In between the first part, Children and the second part,
there was another three years between Madonna and Child and this.
# DORIS DAY: It All Depends On You
# I can be happy
I never ever thought we'd be able to afford this on the soundtrack.
It's wonderful. It's Doris Day from Love Me Or Leave Me
and it cost &3,000,
which was extraordinarily expensive.
We got money from the Greater London Arts Association to actually shoot the film
on a very tiny amount of money -
I could only pay the actors &10 a day -
and then finishing costs from the Production Board,
thanks to Colin McCabe and Howard Schumann.
# I can be humble
I never thought we'd find the money for the Doris Day.
I mean, &3,000! Ah!
But I think it's absolutely right,
because I think in this final part I've actually found my voice.
I feel as though I'm doing it properly now.
# I can save money
# Or spend it
# Go right on living
# Or end it
Just the images tell you the story,
and what's on the soundtrack, here the Doris Day, simply deepens the subtext
by ironic juxtaposition.
This is quite hard to watch because this is the local crematorium at Anfield,
in fact, where my mother was cremated,
so it holds rather sad associations for me now.
# It all depends
# On you
That's an exquisite version of that song. There's just her pure voice and a piano.
Exquisite.
This is back at my mum's flat.
In fact, that's her wardrobe.
Mam
Oh Mam (Sobs)
The next shot we go back to the crematorium.
We actually did get permission to film there, to my surprise.
The only thing that actually made the person running the crematorium get very, very angry
was I referred to this as 'the oven'.
He said, 'They're not called ovens. They're called cremators. '
I said, 'I'm very sorry, I didn't know that. '
He got very angry about that but let us film there.
Of course, when Mum died, I knew what was going on behind the scenes,
which was not very nice.
This is back at my mum's flat.
That table and chairs cost &100,
and I bought them for her with the &100 I got for the screenplay of Children
I approached Wilfred Brambell because I thought he would be perfect for the role.
And he said yes, which was wonderful.
In fact, it was the last role he ever did.
This was shot in fog and was just round the corner from my primary school.
My primary school's long since been pulled down.
That was another school in Bray Street.
I became friendly with Wilfred in the last few years of his life.
I used to see him occasionally and we'd go to his local Italian restaurant in Pimlico,
where they called him Mr Wilfred.
CHILDRENN CHANNT: Jesus, Mary and Joseph
I give you my heart and my soul
This was shot in the old Royal Hospital in Liverpool,
which is now, I think, being refurbished -
a wonderful Victorian building which I used also in Distant Voices Still Lives
There's no need to run inside the school
Wonderful tiles.
No Sister
In the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit, amen
We got this little lad, lain Munro, from the McKee School.
He must be in his 30s now. (Chuckles)
It seems an extraordinarily long time ago.
Lovely little lad.
Good morning, Sister
Good morning, boys
And these are two of my friends.
The girl on the left is Virginia. I was at drama school with her.
I knew Chrissie, the other woman, through Virginia when I came down to London.
Take your time
These hospital shots were in St Mary's near High Street Kensington -
St Mary Abbots, I think it's called.
These men were in the geriatric department.
Very, very sad.
They were glad to get out of their routine but it seemed so sad
that they were at the end of their lives.
But then, that's what the film is about - mortality, death,
the death of God.
- Who is God? - God is love
There you go Pop
- Spick and span - Spruce
Hey
What's pink wrinkled and hangs out your underpants?
I don't know
your mother! (Both laugh)
(Laughter)
Oh Mam Don't laugh otherwise we'll never get it done
My mum did have a leg ulcer and I used to dress it for her.
She was in pain for a long time.
How's it been today, Mam?
It was aching a bit this morning
It's a lot better now
You shouldn't stand on it, you know
You're supposed to rest with a leg ulcer
I do rest it Honest, lad
Oh you'd say that
Read our stars. Go on, lad
'Capricorn. You crave solitude
as if you wish to hide from the world '
She always loved reading the stars
and the births, deaths and marriages in the local Echo
- What's yours? - Scorpio
'your hopes and wishes receive an extra boost
which means you're in for a brighter and bubblier future.
Although you have been in the wilderness your oasis is just around the corner'
Hm Chance would be a fine thing
Well, you never know your luck in the big city
Hey do you fancy a cuppa?
Aye I wouldn't say no.
Oh Mam
What would I do without you?
MAN. Pull the zip down
Use your teeth
Use your fucking teeth
Now!
Pray Father give me a blessing
This is my first confession and I accuse myself of
I'm over here
Alas, it doesn't work as a joke, does it?
Christ. What a day
Roll on Christmas
# We three kings of Orient are
# Bearing gifts we travel so far
# Field and fountain, moor and mountain Following yonder star
I remember when I was typing this sequence.
I'm a very, very bad typist and I wrote:
The children sing that well-known English Christmas carol Away in a Manager. (Laughs)
On the day we decided to change it to this. We Three Kings
# Guide us to thy perfect light
He's a lovely little lad.
When he goes in through the door he makes sure his wings aren't hurt.
Look at that. Isn't that lovely?
I'm just going for your X-rays, Mr Tucker
I'll leave you here for just a minute
OK?
(Rain falls outside)
DOCTOR Cerebral thrombosis
Stroke
Stroke syndrome
A condition with sudden onset, cause by acute vascular lesions.
