Waiting for Beckett

The Beckett on Film project, comprised of the screening of 19 Samuel Beckett plays, is being sold as a 'major cinematic first for Dublin.' But it's also a major theatrical event in the purest sense - not just because these films are cinematic interpretations of some of the greatest plays of the twentieth century, but because it is epic in scope.

Produced by Michael Colgan and Alan Moloney of Blue Angel Films, Beckett on Film, is an RTE co-production in association with Channel Four and Board Scannán na hEireann - the latter an organisation that has sometimes come in for criticism in hotpress but clearly deserves the highest praise for its involvement in this project.

Beckett on Film also brings together some of the most distinguished actors and directors working today. Atom Egoyn, Damien Hirst, Neil Jordan, Conor McPherson, Damien O'Donnell, David Mamet, Anthony Minghella, Karl Reisz and Patrica Rozema direct, while actors involved include Michael Gambon, John Hurt, Jeremy Irons, Alan Rickman and Kristen Scott Thomas.

The completion of the project will also be celebrated at a party in the company of President Mary McAleese, the directors, and special guests such as U2 and The Corrs on February 1st in Dublin Castle. The Beckett On Film project itself starts the following day, February 2nd, and runs 'till February 8th at Dublin's IFC.

But let's kick-start the whole damn party by talking about Beckett with Bono, a passionate fan of the man and his work.

"A genuine search for something that rings true" - Bono on Beckett

Bono and Beckett? Strange bedfellows? Maybe. Maybe not. But the mere fact that Bono will break away from the gruelling process of planning U2's forthcoming World Tour, so he can speak about the boul' Samuel Beckett's play Not I, as filmed by Neil Jordan, really does speak volumes for the man. All three men, in fact.

Cynics might say Beckett and Bono have shag all in common. Likewise, theatre critics might cite Winnie's line from Beckett's Happy Days: "what a curse, mobility" and say that's the antithesis of rock'n'roll. But before Bono addresses that, and similar questions, he actually slips into Beckett-ian mode while apologising for phoning late to do this interview.

"There's fourteen men, with big bottoms, sitting on my head, trying to get 'yes's' and 'no's' so I'm sorry I'm late," he says, sounding next-to-exhausted. When it's suggested that this image of "fourteen big bottoms" is not that far removed from Not I, which features only a mouth, Bono goes into free associational freefall.

"Fourteen big bottoms," he says. "Thirteen. Wasn't thinking about your bottom. Oozing. Big. Small. No. Kick it!"

Watching the tantalisingly edited fourteen minute film of Not I this viewer was reminded of U2's video for Numb where the Edge is bombarded by distractions but refuses to yield. In much the same way actress Julianne Moore - in this film of Beckett's play - doggedly adheres to the playwright's original dictate that the mouth's chief endeavour is her "vehement refusal to relinquish the third person." Why, we'll get to later. But for now, Bono has his say.

"That Not I video was the only one I saw out of this series of Beckett films and I wanted, out of respect to Neil, to contribute to this," he says.

"I really feel it's a major thing. So although I don't have much to offer and can't really comment on the whole project, I can certainly comment on Neil's film because I've seen it."

So, okay, Bono is the line "what a curse, mobility" really the antithesis of rock'n'roll?

"Beckett was the antithesis of rock 'n' roll!" he responds. "Whereas Joyce is rock'n'roll! But one thing that's true of them both - and maybe true of us all - is the way they take revenge on the English language. In the sense that it doesn't come out of our own mouths. Or, rather, it's not our own native tongue. So when it comes out of our mouths we chew it up, pummel it, pull at it and play with it to take revenge on the English! We take their language and - in Joyce's case - expand on it, extrapolate on it. And - in Beckett's case - shrink it. Subtract from it. I do think the fact that Beckett was a pupil of Joyce is interesting. But, on this level, they are polar opposites. Joyce is about going out and tasting whatever is around the corner whereas with Beckett it was like armchair theatre."

In what sense?

"He had a few years of boho experience to draw upon, but after that I think it was a very static life in real time while in the imagination it was anything but static."

