Walter Lassally - 'Something for Everyone': A less than perfect technical solution (215/266)

Описание: To listen to more of Walter Lassally’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Walter Lassally (Film-maker)  

Born in Germany, cinematographer Walter Lassally (1926-2017) was best known for his Oscar-winning work on 'Zorba the Greek'. He was associated with the Free Cinema movement in the 1950s, and the British New Wave in the early 1960s. [Listener: Peter Bowen; date recorded: 2004]

TRANSCRIPT: In the preparation period there was a slack moment and Kate and I went off to Vienna. We had a little look around Vienna. And when we came back, we discovered that, in our absence, in order to cover a scene where an aging priest has to ride a bicycle through a field, they had ordered a length of railway track, including a set of points. Now, the set of points I never discovered what that was for. But the railway track... they'd got this wonderful idea that as he was a bit rickety, he couldn't be trusted to ride a bicycle through a field, so they were going to mount him and his bicycle on this low railway carriage, like those things that they use, whatever it's called, for repairs. You know, they self-propelled along the railway. Buster Keaton did it in a movie, didn't he? 'The Railrodder'. Anyway, one of those things. And they were going to mount this bicycle on this railway carriage, and somehow have it propelled. Because it was a field you couldn't see... it was hidden. So anyway, I soon scotched that... I said, 'I think we will find a somewhat simpler solution'. But that's the sort of thing that can happen when the people in charge don't really know what to do and they panic, because you're not around. They do something like that.