John Schlesinger

Speaker 40:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 40:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 40:11

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is a film director. He began to learn his craft, like many other distinguished members of his profession, at the BBC, making short films for Tonight and Monitor. But soon he'd graduated to bigger stuff. In England he made a kind of loving, darling, and far from the madding crowd. In America his film Midnight Cowboy won two Oscars. But he hasn't confined himself to the cinema. He's directed plays for the R S C and the National, and operas at Covent Garden.

Presenter0:58

Today he's once again working in television with the sequel to his highly successful production of Alan Bennett's An Englishman Abroad. He is John Schlesinger. It's quite a range, John, from the English small screen to international grand opera and much more in between. I'm sure you relish it all, but do you have a favourite?

John Schlesinger1:18

Not really. I mean, I I I think it's some

John Schlesinger1:21

It's wonderful to be able to dip one's toe in different kind of deep ends. I I hate being labelled in one particular groove. I mean, critics like to sort of see you doing one sort of film and repeating yourself because then they can kind of trace a line.

John Schlesinger1:39

I'm I'm more interested in doing different things and having different experiences because each time you go out there, whatever you're doing, you're

John Schlesinger1:46

learning something and and testing oneself.

Presenter1:50

But you can, with you if you like, trace a line with certain performers. Uh uh for example, Alan Bates and Julie Christie, of course, occurred very early on.

Speaker 41:58

Yeah.

Presenter1:58

In Far From the Madding Crowd and a Kind of Loving. And then again, Alan Bates reappears as Guy Burgess in the 1980s.

John Schlesinger2:05

Yes, and with both of them, I did separate tables the same year, actually.

John Schlesinger2:12

I think once you've got a relationship that really works with an actor or actress, um it's wonderful to be able to repeat.

John Schlesinger2:22

the the work um process with them.

Presenter2:25

Well now music um obviously is very very important to you. It it's going to be your salvation on a desert island.

John Schlesinger2:32

Well, that's my salvation, I think, in life very often. I love music and I was.

John Schlesinger2:37

Brought up in a very musical family.

Presenter2:39

And the first record you'll take with you?

John Schlesinger2:42

Well, the first record I would take with me is is one one of the scores of one of my films. It's the only thing that I'm choosing with my

John Schlesinger2:50

connected with my own work, but I worked a number of times with a British composer who now lives mostly in America, Richard Romney Bennett. He did an absolutely spectacular score for Far from the Madden Crowd. So I think I would like to

John Schlesinger3:04

have a piece of that and part of England with me.

Presenter3:39

The theme from Far from the Madding Crowd, composed by Richard Rodney Bennett the film directed, of course, by my castaway, John Schlesinger. Talking of recurring figures, Peter Finch, I think, also cropped up much earlier than when you used him in Sunday, Bloody Sunday in your life, didn't he?

John Schlesinger3:55

Well, yes, because when I was an actor uh we were um I played a first lieutenant on the Graf Schbee to his Captain Langsdorf uh in the Battle of the River Plate, which Michael Powell directed. And I I I mean, I was just a small part actor, but um

John Schlesinger4:13

He was.

John Schlesinger4:14

charming and and quite nervous.

John Schlesinger4:17

After every take, Return said you think that was all right.

John Schlesinger4:21

and I liked him immensely.

Presenter4:23

And you remembered him down all those years.

John Schlesinger4:23

And you remember

John Schlesinger4:25

Yes, I think that, you know, um uh my my acting life was so divorced from directing I I never realized I'd become a director. I never never thought it was going to be possible, never dreamt that it would happen.

John Schlesinger4:38

And when it did, years later, when we were casting Far from the Manning Crowd, Peter Finch very much came to mind and um for that role.

Presenter4:49

So you might have been an actor yourself.

John Schlesinger4:51

I was an actor for about eight years, yes.

Presenter4:54

Professionally.

John Schlesinger4:55

Oh yes.

Presenter4:55

And you because be before that you were a leading light, weren't you, at Oxford in in Odds?

John Schlesinger5:00

Well, yes, I mean I was a student. I I was a magician actually originally when I was in the a child and in the army. I had an act and I I joined Combined Services Entertainments for a while in Far East where my companions were Kenneth Williams and Stanley Baxter and Peter Nicholls.

Presenter5:20

What what sort of tricks did you do? Real conjuring tricks?