Does Bono buy into critic Richard Gilman's assertion that mobility is "the agency of human illusion, for illusion rests on the capacity to imagine something not present and so implies movement, change." Whereas Beckett's "doomed effort has been to make literature and drama out of as little mobility as possible, to force the mind to attend to unchanging - unmoving - realities"? Surely post-Zooropa Bono can relate to that?

"I can, but in the last few years we've used mobility and illusion to lead audiences to unchanging realities, so it can work either way" he says.

"And if what that critic is saying is true of Beckett, what does that tell us about Not I, which just shows us a woman's mouth up-close? What are we supposed to make of that! It is the orifice, the hole, right? And what's extraordinary about Neil Jordan is that, in an Irish context, he's one of our only erotic filmmakers. There's a sensuality even in terms of the film language he uses. And erotic comedy - when it's not Benny Hill! - is of great interest to me.

"The shock in The Crying Game is followed by people bursting out laughing. Neil loves that. And watching this piece I, at one point, thought Julianne Moore had turned upside down! And I found myself laughing out loud. Then I found it incredibly erotic. Then absurd. Then it caught me unawares and I realised this is probably what Sam Beckett wanted, from people watching his plays. All those feelings. And he found the right man to put that vision on film: Neil Jordan."

Bono pauses, reflecting further on Neil.

"The thing Neil also brings to cinema is the eyes of a filmmaker but the brain of a novelist. And the experience of a dramatist, from his days at the Project. In other words, he's a writer, first and foremost. That's where he really lives, in some way. If he stops making films I think we should chain ourselves to the railings! But to me, he is, fundamentally, a writer. And to start off at the Project, write the movies, then go on to filmmaking and now come back to this particular gig - a film based on a mouth speaking simply words! - seems totally fitting for Neil too."

But what does Bono think the narrator in Not I is trying to say? Or rather not to say in her long, cracked constant stream of consciousness? A key line in the text is when the mouth says the "voice could be one other than her own." Can Bono relate to that?

"That's the line!" he observes. "That line really jumped at me, out of her mouth. That's where I was totally caught unaware. But can I relate to any of that? Yes and no. Some of Beckett's work leaves me cold. Then occasionally he cracks open. A line like that cuts through and wakes up your heart. You do hook straight into it at a personal level. But where Beckett loses me is when what he's saying is just 'I', because there's nothing more boring than somebody thinking only about themselves and their own variations of a mood. Or a move! As in mobility or immobility. I do it for a living, but you have to be very careful, or your psychosis will run away with you! And maybe that is what Beckett is trying to avoid happening, in this play."

Likewise, it's said Beckett put a second tramp into Waiting For Godot to curb the solipsistic tendencies of the first, something one presumes the three other members of U2 also do for Bono!

"Fortunately! For me. And our audience!" he jokes. "But the self-serving nature of some of Beckett's work is saved, for me, by comedy. Saved by a genuine search for something that rings true. It's saved also by rhythm. Rhythm is the rock'n'roll in Beckett. If there is any rock'n'roll in Beckett at all. And that rhythm really catches me in Neil's film. Her two lips become like drums. That's the energy of the piece. The back and forth dialogue."

But let's cut to the Beckett-like bone here. Surely the essence of Beckett's work is the polar opposite of what Bono believes?Waiting For Godot, for example, is, ultimately, about two tramps waiting for a moment of transcendence that never arrives. In other words, it's a godless universe Beckett depicts. This, too, must leave Bono-the-believer cold.

"No, it doesn't. Because a lot of my best friends are atheists" he responds. "It's lukewarm believers that drive me out of the church. It's the big question, isn't it? If there is a God, it's serious; if there's not a God it's even more serious! And Beckett did, at least, approach that question. That, to me, is the essence of his work."

Bono pauses again.

"Maybe I told you this before for hotpress. But it reminds me of a bit of graffiti I saw, which is emblematic of an age. Or maybe more so emblematic of the coming of the end of that age. Someone wrote in a bathroom "God is dead: Nietzche." And someone wrote after that "Nietzche is dead: God." I love that. And I love this debate. So of course this was a big question for Beckett. But let's not forget that people like Beckett came out of an age where something didn't exist unless you could prove it existed. You can't tell that to a musician! That's not how we live. And I think all artists are going to bump up against that big question in their work. Because they live off faith. You hear a note but have to have the faith that you will hear the next one. Or tell you where to find the next note."

