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What's the name of this BBC documentary about a drunk ad executive

Started by Hello! Replies Hidden, January 18, 2021, 04:20:44 AM

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There's a documentary were they follow around either a former ad executive or magazine editor fallen from grace whos a become a homeless pisshead in the 90's. There's a scene where he's in a house in Liverpool playing records and drops his dinner. He falls to his death at the end.

Cerys



C_Larence

Christ that was depressing. It reminds me of a homeless man I met when I was staying with my girlfriend in America a few years ago. His name was Eric, and he was living on the stoop of an abandoned house on the same street as me. I was still smoking back then, and spent quite a lot of time relishing having a stoop of my own to sit on and watch the world go by.
Over the course of the few months I was there I got to know Eric quite well, we would smoke together and he'd tell me about his life. He told me about how he'd been an investment trader, travelling all over the world, before losing everything in a combination of the recession and a divorce that I believe was brought on by his alcoholism. He'd once had a huge record collection, which had since all been sold, and three dogs who he adored, that now lived with his ex. I wasn't really sure how much of what he told me was true. Sometimes he was very cheerful, but he could become very depressed (not that I can blame him), especially when he was drinking.
One night he was convinced that a bright star was a drone that was spying on him. Another time he used my phone to try and call his ex wife, but she didn't pick up and he told me he was going to die soon, showing me black lesions he had on his hand. Watching Brian in that documentary, it reminded me of how upsetting and frustrating it was to see someone so illogically ruined by an addiction.
For at least a week I didn't see Eric on his stoop, and became very worried. He'd been quite desperately trying to get a haircut, and I'd promised to help him get to a cheap barbers on the other side of town, but I got sick and couldn't find him to let him know. For a couple of weeks he wasn't on his stoop and I grew more and more worried about him, until one night me and my girlfriend were walking home from a local bar, talking about him, when we turned the corner onto her street and there he was, looking great with a fresh haircut and clean clothes. It turned out his ex wife had arranged an airbnb for him to stay in and help him get his life back together. The last thing I said to him was "it's good to see you" and the last thing he said was "it's good to be seen", and then I never saw him again. A few days later I was back home in England, and about a week after that I found out from my girlfriend that he had died shortly after I left. He'd hit his head on the ground after someone punched him in a fight over food stamps. Everything he'd told me about himself was confirmed later by his ex wife, who I spoke with quite a lot (her number was in my phone after the time he'd tried to call her) in the weeks after I found out he'd died.

Cerys

I haven't brought myself to watch yet, but your story was heartbreaking enough.  What a fucking waste.

Bazooka

I watched this again last month actually after a few years, as someone who stopped drinking it's a sobering reminder.

markburgle

Quote from: Hello! Replies Hidden on January 18, 2021, 04:20:44 AM
There's a documentary were they follow around either a former ad executive or magazine editor fallen from grace whos a become a homeless pisshead in the 90's. There's a scene where he's in a house in Liverpool playing records and drops his dinner. He falls to his death at the end.

I remember that, he was a journalist? The one bit of hope he has is a possible interview with Roman Polanski but he can't get it together

Replies From View

Quote from: Hello! Replies Hidden on January 18, 2021, 04:20:44 AM
There's a documentary were they follow around either a former ad executive or magazine editor fallen from grace whos a become a homeless pisshead in the 90's. There's a scene where he's in a house in Liverpool playing records and drops his dinner. He falls to his death at the end.

I love it when he puts glue in the mouth of his wart

Cuellar


steve98

I saw this a few years ago and found it riveting; reminded me of how I used to live (exist) a decade or so ago. Some real black humour (an entire box of sage and onion stuffing poured over the (barely cooked) pork chop; the record player that will only play (Edith Piaf) at 78 rpm; the transformation of the neat little terraced house into a disaster zone...)

I like to think he accidentally fell off the roof at the end. Poor sod.

Replies From View


QDRPHNC

What's the music being played at the beginning? I know it from somewhere and it's driving me crazy.

Bazooka

Quote from: QDRPHNC on January 18, 2021, 02:33:53 PM
What's the music being played at the beginning? I know it from somewhere and it's driving me crazy.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3tI1pu5rfZw

Moby- God Moving over the Face of the Waters

QDRPHNC


I remember watching this documentary at the time and only saw it for a second time recently.  Tragically compelling.  It's fascinating the way Brian is adamant he will sort himself out (tidy his house, secure the interviews, etc) but you know as he's saying it that's it's all going to go tits up.  Really very sad.

holyzombiejesus

I'm sure I remember really laughing at this, in a Geoff Tipps kind of way, but reading this thread now I feel that may have been an incorrect response. Will watch again though.

Billy

Quote from: markburgle on January 18, 2021, 08:21:41 AM


I remember that, he was a journalist? The one bit of hope he has is a possible interview with Roman Polanski but he can't get it together

I assumed the Polanski bit was all a manic depressive bit of bollocks, given he gets £150 from a friend for the coach ticket that night but doesn't end up going and claims some mysterious stranger robbed it all from him on the way there. Just an excuse for more booze dosh.

Genuinely wondered at times whether a small part of him was playing up a bit for the cameras for some dark humour - he has a mischievous grin when claiming he can't get the record player to play at 33rpm as we hear the chipmunked results, and the timing of him dropping and smashing the plate on the floor just after cooking the "meal" was pure Bean. By the time he starts genuinely burning the house down though it's clear his immediate future is in serious danger and the end seems sadly inevitable.

