BBC TV ARENA. When Burroughs met Bacon.
I shot with both William Burroughs and Francis Bacon once before.
I got on well with both and was very happy to shoot this Arena.
This archive is rushes- clapperboards and all.
shot on an Aaton LTR on 16mm Kodak. stock.
INTERVIEW WITH MIKE SOUTHON for Pataphysics magazine
Leo Edelstein: What were your first impressions of William Burroughs when you filmed his meeting with Francis Bacon in 1982?
Mike Southon: This wasn’t my first impression. I had shot with him at the Chelsea in 1981. Where I found him courteous and very easy to deal with during the lunch with Warhol. He was a quiet towering presence and seemed reticent about maintaining eye contact. He had his
“minders” with him and I think that gave him a sense of security.
I shot with him again in NY for Brookner’s film. He recognised me and seemed pleased to have a familiar face in the room.
In those days documentary crews were often overly business-like and directors discouraged fraternisation with subject but I had already built my reputation on being at ease with artists and performers and if a director didn’t like that then I’d conform but made a note not to work with that director again. My attitude got me more jobs than it lost.
LE: What did you notice about the way Burroughs interacted with Bacon?
MS: Bacon was always very polite with visitors and as I had worked with him on an earlier film, again he was pleased to see me.
I always shot with as little fuss as possible as can be seen from the uncut footage. I never intervened just tried to interpret through my lens.
LE: How did the space of Bacon’s studio resonate to you whilst you were filming?
MS: It resonated a lot as I had spent days there previously on the Bacon/David Sylvester project. It was as depicted in photographs of the time, caked with paint and cuttings and behind every easel there would be wooden cases packed with valuable wines which he would freely open and pour for all and sundry as well as pouring them into a casserole he was heating on the gas ring.
The seating area was fashionably shabby but comfortable and of course as one entered up the wooden staircase one was confronted by the long wall mirror. It was cracked but intact. Rumour has it that it was the result of a drunken fight where objects were thrown. It did however add a Bacon-like fragmentation to one’s own reflection.
LE: Was the tactile nature of the analog film you were using significant to you when shooting this?
What type of cameras were used?
MS: At that time all documentary work and much drama that the BBC made was shot on standard 16mm film, mainly Kodak stock.
Broadcast quality video cameras were huge and unwieldy, requiring heavyweight electronics to make it work.
Sony had introduced a more portable video recorder but the quality was abysmal as evidenced in early video work by experimental artists of the time.
My camera was an Aaton LTR54. A beautifully engineered piece of equipment developed by the legendary camera designer Jean-Pierre Beauviala. Unlike the Arri cameras of the time the Aaton sat naturally on one’s shoulder, had a super sharp fibre optic viewfinder and in tight situations one could change magazines (max 10 minute rolls) without stopping the camera.
The Kodak stocks were not that sensitive compared to today’s digital filmmaking tools, low-light photography was always a challenge.
One took advantage of 16mm’s properties i.e. small lightweight cameras and learnt to deal with 16mm film’s shortcomings i.e. grain and low sensitivity.
LE: Had you viewed any of Burroughs’ films at the time -- his projects such as Towers Open Fire?
How did you relate to Burroughs’ work in film and references to cinema in his books?
MS: I had not seen this work. I had read his writing when a teenager and it resonated but at that age my life experiences had been limited.
My time at the BBC film Department traveling the world shooting all kinds of subjects became my university.
LE: The informal conversation between Burroughs and Bacon covers many areas of mutual interest -- travel, painting, friends.
Burroughs then describes his ideas around immortality to Bacon.
Immortality for Burroughs was about “getting into space -- the point is to get beyond the physical body.”
Bacon then asks: “What are you going to get into space?”
“A magnetic field,” replied Burroughs.
Could you describe what it felt like to witness such an extraordinary conversation?
MS: It’s hard to be specific. I had had earlier encounters with both Bacon and Burroughs.
By that point in my career I had already been on the road with Stevie Wonder and witnessed him writing Ebony and Ivory one long night in Washington DC.
I had been threatened by an armed Chuck Berry at his residence .
I had been to war zones and stayed at billionaires' mansions.
In just a few short years my horizons were massively broadened.
My mission was to channel my feelings to elucidate, illuminate and inform through my images.
I think to be overawed by what happens in front of one’s lens is not productive.
Often in documentaries the perfect state is to know just enough but not too much.