Don Boyd and the Unmade Film – Hamlet In China, The Sackler Rooms, British Museum
Don Boyd, as part of his retrospective, gave a roomful of lucky viewers a real insight not only into his work but into the film commissioning industry in his talk, accompanied by film footage, ‘Hamlet in China’ today in the Sackler Room at the British Museum. “This is by no accounts a film,” he half-apologised, somewhat echoing his words at the opening of his film ‘Lucia’ at the Barbican a week or so ago when he told us “this is in no way a documentary.”. “I have never ever shown anything unfinished….this is unique,” he went on to explain, exciting the audience further. And so he told us his story.
“Television is dead…the day of the tv commissioning editor is over.”
And here’s why. Several years ago, Nick Fraser, somewhat commissioning editor of the legendary Storyville, told Don Boyd he wanted him to make a film: Hamlet in China. Boyd, incredulous at first, spent a year researching his project and getting very, very excited, as the footage of potential settings – including the Great Wall – and potential actors – from the Chinese RADA-equivalent – shows. It was to be a film within a play within a documentary. It was all planned. The pre-Olympics timing was just perfect. A day or so before everything was to be shipped, organized and begun, Nick Fraser rang up to announce…that the BBC had pulled their funding. Isn’t it ridiculous, Boyd opined, that for the sake of a sum about a third the size of Alan Yentob’s salary, the entire project was shelved.
During his commentary, it was clear to see that Boyd still has feelings for this project. Sadly, he thinks it’s unlikely to get made now, and all of his and others’ hard work will go to waste. This story really highlights the mercy at which filmmakers find themselves in the hands of commissioning editors. Don Boyd has a plan: ‘Highbrow’, a project he thinks will allow true creativity, a platform for the visual arts, with 25-30 ‘curators’ who won’t be answering to tyrannous executives, and which will be “as revolutionary as the printing press.”. In waiting for that to come about, we were privileged to see inside this director’s “notebook”.