Whereas Beckett writes from a point at which it's never known if that next note will arrive, he creates out of the hollowness of fearing it won't. Isn't this the core difference between Beckett and Bono?

"Absolutely," he responds. "And 'hollowness' is a good word for it. But all of this is what I like about Beckett's work. It's just another variation of some of the questions I ask in my own songs. And the two people who really opened Beckett up for me are Louis Le Brocquy and Anne Madden. They are two people I'm in love with. And they - over large quantities of alcohol, I might add! - uncorked Beckett for me. Because they knew him. And Louis reminds me of Beckett because he comes from that measured place."

Beckett also was, of course, heavily influenced by painting. As in Casper David Friedrich's work Two Men Contemplating The Moon, which inspired the setting for Waiting For Godot. Likewise, Beckett was similarly influenced by cinema, by the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton and did, during the '60s, write a script for Keaton called Film. All of which makes this project of finally filming all of Beckett's plays a closure of a kind. Bono agrees.

"I don't know that painting but I'd love to see it," he enthuses. "And though I also didn't know - as a fact - that Beckett wrote a film for Buster Keaton, I knew it instinctively. That's why, years ago, when I gave books by Beckett to Michael Stipe, I said 'you've got to see the comic side of this. The Buster Keaton element to it all. Beckett is seriously funny! You'll laugh your hole off reading his books.' And, later, when Michael was living here I said 'have you got all those books I gave you?' And he said 'no, but now is the time, isn't it!' And we talked about Buster Keaton. And I must say that part of the reason I gave those Beckett books to Michael Stipe is because he always reminded me of Beckett's character Lucky! Michael Stipe can just sit there in the trash and look around and have you in a spell, while saying very little!"

Speaking of, eh, "trash" Bono also recalls a moment he offered "with Michael Colgan's permission" Vaclaf Havel a chance to "do" one of these Beckett movies.

"I was in Prague at that last World Bank thing he was hosting," says Bono. "And it was a beautiful thing to watch his eyes light up and realise that after all his time in politics he still would have done it. If he could. The look in his eye said 'I wish I could do that, instead of being here with all these fuckin' finance ministers! That's a better gig!' "

Re-focusing on Beckett, Bono says, "I really do admire so much of his work. Waiting For Godot would be my favourite play but I also read his novels, Murphy and so on. So I would have to say that, overall, I am a fan of Samuel Beckett - from a distance."

In fact Bono is so much a "fan" of Sam the man that he once sent him a copy of U2's album The Unforgettable Fire !

"I don't know if he ever put it on the turntable. But it was nice to know it would be there, even under the fridge. Or wherever!"

That really is the essence of U2 being 'cool' isn't it? Their album being kept under Beckett's fridge!

"I guess it is! U2 trying to heat up Beckett's fridge!" Bono laughs. "But he grows more serious when asked for his response to Beckett's claim that "to be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail. Failure is his world."

"I really would identify with that," he says. "Because what I think Beckett is getting at is that you must get the fear of failure out of the way. Once you become a better failure you can really go places. For example, I have discussed this in the past. The constrictions of being cool. It's useless. And Lou Reed said that to me. He grew up in the 50s, with a 50s idea of what it means to be cool. It's a stranglehold. Besides, Irish people are not cool. By nature. We're hot. And bothered. But Beckett really was cool! Though maybe he exploded his coolness in the end."

Did U2? In the period between Pop and All That You Can't Leave Behind have Bono and his buddies burst beyond the "stranglehold" of being cool?

"We played it cool for about ten years" he says."And we got quite good at it! I was surprised!"

It was the shades, Bono!

"I don't know what it was, exactly, we did right, but you gotta admit we were cool! Yet we always saw it for what it was. We always knew it was a bit silly."

So U2 are now finally free to be "hot and bothered" again?

