Topic: Oral History of Four Lions Vice Article

[Braintree]

Morris and the cast/crew spoke to Vice about the making of the film, probably not much new but interesting anyway


https://www.vice.com/amp/en_uk/article/889dqa/four-lions-making-of-oral-history-trivia?__twitter_impression=true

[Thomas]

Always love to hear/read Morris talking about his projects - cheers, Braintree.

[EBGB]

That's great, thanks for posting.  Plenty of stuff in there I've not come across before, especially from the cast.  I love that they're all so fond of it still at this distance.

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

That was a great read...think I'm going to stick the film on tonight, been bloody ages.

[Spiral King]

Probably compiled from ages of interviews, but nice to have them collected.

There was one scene where it was market day in Sheffield and I was hiding in a white van dressed as a Ninja Turtle, and on action I had to run into this market square and shout at this woman's tomatoes at her greengrocers’ stall – the plot being that I thought her tomatoes had been bugged by the CIA. She was the only person who knew we were filming. I was shitting myself. The cameras were hidden, so all people saw was this six-foot Ninja Turtle running down the street, screaming, “Fuck off!” at these tomatoes. The lady who ran the stall was laughing, so it wasn't usable. Chris told me, for the next take, to go and destroy the stall. I said, “Is it her stall?” “Yeah, it's her stall,” he said. I said, “Are you sure I should destroy it?” Then there was a long pause and he said... “She'll be compensated.” So I went back and smashed it to pieces, and she was so fucking angry. She couldn't believe it. It didn't even end up in the film.

This part, in particular, made me laugh longer and harder than I have in recent memory. Good stuff.

[non capisco]

Always suspected but I don't think I've ever seen confirmed that it was Riz Ahmed's 'Post 9-11 Blues' video and song that put him on Chris' radar.

[clingfilm portent]

Wrecking a woman's tomato stand is it now, Chris? Tchoh.

[dex]

As above, cheers to the OP for sharing the link. Made me laugh. I like Morris' work ethic and him leading by example. Even jumping into a river at the end of a busy day's filming wasn't too much of an ask. Heh!

[Thomas]

I had no idea about this interesting musical detail, about the Aphex Twin track used at the end:

Richard James [Aphex Twin] was brilliant. He re-recorded it because he'd sold the rights of the recording. He had it on some old ancient thing – it might have even been on a floppy disk, or something – so he dug that up. He played the piano part and recorded it with mics set up in various different parts of the room, and then he ran it forwards and backwards and in all these various different sequences. Then he sent them over. What a bloody geezer. Really good bloke.

[the]

Thanks for sharing Braintree.

I like Morris' work ethic and him leading by example. Even jumping into a river at the end of a busy day's filming wasn't too much of an ask. Heh!

Funnily enough that's similar to a story about Paul Jackson trying to direct Nigel Planer to fall into a boggy puddle in The Young Ones. Unhappy about the wavering on how to do it, Jackson (man with temper) strode out of the OB truck, said 'do it like this!' and flung himself into the mire.

I had no idea about this interesting musical detail, about the Aphex Twin track used at the end:

That would've been on a Disklavier, an acoustic piano that can be controlled via MIDI to play sequences. Some versions of the Disklavier have a floppy disk drive for saving and loading sequences (although that might not be what was described). I expect re-recording the song would've saved the production quite a bit of money.

Here's a version of Avril 14th that James recorded where the note sequence is played in reverse order (more or less, I think it's been edited a little):

      Avril 14th (reversed music not audio)

And here's a different version of the original song, made as a mockup of how the doppler effect might sound when the piano is swung backwards and forwards (something done for real at The Barbican in 2012):

      Avril 14th (altdelay)

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Ta for sharing that, Braintree, a really interesting read.

However, despite his general aura of good egginess, Morris asking Nigel Lindsay to trash that woman's stall reflects quite badly on him. Sure, they paid for all the damage, but imagine how traumatic it must've been for her at the time - she'd agreed, in good faith, to participate in the shoot, then suddenly some mad actor bloke lays waste to her livelihood. It just comes across as rather arrogant and thoughtless.   

[Chedney Honks]

I agree. Hope she smashed up the cameras hahaha.

[HAVANAGILA]

Would have made for an interesting detour during his interview with Adam Buxton:

"So Chris, we've both destroyed the stock of small independent businesses while filming our projects, and thrown money at the problem while ignoring the psychological impact on the owner. I've been wracked by guilt ever since - how do *you* feel?"

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

That occured to me too. It's borderline Bullingdon behaviour. Morris, you would hope, presumably regrets that shitty move just as much as Adam and Joe do. NOT ON, MORRIS.

[Braintree]

It is awful. You do wonder if Lindsey and Morris would have done the same to some big, burly man's stall don't you?

[Thomas]

It's a shame. It's the sort of thing you could imagine Morris mocking in a sketch about an arrogant filmmaker, thinking he's smashing the system by attacking a small tomato stall.

Morris made Four Lions with ideas of masculine idiocy in mind, groups of lads egging each other on - perhaps he and Lindsay succumbed to it themselves for a moment.

We are the martyrs, you're just smashed tomatoes / Allahu Akbar!

[shagatha crustie]

Morris and Aphex best mates confirmed!

Even pre-Four Lions, there's always seemed to be a link between the two - a similarly skewed, creepy, hallucinatory angle on the world, trickster sense of humour, and fondness for linguistic viscera and word salad. Jam/Blue Jam was probably the first place I heard RDJ's work.

[Spiral King]

This isn't anything new, re: the stall destruction. Disgusting Bliss is full of similar anecdotal stories. Morris isn't this perfect person and some of his more strange ideas and flights of fancy can come across as a bit thoughtless.

As he said, she was undoubtedly fully compensated and Morris, if he spoke to her, probably convinced her that she could now redesign the stall to be even better? He's a very convincing person and I doubt they would have allowed the woman to leave feeling badly about the whole thing. Who knows though. I doubt Lindsay would have told the story if she was truly devastated after the fact.