time at all – it’s the easy stuff for him, but he could do a Hollywood action movie no problem but he wouldn’t because his heart and soul wouldn’t be in it. We’d all love to, everybody else. Ken could have done ‘A Chorus Line’,⁵⁹ he loves all that – loves shows and that kind of theatricality.

RC:I can understand that now you’ve told me that he was in a West End review.

JM:Yes well, Lesley, Ken’s wife, says he was the kind of actor that he would never employ – you see I think he became politicised at the BBC – not at University particularly – but at the BBC there was a whole group with Tony Garnett⁶⁰ and Roger Smith and I’m sure others.

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RC:You mentioned some of the writers and what’s always fascinated me, and it must mean particular things for you as the editor, is the relationship between the writing and the material you get to cut, because clearly Ken’s worked with some splendid writers, not just radical but special writers like Jim Allen⁶¹ and more recently Paul Laverty, and yet the material you get is often the result of intense – not improvisation in the sense of Mike Leigh – but of translating what’s on the page in a way that’s still alive because the actors are given a certain kind of freedom, which means that what you get is such that the structure has to be brought back to it.

JM:Funnily enough more often than not the script is kept to. Often what does happen though, because they are relatively free, the actors, some of whom may not have done a lot, most of whom are actors, in one way or another – once you are doing it you are an actor – sometimes it is all in a different order and that can be problematical – there is a pace they are at and it is very tricky. There are other times – like the scene we are cutting at the moment. I’ve read the script twice but not when we are cutting I just see what’s there, but the other day I did and the scene reads very well of course, and then we are looking at it and it’s the same lines but it doesn’t sound, well, as Ken would say, it sounds written – sort of corny and not natural so actually we won’t use it – I know we won’t. Ken hates sentimentality you see.

RC:Because I remember you talking very interestingly about the collectivisation discussion scene in ‘Land and Freedom’ as being particularly interesting to work on.

JM:That scene will be with me forever. Its fascinating from many points of view. It comes halfway through the movie. Its basically what the film is all about. In the script I think it was about three pages – in the finished film I think its round about fourteen minutes. In the first cut it was about twenty-three minutes. They shot for two days with two cameras a group of people most of whom were re-enacting what their relatives or parents went through sixty years earlier and it is the crux of the film. For my taste I have to say its a long scene, and its slightly buttock twitching in the middle of a movie. When I bumped into people when the film was on in the cinema one said that scene is absolutely fantastic, absolutely brilliant. I bumped into another fellow I know, a writer, who said that scene in the middle of ‘Land and Freedom’, oh, how terrible, it went on and on and on. For those who understand the subject of the film they realise that’s what the movie was made for – it would not have been made without them feeling as they felt for that scene. Its what Jim and Ken were making the film about – it’s the political heart of the movie.

First of all, ‘Land and Freedom’ is my most favourite of all the films I’ve ever done. If I could take one with me it would be that one. I still think I should have cut that scene down a bit more.

RC:Do you remember what it felt like when you got the rushes.

Script page from ‘Land and Freedom’ by Ken Loach (Courtesy of Parallax Pictures)

Still from the above scene in ‘Land and Freedom’ (Courtesy of Parallax Pictures)

JM:We were surrounded by cans of film. It was generally two cameras, which was of course terrific, but it was kind of how you imagine painting the Firth of Forth Bridge – by the time you got to the end you’d forgotten what was going on at the front, because it took at least two days just to view the material and most of it’s in Spanish. Its like the nightmare scenario isn’t it really. Though actually that turned out to be great because the leading actress came to sit with us – she happened to be in London – and she was lovely – and it was great to get to know her.

RC:This is Blanca in the film.

JM:Yeah – Rosana Pastor⁶² and it was marvellous to have her around, for me anyway, because she’s attractive, lovely, vivacious and exciting!

In those situations the only thing you can do is an assembly which I suspect was longer than any twenty-three minutes – more like an hour.