John Schlesinger5:22

Real country tricks. Yes, I love magic. My father took me when I was aged eight to um a a a hall just round from here from the B B C. I've forgotten what it was called, the Egyptian Hall, was it? And there was an an uh a coup couple of very famous countries called Mascline and Devan.

John Schlesinger5:40

And that was the first magic show the first theatre I ever went to. I remember it very well.

Presenter5:46

Shall we have your second record?

John Schlesinger5:48

Well, I've always been tremendously excited by the sounds that come out of a real New York Broadway orchestra in the pit. I love it. And it sends shivers down my spine. I don't terribly care if the musical is not very good, but I go to them a great deal. And so I would want to sort of

John Schlesinger6:09

lift my spirits, I think, because I'd probably be very lonely on a desert island, and I'd like a little bit of a Broadway show, and I like very much George Gershwin, so I've chosen the overture from Girl Crazy.

Presenter6:45

The overture from Gershwin's Girl Crazy played by The Buffalo Philharmonic conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.

Presenter6:52

G give me a picture of of the family, John Schlesinger, in which you did all these conjuring tricks. I mean, where and how did you live?

John Schlesinger6:59

Um well, I was born in Hampstead. My father was a paediatrician.

John Schlesinger7:04

My mother was a not a professional, but a very good violinist, and I was the eldest of five children. And I had in those days I had uh three sisters and uh and a brother. Alas, I I've just got a sister and a brother left now, but um uh they were they were twins, they are twins. And um

John Schlesinger7:29

We had a very happy family life and then when the war came uh my parents had a a house, a little weekend cottage in the country, which they were paying a pound a week, I think, for and we we were all moved out down there uh by my mother because my father then went into the army as a doctor and for four years we didn't see him really very much.

John Schlesinger7:53

So we

John Schlesinger7:55

Well, you know, I was sent away to school, uh and so I had my holidays at home.

Presenter8:00

during which you kept the family in.

John Schlesinger8:02

Well, which we did. We w we used we used to put on family shows a great deal. My parents were great encouragers of us. We were rationed very severely when I was a t small kid to one theatre a year at Christmas and one one film on my grandmother's birthday. And it was a very great occasion. But anything we wanted to do, if we wanted to make a terrible mess in the dining room with dust sheets and put on a show of our own, we were encouraged to do that.

Presenter8:29

But you didn't like school.

John Schlesinger8:31

No, hated school.

Presenter8:32

Why?

John Schlesinger8:33

Because I wasn't very good at all the things that I was expected to be good at. And I found that, you know, m my father had been in the same house that I was at the public school I was sent to.

John Schlesinger8:46

and my brother after me and and uh they were very good at games and captains of rugger teams and head of the house and all that kind of thing. I was hopeless at everything.

Presenter8:55

But you had fun times too, um and you'll hate me for this, but there is the old chestnut of a story that one sees quoted about your taking a secret film of your headmaster undressing on the beach.

John Schlesinger9:05

Arias under a Tao and he didn't like that. The film was not allowed to be shown to the school.

Presenter9:10

And was the film of the Headmaster particularly revealing?

John Schlesinger9:13

Yeah.

Presenter9:14

Not at all.

Presenter9:17

Record number three.

John Schlesinger9:19

Um well, opera. Opera's very important to me and uh I would like uh um Placido Domingo, Katia Ricciarelli, singing uh part of the love duet from the first act of Otello, which is an opera I like very much and I'm eventually going to do at the Metropolitan as a production with Placido.

Speaker 49:44

Oh my god.

Presenter10:43

Part of the love duet from Act One of Verdi's Otello, sung by Placido Domingo and Cattia Ricciarelli, with the orchestra of La Scala Milan, conducted by Lauren Marzell.

Presenter10:54

So your early career began at the BBC. Is that really where you were discovered, if discovered you were?

John Schlesinger11:01

Yes, it was there that I was discovered. Um um I mean um

John Schlesinger11:05

I was very fortunate. I I'd made a little amateur film and I was still an actor about Hyde a a sort of Sunday in the Park, it was called, and it was sh seen by people at the BBC and and I I I got into the Tonight programme which Donald Babistock and Alastair Milne

John Schlesinger11:25

were running and I g got to make about twelve films, you know, one a month, for little tiny snippets, three minute, two minute films.