Grim as fuck all round, and sad how little there is about his life online and what actually happened in the fifteen years between being editor of a major magazine and homeless in London screaming at randoms. Michael Sheen will probably win an Oscar for playing him in a film someday.

paruses

Quote from: steve98 on January 18, 2021, 11:04:55 AM
I saw this a few years ago and found it riveting; reminded me of how I used to live (exist) a decade or so ago. Some real black humour (an entire box of sage and onion stuffing poured over the (barely cooked) pork chop; the record player that will only play (Edith Piaf) at 78 rpm; the transformation of the neat little terraced house into a disaster zone...)

I like to think he accidentally fell off the roof at the end. Poor sod.

Same here - not quite as bad and without all of the attendant mental issues. I watched about quarter of an hour of it this morning and skipped forward ten mins for a other 5 mins of watching. It was uncomfortable to recognise all that chaos and failure and the way he would mitigate for it mentally. Poor bloke

Replies From View


Replies From View

Quote from: paruses on January 18, 2021, 07:03:33 PM
Same here - not quite as bad and without all of the attendant mental issues.

Although, to be fair, his ongoing denial suggests he would have said the exact same thing, if faced with a mirror.

Replies From View

Quote from: steve98 on January 18, 2021, 11:04:55 AM
I like to think he accidentally fell off the roof at the end. Poor sod.

I think so.  The way he fumbled that pint glass in the middle of one conversation, and while he was cooking miscalculated a plate to the floor, and these were only the things we could see.  The flat was a morbid presentation of objects endlessly dropped and left to fester, curdle and coagulate.  A sad cheeseboard of a man unable to coordinate his movements or thoughts in any tenable manner, and needed social and medical intervention rather than this documentary crew feeding into the false narratives that his deluded ego kept conjuring up.

So yes, it's conceivable that he fell off the roof accidentally.  He simply dropped himself, poor bastard. 

A deeply affecting documentary.

imitationleather

It's a really good documentary. I agree it's darkly humourous and I think he would have enjoyed people viewing it in that way.

I once watched in a trilogy with Rain In My Heart and The Wet House. A big grim boozing documentary night in.

paruses

I assumed that the £150 he was given to go and see Roman Polanski in Paris was just a gesture and they didn't expect any return on it. I just saw the hand over  - on the pavement, a comment of "don't spend it all at once" then the woman was off and he was back in the taxi.

Twonty Gostelow

Quote from: paruses on January 18, 2021, 10:24:18 PM
I assumed that the £150 he was given to go and see Roman Polanski in Paris was just a gesture and they didn't expect any return on it. I just saw the hand over  - on the pavement, a comment of "don't spend it all at once" then the woman was off and he was back in the taxi.

I doubt they'd have given him any money if his story wasn't being filmed.

Today he would have had a lot more support and probably better drugs to help him cope, and I don't think the documentary would have been allowed to go ahead. It's years since I've seen it but I remember feeling there was an element of him playing up to what was expected of him at times. The incident with him dropping the meal could have been one of them - I don't want to watch it again, but it seemed weirdly deliberate.

Which isn't to say he wasn't desperately, tragically unwell of course. The idea that his death was an accident is wishful thinking.

St_Eddie

I watched this the other day.  A fascinating documentary to be sure.  I agree with the general consensuses that it was tragic, upsetting and yet oddly funny at times in the absurdity of his delusions (that mythical, legendary interview with Roman Polanski in France that was definitely going to happen and magically going to get his life back on track... definitely, absolutely, positively - "get a plane over, do the interview and then get a plane back").  He had a touch of a real life Chicken Digby Caesar about him.

Quote from: Twonty Gostelow on January 22, 2021, 07:28:35 PM
The idea that his death was an accident is wishful thinking.

Agreed.

Bernice

Heartbreaking story there C_Larence.

Will check out the docco this weekend.

Replies From View

Quote from: St_Eddie on January 22, 2021, 08:12:50 PM
Agreed.

Really?  Maybe it's just how the documentary shows him up to that point; I can picture him uncoordinated and fumbling.  Misplacing objects.  Misplacing his feet.  Getting his centre of gravity wrong and lunging around, trying to seem like he's not constantly on the verge of falling flat on his face.  Looking, when sitting down, as if he is grateful to be centred, grounded, the world isn't swooshing around him for once - and whoops!  a glass escapes his fingers.

Anger sometimes, yes:  Moments of impotent rage flaring up, struggling to regulate his sensory impulses and his emotional energy as physical reality refuses to conform to what he expects his actions to generate.

But I can't picture him deciding to jump.  That's just not "there" for me.  That's not to say he wouldn't or couldn't have done it, just that I see "fumbling" himself off as more likely.  Perched on the edge, feet dangling over, perhaps.  This is pleasant; a cool evening.  Nice bottle of wine in his hand there we go, sausage roll or something in the other.  Grateful for the world not to be swooshing around his head for a bit.  Then when he comes to stand up, misplacing his feet:  dangling over the edge, no ground to push against - and whoops.


Lisa Jesusandmarychain

What the fuck was that woman thinking, just handing over 150 quid with a cheery " Don't spend it all at once", the jolly hockey sticks enabler?  The DSS handing over 700 quid in one fell swoop was not particularly helpful, either. In each case, he's straight down the boozer, camera crew passively and blithely filming away. Still, at least they offered to buy him some more chips when he managed to lose the original batch he'd bought in that house he managed to turn into a shithole I  the space of two days. Poor feller should have  been sectioned.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Replies From View on January 24, 2021, 09:09:26 AM
Really?  Maybe it's just how the documentary shows him up to that point; I can picture him uncoordinated and fumbling.  Misplacing objects.  Misplacing his feet.  Getting his centre of gravity wrong and lunging around, trying to seem like he's not constantly on the verge of falling flat on his face.  Looking, when sitting down, as if he is grateful to be centred, grounded, the world isn't swooshing around him for once - and whoops!  a glass escapes his fingers.

Yes, I'm positively sure that he misplaced himself onto the roof of a hotel for no reason...