RC:Were the two cameras complementary or did you treat them as separate entities entirely.

JM:No, they were complementary – so we usually had somewhere to go, but you’re an editor you know when you’ve got two cameras they always miss the moment don’t they. It took about two weeks to cut, and I had to talk it through with Ken. I had to lean on him a little bit to cut it down as short as I could get it, because I knew that for many people it would feel long, and its sort of documentary in the middle of an action film. But many people loved it. John Ingram rang me from France where he has retired to and he managed to find me and he said ‘Rossellini is alive and well!’ Now I’m not a great Rossellini expert so I wasn’t sure quite what he meant but I knew it was a major compliment, and obviously I told Ken about that.

RC:I suppose in a sense it comes as a surprise because the action that leads up to it is so effective and affecting. In a normal conventional movie there would be a moments pause before we move on to the next action. In that sense it’s a shock – we have just had the death of Blanca’s lover, and the attack on the village is beautifully done.

JM:You see that’s a piece of cake for Ken – we cut that so quickly and it all goes together – that’s why I say to you – he could do a western – Ken could do a western.

RC:But the choreography is so good.

JM:Listen he’s sixty-seven now and he is a technical master – he’s an expert at everything he needs to do.

In that collectivisation scene, near the beginning there’s a French guy who gets his English wrong, and they all have a laugh at him, which of course is just the actor getting his English wrong, which I found – well Ken loved it – then an editor friend of mine, Tony Sloman,⁶³ said it was terrible when that actor fluffed his lines. He didn’t actually fluff his lines, but that’s what it looks like, and I felt a bit vulnerable there.

RC:He’s also quite emotional, that actor, he may be having trouble with his lines but there is an undercurrent there.

JM:I always felt a bit defensive about leaving it in, but as I say, as an editor, I’ve always been a directors editor. There are plenty of excellent editors around who consider what goes in is very much them. I’ve always considered that the man to satisfy is not me – it’s the director. Which is strange from where I started from on TV series, where the director was lucky to even see a cut. It was TV as factory – it was a conveyor belt – very successful and it still happens.

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RC:When did the switch to non-linear happen for you and how was it?

JM:The first funny story is that Rebecca O’Brien was teaching at the National Film School in 1990 and they got me along to speak to the students and they asked me about this nonlinear thing and I said no, no, no, its not going to catch on. Within five years I had my own Avid – I think it was wishful thinking, I was really frightened of it, because the technique is so different. I was fortunate. I did three jobs on Lightworks, kinda got to grips with that. First was 1995, I did a documentary on Maradona so that helped and then I did a couple of others. Then a mate of mine, Mike Rossiter, who I have worked with a lot, said we’ve got a job – lovely – thirty-three-week edit – one two-hour documentary. I said great, but he said we’ve got to do it on Avid. I said what, I’ve just got to grips with Lightworks. He said, no, they’re doing the rest of the series in Boston on Avid and they want us to work on Avid. But what we can do he said is you can buy one on the strength of them hiring it from you, so I thought well that’s something.

So we bought one and then there was a young lad who I had met as an assistant editor who said I want to sit with you and learn Avid, I know a little bit about computers and I’ll be able to help you. So we both went on a course still baffled and it was alright – just. Went away at Christmas – we had a week or two off and the whole of Christmas I’m thinking god I can’t even remember how to switch that machine on, let alone use it. Came back in January and it had all clicked into place. I was really surprised, and for the first time I was comfortable.

It is a brilliant machine, in a way its too good. Everyone thinks you can do anything and they all want VHS’s of the cut. Its just not great for the atmosphere you used to have of the editing team. The editor the two assistants, the sound editor and the guys all together. My mag would be what we would dubb from. My track that would be that – there would be no doubt in the dubbing theatre. We always run the mag when I’m dubbing with Ken to check it against the Audiofile⁶⁴ to see that everything is as I’ve done it, especially with Ken we use so many bits from other takes, but it was your mag that was actually there. Nevertheless the non-linear is brilliant you want music here a dissolve there you want to speed up. It used to be you had to order an optical and you didn’t know it would work and then the quality would be rubbish – it would look like a dupe and it would take two weeks to come back, now in two minutes you’ve got it and the quality is great.