John Schlesinger11:35

And I wasn't very happy on it, but I was very happy to have the opportunity. But Monitor was waiting in the wings in the shape of Hugh Weldon, who was the most wonderful producer, my first really great relationship with a producer. And he taught me a very great deal. And I had, I think, one of the happiest years in my entire life working

John Schlesinger11:57

um that initially, that one year for m for monitor.

Presenter12:01

Was Ken Russell there?

John Schlesinger12:02

Ken Russell followed me in, but I left the programme and then went and sort of learned Metray, doing everything from commercials to second unit on television series.

Presenter12:12

You did, of course, Terminus, didn't you? That was later, yeah. Uh nineteen sixty one, I think that was. Um, A Day in the Life of Waterloo Station, which which went on general release. That you must have been thrilled a bit.

John Schlesinger12:14

That was later, yeah.

John Schlesinger12:16

Yeah.

John Schlesinger12:21

Yeah.

John Schlesinger12:23

Yes, I was absolutely thrilled and it won, you know, a lot of awards and and got me to the attention.

John Schlesinger12:30

Of a wonderful Italian producer living in London called Joe Yanni, who was really responsible.

John Schlesinger12:37

for my career. He'd seen a film I'd made for Monitor, which was about a sort of scratch Italian opera company playing at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane with you know chorus wearing trousers under their monks' robes which kept coming down and revealing themselves. It was a wonderful sort of

John Schlesinger12:57

Barnstorming Opera Company and he liked the film and I was

John Schlesinger13:01

He said, It's full of atmosphere. I'd like to discover you and I said, Be my guest. I'd love to be discovered. And eventually I got to make a kind of loving and s six or seven films with him.

Presenter13:12

Billy Lyle with him?

John Schlesinger13:12

Billy Liar with him. Billy Lyar with him, darling, Madden Proud, yes.

Presenter13:14

Darling?

Presenter13:16

Now, darling, you say these days makes you cringe. Why did you say that?

John Schlesinger13:22

The sequences that make me cringe, which are mm I think the film is looks to me as if it's too pleased with itself. It it it it's so phony. But it's of its time.

Presenter13:32

It was an important film of its time.

John Schlesinger13:34

Yes, it's of its time and and Julie Christie was wonderful in it and so was Dirk Bogart.

Presenter13:39

It won you the New York Critics Award. Yes, it did.

John Schlesinger13:40

Yes, it did.

John Schlesinger13:43

Suspect, rather suspicious of the New York critics as a result of it. Years later.

Presenter13:49

Nevertheless, the the scene was set for you to cross the Atlantic, which we shall do in a minute, but let's have record number four.

John Schlesinger13:52

Yeah.

John Schlesinger13:56

Well, big band stuff. Um

John Schlesinger14:00

Also sort of songs of the thirties, that style, thirties, forties, fifties I love Sinatra, jazz singers.

John Schlesinger14:09

And I want I think I would want to take with me something that embodied the feeling of that period with something that's of the minute. And uh Harry Connick, Junior is certainly all of that. He's a wonderful performer, a songwriter, a great musician. And I want to take him doing something with me, I think, to the desert island.

Speaker 114:35

No, you

Speaker 114:37

So well, I can tell by the sound of your voice if you're really in love with me and you are.

Speaker 114:52

No I

Speaker 114:54

Can't lie.

Speaker 114:57

If I say to you, Baby, I love you, then baby, I love you.

Speaker 115:02

When I do

Presenter15:04

Harry Connick Junior singing We Are in Love. And so Across the Atlantic John Schlesinger to make Midnight Cowboy. Aren't you the the only director to have worked twice with Dustin Hoffman?

John Schlesinger15:15

I believe I'm one of the few who worked twice with him. Yes.

Presenter15:18

This is so difficult.

John Schlesinger15:20

He's demanding. He has I mean, I think he's brilliant. He's quite exhausting because he's never satisfied. He always thinks he can improve a take. So long after you think you know you've got it, he wants more and more takes, and it gets very, very uh exhausting actually.

Presenter15:39

Hard on the other actors though, that.

Presenter15:41

Yes, I think it I think

John Schlesinger15:43

Yeah.

John Schlesinger15:44

You know, Laurence Olivier found it quite testing, I think, to do Marathon Man with him. They weren't exactly in competition, but they came from two very different schools of acting.

Presenter15:55

You you've said before now that in making films you like to, and I quote, make one for them and one for me. What do you mean by that?

