Boorman still on top of his game

By Michael Gray

The end of the Cold War left a generation of thriller writers short of material, but not so John le Carré. For John Boorman, a longtime admirer of the betselling novelist and his co-conspirator on the script for le Carré’s "The Tailor of Panama," the new political landscape presented fresh opportunities for the veteran spymaster rather than a signal to retire.

"The spy stories that he did so well were also slightly restrictive, and without that genre I think his books have become even better in some ways," Boorman said recently. "His new book, ‘The Constant Gardener,’ is, like ‘The Tailor of Panama,’ also post-Cold War, and in it the pharmaceutical companies are the villains. He’s moved very successfully into a new area."

The Great Game

Boorman was drawn to the novel by the author’s playful portrayal of the espionage profession, trying to conduct business as usual in a world that has a diminishing need for their services.

"I think what le Carré is really saying is that spying for Britain has always been a huge thing, going all the way back to Kipling and The Great Game, and spies have been sent out all over the world to gather the information which controls the British Empire," he said. "Then you have the Cold War ending, and it’s all over. So they have this great tradition, this spying service with nothing to spy on, and no real purpose, so it produces this kind of spy like Osnard. Le Carré is saying that his kind is very prevalent, self-seeking, without loyalty, without ethics. Spies have always been very much held together by a thread of loyalty. They’re always out on there own, they have no ties and no connections. When they’ve nothing to fall back on, no beliefs, they end up like Osnard."

Boorman took a gamble in casting the current James Bond, Pierce Brosnan, an actor so square he makes his 007 predecessor Roger Moore look like Errol Flynn, to play British reprobate Andy Osnard.

"I was aware in casting him that it was both an asset and a liability.," Boorman said. "He was bringing that Bond baggage with him, and there’s the danger that people expect it to be a quasi-James Bond film and that they’ll be disappointed. And on the other hand, he’s terrific and he’s got a great following, so that’s a great help to us. What I tried to do at the beginning, particularly, was to spoof the Bond image and turn it on its head, and make it clear that he’s an absolute swine. From his point of view, I think it was a courageous thing to do, to shoot his image in the foot. He so bored with playing that bland, heroic, smooth figure, and he was delighted to get his teeth into some red meat."

Brosnan may have shared Boorman’s enthusiasm for exploring the dark side of Bond, but the actor’s agent wasn’t so keen.

"His agent did ask me at one point, ‘Does he have to slap the woman?’ " Boorman said. "He felt that that scene was really a danger to his career. So I put a slightly less noisy slap on the soundtrack as a compromise."

Another unlikely casting choice was red-haired and blue-eyed Irish actor Brendan Gleeson, playing a Panamanian rebel leader. Under pressure from investors to use a bigger name in the lead role of prankster crime boss Martin Cahill in "The General," Boorman had fought hard to retain Gleeson for the part. But despite his admiration for Gleeson’s talent, he wasn’t sure he had a role for him in "The Tailor of Panama."

"I said to Brendan that ‘I’d love to have you in the film, but there’s nothing in there for you, they’re all Latin types,’ and he’s totally Irish looking with reddish-blonde hair and all that," Boorman said. "But he read the script, and asked if he could audition for Mickie Abraxas, so he dyed his hair and beard, and got brown contact lenses, and did this audition, and he was great. He’s a marvelous actor. I was thrilled to have him in the picture. He’s now shooting two films at once, darting from one to the other — Spielberg’s "Artifical Intelligence," which he inherited from Kubrick, and [Martin]Scorsese’s "The Gangs of New York." Both Spielberg and Scorsese wanted Brendan, and they rearranged their schedules so that he could do both films."

Pivotal force

At 68, Boorman shows no sign of slowing down. He’s currently working on a script based on the bestselling book "The Professor and the Madman," about the relationship between Scottish multi-linguist James Murray, the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, and one of his contributors, an amateur lexicographer who was also a convicted murderer, incarcerated at Broadmoor, the English asylum for the criminally insane.

Boorman cites his mentor, David Lean, as his inspiration to continue making films as long as he can.

"I’ve never met a director who retired," Boorman said. "What happens is you can no longer get a job. David Lean said to me, just before he died — he was preparing to shoot a film in Australia at the time — ‘I do hope I’ll feel well enough to make this film, I was just beginning to get the hang of it.’ He was two weeks away from shooting when he died, at 81 years old."

"The Tailor of Panama" is vintage Boorman, still on top of his craft, and it assures his fans that he’ll be "getting the hang of it" both as an international writer/director and a pivotal force on the Irish film scene, for many years to come.