However, funnily enough at Goldcrest,⁶⁵ where I’m working now, there is more cutting on film than in the last three years that I’ve worked there, including Tony Sloman, and Barrie Vince, so there’s a few people resorting back to it, and when you are working on something that doesn’t have a lot of special effects and the director knows what he’s doing and you’ve got a good couple of assistants I think people are finding out economically its better. The first reason for Avid was economy – not printing rushes, you know. But I don’t think that’s worked out because everybody wants to conform – so you have to print at least selected takes then you still end up with an assistant and a Steenbeck and a comp-editor, matching what the editors done, if they can. But it is a wonderful tool nevertheless.

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RC:Do you think there are personality traits that make you potentially a better editor?

JM:I don’t think everyone can be an editor. You need to have an aptitude for it. Rhythm. I always think if you can dance you can probably edit. Its about rhythm, pacing, sensitivity but I actually think first and foremost to be able to get on with people. You need to be able to communicate with the director. There are sound editors who have tried to become picture editors and not succeeded. You don’t really know until you try. If you are lucky enough to work as an assistant with an editor who gives you a chance. I found that the hardest thing – I found I was editing for the editor and the director. When I became an editor it was so much easier than when I was an assistant editing.

Now after many years of experience I realise that the first film I do with someone is the hardest because you don’t actually know the mind of the person you are working with. There are occasions when the first film you do with someone is fine because they are very positive – they know exactly what they want and they tell you very clearly and then there are other directors who can’t communicate what they want and its difficult to get inside their head. When I did ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ for Phillippa Lowthorpe, who is terrific, I’d never cut for her. I had these rushes arriving every day – hours and hours worth – no script and I was assembling it. After about ten days no one had been in touch with me – I thought they might want to see something I’d done from their point of view. I should be pleased about this but I just felt I was in a little bit of a vacuum, and I wanted someone to say yeah that’s just what we want or not. So after about ten days I rang up Phillippa at home and said look I’ve got half-an-hour of stuff I can put on a VHS will you look at it for me. She said okay yeah fine. I sent it down to Bristol, where they were filming – I didn’t hear for days – were now half way through filming. So I rang her again and asked her if she had seen it and she said she hadn’t had the chance. Then she did over the next weekend and she rang me and said, oh lovely, thank you very much – that’s all she said. That’s all I wanted to know that I was on the right track – I felt so much better.

RC:With Ken do you talk when he’s shooting?

JM:A bit – less on this one than ever. I always go up there for a day or two – they like me up there – don’t know why, I’m really spare, but they treat me quite royally now I know a lot of the crew, but I have nothing to do. On some films Ken will ring up and say what’s it looking like?

RC:But for instance on ‘Land and Freedom’ and ‘Carla’s Song’…⁶⁶

JM:He was away you mean – well he doesn’t worry about it you know or if he does he worries about the next days filming not the last.

RC:That must be because he’s so comfortable with you.

JM:I also used to think that Ken had more of a plan than he does. He’s not like Hitchcock knowing which shot goes next to which. He does look at his notes from time to time when we are cutting but we tend to not look at anything than the film. But I’m not cutting it whilst he’s shooting either – no one could cut one of Ken’s films while he’s shooting – you couldn’t do it – I could do if I was on Avid maybe, but not on film, because he prints all the takes – but there will invariably be, on the big scenes, six or seven takes and five or six angles and you don’t know which take he is going to go for, so it’s a waste of time.

Basically when he’s filming I look at the rushes and I select takes for us to put on tape to send to Ken wherever he is. Whether he looks at it or not – that’s up to him, so often I’ll give him the first and the last but I’ll look at the continuity sheets as well and sometimes just give him one. On this one that he’s just shot I don’t think he rang me – or he might have done to find out about what’s going on in the football. It’s a very cushy number for me when he’s shooting – I’m not on full pay – I’m on half pay. I go in and view rushes maybe three days out of the five and then they are short days.