John Schlesinger16:03

I remember when when I had made Day of the Locust, which was quite a controversial film and wasn't a success at all, so when I was offered Marathon Man, I thought, Oh, good, the studio want me to do something for them, I'll try it. And and it it is something they want to have made, just like

John Schlesinger16:25

The last film I made was Pacific Heights, which was a film that I was asked to do, and I thought, oh, good after Suzatsuka, which is a small chamber work, obviously not going to be commercial, we knew that when we made it.

John Schlesinger16:36

Um but dear to my heart, Pacific Heights, good, terrific, good yarn, like to do it.

Presenter16:42

So Susatsuka was for you and Pacific Heights was for them. And indeed it's proved to be a great box office success. It's a thriller, that, isn't it, about a mad tenant in a San Francisco house who drives his landlords to violence.

John Schlesinger16:46

Yeah.

John Schlesinger16:52

Sanford.

Presenter16:55

Um is it a homage to Hitchcock? some people have said.

John Schlesinger16:59

Well, I I'm not conscious of that. I mean, I think that we we probably have to pay homage to a lot of other directors because we're nothing if not great borrowers and stealers.

Presenter17:10

But there must be a a a you know a a classic technique of of making our palms sweat, of keeping us hanging on the line.

John Schlesinger17:16

Keeping us hanging on the line. I like it happening to me, and so it's wonderful to construct a thriller. I mean, you.

Presenter17:19

And

John Schlesinger17:24

you have to ask questions. Do we inform the audience at this moment? So they or almost want to scream advice at the characters in the film who don't know what's about to happen to them? Or do we want to give the audience a shock? And there there is a kind of it's a different kind of

John Schlesinger17:41

Um

John Schlesinger17:42

Job.

Presenter17:43

Record number five.

John Schlesinger17:44

Yeah.

Presenter17:44

Yeah.

John Schlesinger17:44

Yeah.

John Schlesinger17:47

Well, Suzatsuka was all about piano music.

John Schlesinger17:50

and a pianist and in order to prepare for it I went to

John Schlesinger17:55

the Van Clyburn piano competition in Fort Worth.

John Schlesinger17:59

and immerse myself in pianists and piano music for uh quite a several days.

John Schlesinger18:07

And this quintet, which was unfamiliar to me,

John Schlesinger18:11

Was uh uh the Dvorak piano quintet was being played by all the contestants.

John Schlesinger18:19

And I thought this was one of the most beautiful slow movements that um I'd encountered in chamber music, so I'd like to take that with me.

Presenter19:28

Part of the slow movement of Dorjac's piano quintet in A major, performed by the Nash Ensemble of London.

Presenter19:35

I mentioned your television success with an Englishman abroad, Alan Bennett's play about Coral Brown's meeting with Guy Burgess in Moscow. Now there's the sequel or companion play that you've made, A Question of Attribution. What is it about?

John Schlesinger19:49

Yeah.

John Schlesinger19:49

It's about Anthony Blunt, who was the keeper of the Queen's Pictures. And he was a rather.

John Schlesinger19:56

Extraordinary figure

John Schlesinger19:59

In many ways people either loved him or they hated him because he was

John Schlesinger20:02

He was an intellectual snob. He was very knowledgeable. He was an art historian.

John Schlesinger20:07

And uh all the time he was concealing the fact that he had in

John Schlesinger20:13

in the thirties and forties been organizing this spiring.

Presenter20:17

What about being back in in television again? Does that make extra demands on a director more so than cinema, or is it vice versa?

John Schlesinger20:24

Well, it's made as a film. I mean, it's a film.

Presenter20:27

But are you able to be more subtle for the time?

John Schlesinger20:29

Uh

Presenter20:29

Uh

John Schlesinger20:29

I think what you can do for television is there are a lot of subjects that can be done for television which can't be done or aren't done.

Presenter20:30

Yeah.

John Schlesinger20:37

On the big screen. Interestingly, in the recent years, I think television.

John Schlesinger20:42

in America too, is the place where people have been able to do more controversial work. I mean, if you think about something like AIDS, there have been a number of films and plays about AIDS which have been done for television and nobody will touch it for the cinema.

Presenter20:58

But by that token, a film like Sunday, Bloody Sunday, which you made, what, uh more than twenty years ago now, which was extremely subtle.

Presenter21:07

would not be made to day.

