Paul Burrows Interview

Nature Morte is a strange title, where did it come from?

I wanted a title that alluded to art and something dark, and came up with "Still Life After Death". At the time, more than half the movie was scripted in French so I wanted to know what the translation of Still Life would be. Carole (Paul's partner and co-producer, Carole also plays Blanche De Ladang) explained to me that it was Nature Morte, which translates back as "Dead Nature", so, we had our title.

Half the dialogue was in French, why did you change that?

Two reasons really, originally the main protagonist was to be a bilingual Englishman. Mick Jagger was my first choice for the role, but he was busy, probably. However, when we were casting we met Troy McFadden , an American. We really thought Troy would be great, but he doesn't speak any French, so we switched most of the dialogue to English and we offered him the role.

What's the other reason?

Oh, the French cast sound great in English.

How did the story come about?

I was reading a book about a guy travelling to Burma to tune the piano of this eccentric army major. I left it on a plane and so never got to finish it, so I imagined how it might continue. I've since found out that I wasn't even close, but that's how the idea was born.

Were you influenced by any other films?

In terms of the story? I'm not sure, maybe. I liked the look of the Magus with Michael Caine and Anthony Quinn although I can't really remember much about it. I just liked the image of an ordinary bloke travelling to this strange exotic place to meet someone who both intrigues and terrifies him. I suppose Apocalypse Now could have been an influence in that respect, but not consciously.

The film is very ambitious for a low budget feature, why did you go for something so big for your first film?

Partly by accident I suppose. When I was writing I had the most of the cast and locations in mind, so I was pretty sure we could do it. It wasn't until after we left Thailand that I realised just how expensive it should have been. Filming in the UK was much more expensive of course, so we had to make cutbacks, mostly on catering.

Does the movie look the way you'd first envisaged?

Pretty much. I wanted a slightly surreal look, I didn't want the island it to look like a real place you could visit, or the people like real people you could meet. I wanted it dark, sexy and dangerous, and I think we succeeded there. But above all, I wanted to make a movie that I'd want to see. I know I've succeeded there because I love it.

Nature Morte was mostly filmed in Thailand , how did that come about?

Carole and I were living in Samui and I wrote the script there, so it was written for Thailand .

How was it, filming over there?

It was a lot of fun. Our crew were just fantastic, we had a mixture of Thais, Americans, Canadians and Swiss. We filmed over 6 weeks in Bangkok , Samui and Koh Phang Ngam.

Did you have many problems?

Oh yes. I had never directed, or even worked on a movie before. I'd read a lot of books telling me now hard it would be, so I knew it would be difficult,  I just wasn't sure in what way. I found out bloody fast of course.

Give me an example.

OK, well, t he first scene we shot was in Bangkok , it was the one where the cop, Albert and the art dealer, Davenport , meet.  It's crucial scene as it sets up the whole premise for the movie. We had got hold of an Art gallery in Bangkok and thought this would be a perfect setting. The script had to be tailored as the scene was originally supposed to be set in a house in London and was to be shot at the end of the schedule. When we got there, it turned out to not to be an art gallery at all. It was a restaurant with photographs on the wall. The fact that it was open to the public while we were filming didn't help much either. The food was great but the filming was a bloody nightmare, noise, light continuity and it just looked like what it was, a restaurant.

But you got away with it?

No. Although I thought we had. I didn't see a rough cut for a while, but when I did, I was horrified. It was terrible. Time constraints had meant that we'd had to re hash the script to get 8 pages down to 2 and a half. Plus we had to change it again for a restaurant setting. This we did by committee and ended up with a nonsensical mess with some of the worst dialogue ever committed to film.  

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