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RC:So looking back, since we started with Fred Astaire, would you have liked to have cut a couple of musicals?

JM:Oh, love to, well ‘Auditions’, the first one I did for Ken was actually the best job I did for him. I hardly had any contact with him. A huge amount of it was music and it was all cut to music – it was a challenge to cut – didn’t know the director – wasn’t sure about what he wanted, it was the best job I’ve done for him – no love to do a musical. I was green with envy over ‘Chicago’, which I’d seen in the theatre. I thought they did a good job of the film and Martin Walsh⁶⁷ cut it – bugger – he’s a contemporary of mine – don’t know him particularly and he cut that – how annoying is that – then he won the Academy Award I think – fantastic. We’re always trying to talk Ken into doing something – he loves the old music hall and the old music hall comedians. I’d love him to do something like that. I bought him a book about George Robey⁶⁸ eighteen months ago when he was ill. If there was the right vehicle he would do it. But I don’t suppose he will – it’s the why again isn’t it, why and the why to entertain is not enough unfortunately.

You see the current one we are doing is perhaps the least political – it’s a love story. A love story between an Asian Scottish boy and an Irish catholic girl who’s a teacher and the problems they have with their relationship, because of her catholic school and because of his Pakistani Muslim family. That’s it. Basically its anti all religious hypocrisy of any kind.⁶⁹

Its an irony really, considering my original interest was in show business and I ended up with all those heavies in documentary at ATV, as far from show business as you could get but that’s what I really like – I’ve been to Cannes six times now and I love the show bizz stuff!

Notes

1. Oliver – Stage show before it was filmed in 1968, directed by Carol Reed.

2. One Over the Eight – Stage revue. Lance Percival is a comedy actor and Chelsea supporter.

3. I Could Go on Singing – Directed by Ronald Neame, editor, John Shirley, 1963.

4. The Saint (1962–9) – TV series with Roger Moore.

5. The Baron – TV series, 1966.

6. Richard Hymns – Sound editor, three time Oscar winner – ‘Indiana Jones’ (1989), ‘Jurassic Park’ (1993), ‘Saving Private Ryan’ (1998).

7. Mag – Magnetic sound track which must have the oxide side against the sound head.

8. Ciniola – Was probably inferior to the Moviola in every way, but editors like the machine they are familiar with.

9. Inman Hunter – Born 1914, editor, cut ‘The Overlanders’ starring Chips Rafferty for Harry Watt in 1946.

10. ATV – Associated Television, held the commercial TV franchise in the English midlands for many years.

11. For the Love of Ada – Directed by Ronnie Baxter, editor Anthony Palk, 1972.

12. Ken Loach et al. – A unique collection of serious and seriously talented British documentary film-makers, all of whom later distinguished themselves in particular ways. John Pilger is still making films that cause discomfort amongst governments and institutions wherever he investigates corruption and crimes against humanity. Adrian Cowell made The Opium Warlords and The Tribe that Hides from Man. Anthony Thomas investigated South Africa under apartheid and Charles Denton has produced both documentary strands for TV and fiction films.

13. Mike Nunn – Was post-production supervisor on the 1995 film of ‘Richard III’.

14. Roger James – Editor who became eminent documentary producer.

15. Gamekeeper – Ken Loach, 1980.

16. Auditions – Ken Loach, 1980.

17. Riff-Raff – Ken Loach, 1990.

18. My Name is Joe – Ken Loach, 1998.

19. Sweet Sixteen – Ken Loach, 2002.

20. Ken Loach documentaries – ‘Questions of Leadership’ (1981), ‘The Red and the Blue’ (1983), ‘Which Side are you on?’ (1984).

21. Melvyn Bragg – Now Lord Bragg, novelist and screenwriter also TV producer notably ‘The South Bank Show’ a review of the arts.

