Cinema Canada (Apr-May 1978)

INTRODUCING... martyn burke a storyteller we Martyn Burke I met Martyn Burke in a small dark room adjacent to his editing room. How a propos. We were going to talk about his film on conspiracy and power, Coup d’Etat. The atmosphere was appropriately conspiratorial. My goal, an interview for Cinema Canada; his, publicity for his biggest gamble to date, a more-than-million-dollar feature. I’d never seen any of Burke’s work at that point. I wondered whether he would be an introverted nationalist, or a sensationalistic amateur with a talent for a racy theme (I knew he had made Connections, the Mafia exposé documentary, for the CBC). I found neither, and was pleased. 6/Cinema Canada Martyn Burke is that interesting mixture of ego and curiosity that produces storytellers. I found myself in a small dark room with a storyteller. And it was stimulating. I should mention that I have since seen Burke’s CBC documentary Carnivals. Speaking of powerful stories and undershown films! He has also made the documentaries California Movie, and Idi-Amin: A Portrait (shown on 60 minutes, CBS), and the feature film, The Clown Murders.) . Martyn Burke is that strange beast in Canadian feature films, a writerdirector. There are others, Gilles Carle, David Cronenberg, but Burke is different. He seems less aligned with the auteur approach than the others. And he comes out of the television documentary. And he would like to go on making documentaries periodically. A contradiction. There is a rumor that Canadians make terrible screenwriters: too hung up in the documentary tradition. Maybe in the year of Outrageous, this rumor too, about Canadian film and filmmakers, will be laid to rest. The story of the making of Coup d’Etat is itself a great story. I hope the movie lives up to it. The idea of filming a real coup has been with Burke since 1968 when he was caught in the middle of a real live takeover in Peru. Since then he’s been reading, writing, studying. He’s had lots of material. Dozens of governments have come and gone, particularly in the Third World. He also acquired the rights to Edward Luttwack’s book, Coup d’Etat, the acknowledged “how to” book on coups. In 1973, it looked like Coup d’Etat was going to be a feature, co-sponsored by CBC and Quadrant Films. Burke even shot ten reels of coup scenes in Germany using the Canadian Army to storm the national palace (Bavarian town and palaces were the background). Then the project came to a halt. And it wasn’t until 1976 that Burke, along with producer Chris Dalton, recovered the rights to Coup d’Etat. I didn’t press Burke on the bloodletting that led to the halt of the production. With the footage that he already had, he prepared a short promo for potential investors. Enter Robert Cooper, better known to Canadians as the CBC’s Ombudsman. Cooper wanted into the movies; Burke needed help, ergo an executive producer with connections who lined up backers, and developed a co-production deal with David Hemming’s Greenwich Co. in England. Suddenly, Coup d’Etat was ' going to happen, and it did. Cooper, Burke and Dalton began in January, 1977. By August, they were filming with Hemmings, Peter O’Toole, Donald Pleasance and Barry Morse, Canadians Jon Granik, George Tonliatos, August Schellenberg, Eli Rill, Chuck Shamata and others became conspirators in an unnamed Mediterranean country, ripe with corruption and idealistic army officers. By October the filming was done. Burke and his co-conspirators have done everything to provide us with a high-powered thriller. International stars, a fine cameraman, Ousama Rawi (Pulp, Black Windmill), a special effects expert from England, Roy Whybrow (Exodus, Battle of Britain), a Los Angeles story editor to help beat Burke’s script into shape, and ICM of Los Angeles, New York, London and Rome to market the picture. All the right moves. They have to be, according to Burke. He’s sticking his neck out in the international film marketplace, and he wants to make sure he can compete in that market. He’s not afraid to compete, and he suggests the rest of us adopt the same attitude. Get tough. Be more disciplined. Don’t accept second best. Work with the best people (ACTRA will be insulted by that one). Producers shouldn’t accept a script that isn’t fully developed and ready to make its mark (the implication is that they, too, readily proceed with half-baked scripts), and writers should go for people over topics if we are to have first calibre screenplays. Again, Outrageous comes up in the conversation. Canadians should fight their natural tendency to form committees; they could ruin beautiful opportunities for Canada to make its mark as a centre for international filmmaking (CBC, CFDC and ACTRA should be insulted by that one). And most of all, stop the didactic filmmaking. If you want a lecture, go to school. If you want ta,make Canadians better people, send them to church. :