The Directors/Sky Arts
This excellent series has continued with Peter Weir and John Schlesinger.
The Rosen test of a great director is the legacy of at least 4 memorable films.
I found Peter Weir’s breakthrough film Picnic on Hanging Rock slow paced.
Gallipoli was more for Australians and New Zealanders.
Witness is my personal favourite.
He does not pass the Rosen Test.
John Schlesinger does – with Billy Liar, Darling, Midnight Cowboy and Marathon Man.
Yet my favourite is none of these but Sunday, Bloody Sunday: a ménage a trois with a rich gay Doctor (Peter Finch) his lover, a bisexual (MurrayHead), and his lady lover (Glenda Jackson).
He was a true polymath producing hundreds of adverts and party politicals.
My only critique of the series is that there is little on the lives on the directors except for their childhood.
For example, the appreciation of Alan Rickman neglects to mention that he and Hugh Grant were at the same school, Latymer Upper. Other acting alumni educated there were Mel Smith and Dominic Guard who starred in Picnic On Hanging Rock.
Schlesinger was gay but was he bisexual and the inspiration for the doctor as he came from a rich Jewish professional family? His father was a successful paediatrician. The appreciation never tells us.
Incidentally two directors already featured in the series pass the Rosen Test with flying colours.
Fred Zinnemann made High Noon, From Here to Eternity, Day of the Jackal and A Man For All Seasons.
Another originally Viennese, director Billy Wilder, made Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some like it Hot and The Apartment.
Conversely Sidney Lumet’s best film is generally reckoned to be his first Twelve Angry Men.