22. The Right to Reply – TV show which allows film-makers, their subjects and the public to debate issues contained in programmes.

23. Fatherland – Ken Loach, 1986.

24. Rex Bloomstein – Director, e.g. ‘The History of Anti-Semitism’, 1993.

25. Ted Heath and William Whitelaw – Tory politicians.

26. George Clark – TV film editor.

27. Richard Marquand (1938–87) – Director ‘Return of the Jedi’ (1983) and ‘Jagged Edge’ (1985). A special talent who died too young.

28. Land and Freedom – Ken Loach, 1995.

29. Homage to Catalonia – George Orwell’s chronicle of his time in the Spanish Civil War.

30. The Other Boleyn Girl – Philippa Lowthorpe, based on historical novel by Philippa Gregory, 2003.

31. Rebecca O’Brien – Producer for Ken Loach since ‘Hidden Agenda’ in 1990.

32. George Fenton – Film composer who emerged through TV in 1970s and 1980s.

33. Jon Gregory – Editor, several of Mike Leigh’s films and ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, 1994.

34. Mick Audsley – Editor, see interview in this book.

35. David M Thompson – Executive producer, BBC Films.

36. Jane Tranter – BBC executive.

37. Sally Hibbin – Parallax Pictures, executive producer on many Ken Loach films.

38. Paul Laverty – Screenwriter for Ken Loach since ‘Carla’s Song’, 1996.

39. Roger Smith – Screenwriter and valued collaborator on many radical projects since ‘Up the Junction’, 1968.

40. Kes – The seminal film that established Ken Loach’s reputation in the Cinema, 1969.

41. The Price of Coal – Ken Loach, 1977.

42. Mike Leigh’s TV work – Was hugely important and influential, e.g. ‘Abigail’s Party’ (1977), starring Alison Steadman.

43. The Conformist – Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970.

44. Z – Costa-Gavras, 1969.

45. Pinewood Film Studios – Britain’s pre-eminent studio.

46. Witchfinder General – Directed by Michael Reeves who died soon after thus cutting short a promising career at its inception, 1968.

47. Hugh Strain – Highly regarded dubbing/sound mixer.

48. Hilary Dwyer – Liverpool born actress who became, and still is, an executive producer.

49. Tigon Pictures – Gerry Levy (producer), Howard Lanning (also an editor), Dennis Lanning (credits as sound recordist).

50. D’Arblay Street – Part of London’s Soho.

51. Ned Sherrin – TV producer notably ‘That was the Week that was’ (1963) and other satirical shows. Later films.

52. John Trevelyan – Was President of the British Board of Film Censors.

53. What’s Good for the Goose – With Norman Wisdom, stage, TV and film comedy actor, 1969.

54. Sally Geeson – Actress sister of more successful sister, Judy.

55. Menahem Golan – Prolific writer, producer, director.

56. Fireman’s Ball – Milos Forman, 1967.

57. Mouchette – Robert Bresson, 1967.

58. Leon the Pig Farmer – Vadim Jean and Gary Sinyor, 1992.

59. A Chorus Line – Richard Attenborough, 1985.

60. Tony Garnett – Producer, born 1936, an exemplary career committed to social drama.

61. Jim Allen (1926–99) – Screenwriter, TV then film culminating in ‘Land and Freedom’.

62. Rosana Pastor – Splendid Spanish actress in films since 1987.

63. Tony Sloman – Editor and post-production supervisor.

64. Audiofile – Digital post-production sound track laying platform.

65. Goldcrest – British production company with own editing suites.

66. Carla’s Song – Ken Loach, 1996.

67. Martin Walsh – Editor, also cut ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’, 2001.

68. George Robey (1869–1954) – Legendary music hall star, who was billed as ‘The Prime Minister of Mirth’ also in films including as Falstaff in Olivier’s ‘Henry V’, 1944.

69. Ae Fond Kiss – Ken Loach, 2004.