Recently I have been lucky enough to be invited along to some BAFTA screenings. These are usually followed by a question and answer section with the director or writer or one of the actors which can be quite interesting.
They can be slightly po-faced affairs and often there will be slightly mental or self-obsessed people in the audience who ask strange or self-aggrandising questions. At one a couple of weeks an elderly man delivered a long diatribe about how screen-writing was the hardest job in the world and then expressed the opinion that the screen-writer of the film (who was sitting just yards away) had done an incompetent job. There was no question at the end, just opinion, to which the bemused writer gave a rather sweet and gracious, "I am sorry you feel that way." One presumed that the questioner was someone who had at least tried to write screenplays, but I suspect that he has failed to have any produced and was maybe allowing his own jealousy to get the better of him.
Many of the BAFTA members are frustrated writers, performers or directors and they are similarly unable to contain their bitterness.
There's something about this rather sombre and over-serious atmosphere that makes a part of me want to ask the most stupid and ridiculous or even offensive questions possible. In fact I usually sit there laughing to myself at some inappropriate query that I has popped into my brain, but alas I am too much of a chicken and too easily embarrassed to actually voice these pin-pricks to the pomposity of the occasion. Many of them parody the questions from the others - "Wouldn't this film be better if I had starred in it?", or "Whose cock did you have to suck to get the funding for this film when my own script is much more valid?" - which is the unspoken undercurrent to most questions - but others are just inane.
Tonight I saw "The Merchant of Venice" and it was pretty enjoyable as well as being a thought-provoking and affecting adaptation. I've never seen the play before, but it raised some interesting questions about racism and religious intolerance and what happens when two faiths that don't understand one another come into conflict. Al Pacino played Shylock and the film was quite sympathetic to this eccentric and bitter character (and I have to say that he does have a point - if Antonio signed the contract then he should cough up his pound of flesh - that's how contracts work). Certainly it was a shocking and upsetting moment when his punishment was meted out to him with so little justice, espeically when he is told that he must become a Christian. I wondered whether Shakespeare intended us to feel this was too harsh a punishment, or whether the audience in the Globe would have cheered this. In this adaptation we were clearly meant to think that this was harsh and unfair.
And the BAFTA audience was awash with excitement as as well as the director/writer (not William Shakespeare unfortunately), and composer, the Q and A session would include the actress who played Portia (who cares?), Jeremy Irons (OK, not bad) and Al Pacino (that's who we want, not any of these other nobodies).
Everyone was desperately failing to be cool about the prescence of this A list Hollywood actor, but the first few questions were obsequious and embarrassing. "I'd like to ask Mr Pacino, Shylock pays the price for his pride, have you paid the price for being the finest film actor of your generation?" What? That hardly makes any sense. Can you ram your tongue any further up "Mr" Pacino's arse?
Al Pacino took it all in good grace and seemed genuinely humble. His mobile kept going off and he finally had to hand it to one of his assistants, explaining that he did not know how to turn off his European cell-phone.
As the questions kept pouring in for Al Pacino with none for anyone else I had the burning urge to put my hand up and ask, "I'd like to ask Al, in a fight between Shylock and Scarface, who do you think would win?" I decided there would be extra kudos to me if I actually said, "I'd like to ask Alan," or maybe, "I'd like to ask that bloke on the end.
Tragically my sense of decorum and self-preservation forbade me from doing this and I regretted it even at the time. This was my once in a life-time opportunity to ask Al Pacino a fatuous question and I had bottled it. I would have been interested to hear his reply. Would he have dismissed me with a wave of the hand or would he have joined in and attempted to answer. The correct answer would probably be Scarface, I suppose, though Shylock might have some underhand method of defeating the coke-fuelled maniac. But because I lack the bravery to make a fool of myself (unless I am on stage and being paid for it - what a mass fo contradictions I am) we will never know how Al Pacino would have answered that question. I actually hate myself a bit for lacking the balls. It would have been worth it to see how the BAFTA people had reacted. I actually think most of them would have laughed.
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