"Yeah, we are! But at the start of the '90s we realised that in order to touch and reach people during a new decade, we had to come in a different guise. So we did. Now the real challenge is to turn up without a mask. And I must tell you, it's not as easy to take the shades off as I thought it would be!"

Or, as Beckett says "what a curse, mobility"?

"Exactly!" laughs Bono." And speaking of mobility, I better go and get back to work on our tour!"

"All human life is there" - John Hurt on Beckett

John Hurt's work in film, theatre and television has earned him a number of awards worldwide, including three BAFTA and two Oscar nominations. His films include Midnight Express, The Elephant Man, The Hit, Champions and Love And Death On Long Island. He also plays Krapp in the 58 minute-long Atom Egoyn-directed film version of one of Beckett's most famous plays, Krapp's Last Tape.

Hurt, speaking on a phone from Heathrow Airport as he rushes back to Dublin, obviously can relate to Beckett's line "What a curse, mobility"!

"Yes. But Beckett was more inclined to examine stillness, wasn't he?" Hurt responds crisply, even curtly.

But how does he relate to Beckett? Has he had an over-arching love of the artist and his work since he began acting or were such tendencies developed more recently?

"I've always had a great admiration for Beckett but I never played him 'till I did this movie of Krapp's Last Tape, which is a bigger deal altogether, to play in the work of a playwright," he says.

Does the nihilistic John Hurt identify, at a core level, with, say, the quote from the film included in the production notes. "Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be uninhabited?" Can Hurt empathise with Beckett's "bleak" view at this level?

"Beckett's work is bleak, in a sense, but that's never gotten in the way of my appreciation of the work. Not in the least. Because it's also so many other things. There is an enormous amount that is very funny about Beckett's writings. Works like Krapp's Last Tape and Waiting For Godot, for God's sake! And Endgame is dotted with laughs. So all of that, to me, is human life, mirrored in an all-encompassing way. And Beckett captures that in the broadest possible sense."

John Hurt does not agree with those who say only we Irish, or Europeans, get the "delicious irony" in Beckett's work.

"I don't think Beckett is peculiarly Irish. It's a great help to understand Irish rhythms and so on, in terms of playing Beckett, because that is the rhythm he wrote in. But the subject matter, I would think, is completely universal."

As in, Beckett's worldview was a world -view.

"That's how I've always seen his work, certainly. As I say, all human life is there!"

Let's focus more specifically on Krapp's Last Tape . Did Hurt, now aged sixty-one, tune in - at an intrinsic level - to a play in which a sixty-nine year old man on the "awful occasion" of his birthday reviews his life by listening to a tape recording he made at thirty nine?

"Definitely. He's such a fine writer, how could you not tune into what he's saying? You've got one of the best horses to ride! If you're sitting on a good horse you've got a good chance of winning. And you're dealing with a very good horse when you're dealing with Sam Beckett on stage! No question. He seems to have an extraordinary way with not just actors but also an audience, that is difficult to describe. Or understand. There's no doubt he can cast the kind of spell over an audience - and virtually anyone truly engaged in his work - that makes everyone tune in at some level. Often a level even they themselves seem unsure of. That's part of what I admire about his work."

Perhaps. But let's get even more specific. In Richard Eyre and Nicholas Wright's recent book, based on the BBC TV series Changing Stages: A View of British Theatre in the Twentieth Century, it's said Beckett realised he "would find his voice" as a writer "not by fighting his depression but by expressing it: by diving into the dark." And that this "breakthrough" at the age of forty, ten years after his psychoanalysis, was a result of him travelling back to Ireland at that point and finding his mother "old and frail, shaking with Parkinson's". This also was a "revelatory moment" Beckett wrote about - and Hurt recreates - in Krapp's Last Tape.

"Spiritually a year of profound gloom and indulgence until that memorable night in March, at he end of the jetty, in the howling wind, never to be forgotten, when suddenly I saw the whole thing. The vision at last. This fancy is chiefly what I have to record this evening... what I suddenly saw was this, that the belief I had been going on all my life, namely (Krapp switches off impatiently, winds tape forward, switches on again) ... clear to me at last that the dark I have always struggled to keep under is in reality my most (Krapp curses, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again)."

