Flickering Myth catches up with Charles Dance…
Directed by Garrick Hamm (The Man Who Married Himself), Retrospective an all star British cast lead by Charles Dance (Game Of Thrones), Emilia Fox (Silent Witness), Vincent Regan (Snow White And The Huntsman, 300) and Omid Djalili (Sex And The City 2). It follows Jonathan Hoyle (Dance), who has been a war photographer in some of the world’s most troubled places, but it is in London, the night before a retrospective of his life’s work, that he is taken off the street by an armed man. Hoyle is about to learn that his photographs were not without consequences, and whether he survives the night will depend on what exactly he witnessed through his camera’s unflinching eye.
In this exclusive interview, we speak with Charles Dance to talk about working on the movie.
FM: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today. Tell us about your character?
Charles Dance: I play this character called Jonathan Hoyle, who’s a war photographer – or somebody who used to be a war photographer and something happened, whereby he had a kind of crisis of faith rather like a priest. And like a lot of people in his profession- Don McCullin is a prime example- after a while it kind of gets into their system. They start off with the best motives in the world. Their photographs are going to change everything and change people opinions and put an end to war and so on but of course they don’t. He realises that they’re just photographs. In the story of the film, he’s confronted with the father of one of the subjects of one of his photographs. This photograph becomes a symbol of conflict all over the world, and he is confronted by the father of the subject, who actually intends to shoot him but eventually doesn’t because he realises that Jonathan is well aware of the power of his photography- or the lack of the power of his photography – and the damage that it does to the people that perhaps know the subject of his photographs.
What was it about the script that attracted you to the project?
It’s very well-written and it’s concise. It’s not a short film pretending to be a long film. It has a beginning, middle and an end. It’s a concise story and it comes to a very acceptable resolution, and it’s a little gem.
What is it like to work with the director Garrick Hamm?
Garrick is a very proficient, very skilled director who’s been around for some time and there’s a lot of creative juice flowing through him.
There are some interesting locations in the film, can you tell us about them?
We filmed in an unbelievably cold location in Paddington, in the crypt of a rather extraordinary church and it works very, very well for the particular scene in the story. We also filmed in a defunct paint factory with toxic fumes. I think we should all go and have blood tests and chest x-rays after spending time there!
What do you hope people that watch this film are going to take away from it?
Well I hope that people will appreciate the value of short films. They are rather like short stories you know. If I’m sat in a location for long periods of time, rather than trying to get stuck into a novel or something, I like having a book of short stories with me you know. Sometimes they’re five pages, sometimes ten pages, sometimes two pages. You know they’re little gems and well-made short films are in that category.
Retrospective will be available via Shorts TV and iTunes in December
Originally published November 14, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