This is a bit of ellipsis, where time is...
not so much stands still, as you're not sure where the time is.
This is one of the bits where I was deeply influenced by TS Eliot's The Four Quartets
which is about the nature of time and memory and mortality.
Of remaining just simply on an object,
in this case, a window with rain on it,
and then coming back and he's younger.
I think that does work. I really do like that.
And, in Freudian terms, I think, rain and water is a symbol for sex, I think -
in this case, his lack of it.
(Door bangs)
MOTHER: You mustn't grieve, lad
When I die, say you won't grieve.
My mum used to say that to me. It was very, very hard.
I loved her deeply. She was the great love of my life.
Of course I was going to grieve when she died.
And I think she meant it well
cos she didn't want any of us to be sad,
But of course we were sad. We loved her very, very deeply.
How are you, Mam?
How do you feel?
And this is a lovely piece of acting from both of them, but especially her, I think.
She just simply fades away.
And his acting is lovely throughout Madonna and Child and Death and Transfiguration.
A wonderful performance. I'm very, very proud of him,
proud of all of them, but he's very good.
(Men laughing)
(Woman laughs raucously)
(Lively chatter inside)
(Man starts singing) # One day in June
# It's never too late
# It's never too soon
(Drunken singing)
- What do you think? - Yes!
# How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
# After they see Paree?
# How ya gonna keep 'em
# Away from Broadway?
# Jazzing around - Wooh!
# Painting the town
# How you gonna keep 'em
# Away from harm?
# That's a mystery
# Before the war
# They used to wear a clog or a boot (They stamp feet)
# Now they wear a trilby and a navy blue suit
# How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm
# After they've seen Paree?
FEMALE SINNGER: # There's somebody I'm longing to see
# I hope that he
# Turns out to be..
# Someone who'll watch - Happy Christmas, love
- Happy Christmas, Mam # over me
People either love what I do or they absolutely detest it.
One woman said of the Trilogy, 'I loathe every frame of it. '
Which was terrifying. I thought, 'Oh, God. What have I produced?'
And other people were coming up to me and saying, 'I've seen my life on screen. '
So it's six of one and half a dozen of the other, really.
# He carries the key
One critic said of the completed Trilogy,
'These films make Ingmar Bergman look like Jerry Lewis,'
which I suppose is a kind of wonderful insult.
But they didn't go down well in the States initially.
People felt here that they were without any kind of hope at all.
To a certain extent, that's true, because I didn't feel that I had any hope either,
so I was reflecting very much how I felt at the time.
Since then it's had a bit of rehabilitation.
Recently someone said it's a study in clinical depression, which I hadn't thought of.
But it is hard to watch, in many ways,
but that's how it felt.
And I was true to how it felt.
(Pitter-patter of rain)
CHILDREN # Away in a manager
# No crib for a bed
# The little lord Jesus lay down
And there's Away in a Manager again!
# The stars in the bright sky
# Looked down where he lay
# The little Lord Jesus
# Asleep on the hay
I could do with a bit of tinsel
When I was writing it, I felt that this was the natural way to end it.
Because, obviously, I'm not in a geriatric ward yet.
But it's my terror that I would end up like that.
That's why I projected this part of the story forward,
because it really is a terror.
Let's hope that by the time I'm that old, in 20 years' time,
that there will be voluntary euthanasia,
or I'll have enough money to go to Dignitas in Zurich
so they can inject me with something and kill me.
But this is what I dread to happen.
I think most people dread old age now because there's nothing to recommend it.
No-one wants to have Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or be incontinent.
Who wants that at the end of a life? Nobody.
This is terrifying, I think, for me.
Do you love God Robert?
Yes, Sister
That's an awful thing to say to a child.
How can you know?
And you can't turn round and say, 'No, I don't. '
That's awful.
But Roman Catholicism is such a pernicious religion anyway.
It imbues you with so much guilt, which I still suffer from even now,
all these years later. Awful.
(Nurse opens drawer)
(Gentle snoring)
(Gurgling breathing)
(Rasping breaths)
When you have a stroke, which is what he's dying of,
you have something called Cheyne-Stokes breathing,
which is terrifying, which he does wonderfully at the end of the film -
these long breaths followed by short ones, getting more and more rapid.
His breath control was quite extraordinary.
This was the last role he ever did.
That is another kind of metaphor,
particularly from the Four Last songs of Richard Strauss
Is it sleep or is it death? Which ends the very last song �I�m Abendrot'.
When the light goes out God is dead
And of course, the light has gone out for him a long time ago,
as it has for me.
(Rapid gasping breaths)
We shot this in fog.
Again, that was serendipity.
# You're still
This is my mother singing and the song that she always used to sing.
A lovely, mellifluous voice.
Because of the difficulty of this sequence, and he did it in one take,
I said, 'You've got to go back to the end of the track and say nothing. '
# As time goes by
# I'm happy to say
# I still adore you
# In the same old way
# My love for you will always be true
And seeing it now, it reminds me of those lines by Dowson.
'They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
love and desire and hate
I think they have no portion in us after we pass the gate
They are not long, the days of wine and roses
Out of a misty dream our path emerges for a while
Then closes within a dream'