"I saw that TV series a couple of times and would agree with the observation that there is a lot of biographical stuff in Krapp's Last Tape," Hurt responds, having listened to the quote and murmured, at points "isn't it great stuff!"

"And, yes, there were in fact, moments when I said 'there, but for the grace of God, go I.' It's almost as if he was saying that. Occasionally, I got that feeling quite strongly while doing the piece."

But did John ever get that "there but for the grace of God go I" feeling about himself?

"Often. And not just doing the play but every time I pass a tramp in the street!" he says laughing.

But, more seriously, while playing, in every sense, Krapp's Last Tape was John, for example, forced to look at his younger self and recoil at the difference between what might have been and what has actually come to pass? Was he ever chilled by that discrepancy?

"Frequently," says Hurt, a little sadly. "Many times we all decide what we are going to do with our lives and then embarrass ourselves massively later. I'm no different from anyone else in that respect."

So would Hurt have hooked into Krapp's older self saying, as the tape falls silent "Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn't want them back"? Particularly the savage and self-deceiving irony in that line "the fire in me now."

He pauses before answering.

"I think if you don't hook into that then you're probably not telling the truth about yourself."

And is this truth something John Hurt finds chilling, disturbing or is it something he simply accepts?

"Many things. There are times it is something you accept, times you find it chilling and times you find it disturbing. One is never open to the same emotion in the same quantity or quality in every moment."

At this stage one begins to wonder should John Hurt - with his seemingly ever-constant use of pronouns such as "you" and "one" - have lashed on lipstick and played the narrator in Not I. Then again, let's not forget that during most of Hurt's interviews he sidesteps questions that probe into his personal psychology, or private life. Which, in a way, also makes him the perfect interpreter for Beckett. That said he admits he relished the opportunity to play in Krapp's Last Tape.

"Definitely. And it worked so well, even though, as you say, I've got eight years to become the right age to play that part! So I've got plenty of time to play around with the role. And as for Beckett's place as a dramatist? I'd rate him enormously high. He really has influenced so much of twentieth century drama and may even be on some sort of a parallel with Joyce."

That said, John Hurt does suggest that as "sensitive" and "faithful" as Atom Egoyan was to the original stage play of Krapp's Last Tape, which Hurt first appeared in in 1999, "ideally" it would be better to see the work on stage.

"It's always difficult to judge a film but it's even more difficult when you're the only person in it!" he says. "But I saw the film in Toronto and it went down incredibly well. It was pin-drop time for the entire screening. And a full house. Yet even though I would applaud Michael Colgan for putting this whole project together - given that Beckett, for a long time, refused to give the film rights to anyone - and I think that, say, Anthony Minghella's Play, is a masterpiece of direction and I particularly enjoyed Conor McPherson's Endgame, let's not expect these films to be definitive."

Why?

"Stage plays were never intended to be definitive" says Hurt. "They can only be definitive for a certain period of time. And also, these works were written as plays. I think these films are incredibly worthwhile and totally fascinating in their own right but you have to remember the works were originally plays. People may get a certain sense of that fact when they see the films but I would have to say, ultimately, that I believe you'd get an even higher sense of Beckett's plays if you saw them in a theatre."

"More relevant today than ever" - Enda Hughes on Beckett

Director and writer Enda Hughes' film credits include The Eliminator (1996), written, produced and directed by Enda, named Film of the Year by The Irish Times; Flying Saucer Rock 'n' Roll (1997) and Raid on The Potemkin, a 3 minute film for Planet Wild and Channel Four. He has his own production company, Cousins Pictures, which he runs with his brother Michael Hughes.

Enda Hughes' 10 minute film of Beckett's Act Without Words 11 is already rumoured to be in the running for an Academy Award but he seems far from phased by the news.

"Is it?" he says, tempering his excitement by explaining "it was shown in Los Angeles during the last year which would make it eligible, but there probably are quite a few thousand other short films that might apply as well!"

Either way, whether or not it finally wins an Academy Award, Hughes' Act Without Words 11 is a pure delight. He has already said "Beckett was so concerned with form that I think he would have employed the mechanics of film in the same inventive way he employed lighting and the stage itself, as presences, even characters in the drama. That's what I wanted to try and do myself." This aesthetic goal Enda achieved, partly, by presenting on screen a strip of scratchy celluloid not unlike the silent films Beckett found so entrancing as a child in Dublin.

"That actually came from the stage directions in the play itself," he explains."Not in so many words. But it's my interpretation of Beckett saying he wanted a "low narrow platform, violently lit in its entire length, frieze-effect." I had to come up with a cinematic interpretation of that because this was the big challenge with this project. To try and make something that was absolutely faithful to the play but was also cinematic in its own way. Then again, the play itself is entirely visual. It's a silent play. A mime. And it definitely touches on Beckett's early influences, like vaudeville and Buster Keaton."

Act Without Words 11 is, indeed, a mime with the two actors, Pat Kinevane and Marcello Magni, each playing 'A' and 'B' respectively. But what is Enda's interpretation of the theme of this play?

"It depends on what mood I'm in!" he says. "Very broadly, it's probably about life int he twentieth century."

Well, yes, Enda, but could you narrow it down just a wee bit more?

"Honestly! That's what I think it is about!" he responds.

Given that Samuel Beckett himself often suffered from mood swings that shifted savagely from depression to total elation couldn't the dark-hearted 'A' and the relatively gleeful 'B' also represent two warring factions in Beckett's psyche. There is, after all, a similar splitting of the self in many of Beckett's plays.

"That's something I discussed a lot with the actors," says Enda. "And one of the actors, Pat, read Act Without Words 11 along similar lines to yourself. So I definitely think it shows a kind of mission, with no progress. Or a set of characters caught in a trap. And that may well be a reflection of what you're talking about. Or you could also see that as the classic, inescapable comedic trap. Like silent comedians being caught in something simply for our amusement. You could look at it either way. And I think Beckett was absolutely aware of that fact. And intended it to be open to those interpretations. And more. That's the essence of his work. It is multi-layered and open to many interpretations. Nothing is stated for sure."

The play could even be said to crystallise Beckett's dualism.

"True. And Marcello was very interested in the comedic possibilities of the piece. We talked about a few of Beckett's other plays which Marcello read as being very humorous. And it was very interesting to me that the two actors were coming from almost totally different angles on this play. Or maybe not! Because there always is that dualism in Beckett's work. That's something I realised working on this project. I did learn so much about Beckett's work. And will, hopefully, apply that to films I'll make in the future."

Indeed, at 26, Enda Hughes - unlike the narrator of Krapp's Last Tape - can hardly fear that "my best years are gone." But can Beckett really talk to, and for, say, the same - presumably primarily young - audience now flocking to see movies like About Adam ?

"I think people who love a film like About Adam, would love Beckett," he explains. "Much of the cinema-going audience is made up of the 'I, I, I,' generation. And that makes Beckett's tilt on the world actually very contemporary itself! I think he's more relevant today, than ever. His writing was way ahead of its time. A lot of students get very involved in Beckett's work, and perform. Because the plays are so well written, so clearly written and so exactingly written. In other words, a lot of the work is already done for you on the page."

So is Enda Hughes saying that modern Irish students are self-centred! Or would it be more accurate to say that they - like millions of young people throughout time - are "caught in a trap" to define the self?

"Yes! To both questions" says Enda, laughing."And Beckett can help you put a shape on that. I certainly - on a professional and personal level - learnt a lot from, not only Act Without Words 11, but all his work. He does, as you say, speak for, and to, me. Definitely. I'm by no means a Beckett scholar but I'm a big fan and an enthusiast. I always have been. Ever since I saw things like Waiting For Godot when I was younger. And Endgame. Then when Beckett died they had a season of his works on television and I remember watching them and being deeply impressed. Especially that pessimistic and humorous worldview. I really connected with that and it has stayed with me ever since. So, overall, I'd say Samuel Beckett really can - and does - speak to successive generations. He is timeless in that respect."

Beckett On Film is showing at the IFC, Eustace St. from 2-8 Feb