John Schlesinger21:09

Oh no, I don't think it would be, and it wasn't a a great commercial success even then. It had an enormous critical success.

Presenter21:16

It was very shocking, wasn't it? It was the first screen kiss between two men.

John Schlesinger21:20

Do men.

John Schlesinger21:22

I remember the first screening of it was horrifying for the uh f for the executives, the United Artist who who I had made Midnight Cowboy.

John Schlesinger21:31

Four.

John Schlesinger21:32

were all rubbing their hands with glee, saying, We've got another film of yours we're so looking forward this afternoon I remember meeting them in an Italian restaurant, Seventh Avenue, before we all went up to their screening room to show it to them and I was thinking I was very nervous, I thought

John Schlesinger21:46

I don't think they've really read the script. I d I wonder if they know what this is about.

John Schlesinger21:51

And they

John Schlesinger21:53

sat in absolute silence through the film, and afterwards I knew.

John Schlesinger21:58

That we were

John Schlesinger21:59

At that moment, sunk. But they found it offensive. They came up, they obviously hated it.

Presenter22:01

But they

John Schlesinger22:05

All my friends in the publicity department said, Well, you've given us a difficult one, John. There was only one man who I will never forget this, who stood up for it.

John Schlesinger22:16

Who was the head of production there, David Picker? And he said, I think it's wonderful. None of my colleagues agree.

John Schlesinger22:22

And he said, Well, on the first night we opened, let's go and have a steak somewhere, and then we'll go and see if there's anybody in the theatre. And there were lines round the block, the notices were incredible.

John Schlesinger22:31

And then the company which had decided

John Schlesinger22:34

Not to send me to California to publicize the film suddenly said as if they were doing me a favor.

John Schlesinger22:40

We've got a surprise for you, John. We're sending you to the coast to publicize the film and I thought, well, big deal.

John Schlesinger22:48

Record number six.

John Schlesinger22:50

I've always loved Elizabeth Schwartzkopf's voice. I think she's a great singer and a a great interpreter of Lieder. So and I also like Richard Strauss, so I I would like uh to take her uh doing um Richard Strauss Lieder.

Speaker 423:20

Christ destroyers.

Speaker 423:25

Oh see freelance.

Speaker 423:28

Here is the first time.

Speaker 423:33

Ooh behind

Speaker 423:54

Boosting of measures of those

Presenter24:11

Elizabeth Schwarzkopf singing Richard Strauss's Zu Eignung, opus ten, number one, with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, conducted by George Sell.

Presenter24:21

You put your signature, along with others, to a letter to the Guardian earlier this year, John, in support of Ian McKellen accepting his knighthood. Why did you feel it was so important to write that letter and that he should accept the knighthood?

John Schlesinger24:36

Because I think

John Schlesinger24:37

that Ian has done a great deal for d different causes. And at the same time he's one of our leading actors, and he was recognized and given a knighthood

John Schlesinger24:51

and thus honoured

John Schlesinger24:54

I felt very strongly that the attack that was made on him by Derek Jarman was totally unwarranted and that.

John Schlesinger25:01

He his

John Schlesinger25:02

His example, really, to other people perhaps less fortunate who.

John Schlesinger25:08

weren't able to come out.

John Schlesinger25:10

I thought it was terribly important that that he should be allowed to do this and

John Schlesinger25:15

and receive his knighthood with all the right honour and glory for it.

Presenter25:19

He he said at the time, didn't he? He said, Now I'm out and I feel reborn. Um I mean, was was the signing of the letter, along with um many other gay artists you identified yourself Simon Callow, Stephen Fry, Cameron Mackintosh was that an important move for you? Did you feel that was your coming out or were you out?

John Schlesinger25:38

I've always thought I was out, but um um perhaps not. Um it was certainly the first time that I'd ever put my signature to uh a letter of this kind, but I felt very strongly about it.

Presenter25:50

What about in your personal life? Did you find it difficult early on?

Presenter25:54

Two.

John Schlesinger25:54

Community.

Presenter25:55

To admit to your homosexual attitude to your to your family or or to yourself.

John Schlesinger25:58

No, I remember my um uh no, it w I mean, obviously one was one was not prepared to talk about it quite as readily as I'm quite able to do now. And it wasn't until

John Schlesinger26:10

darling, that that I actually had someone, you know, who was gay, who was attractive and nice and decent guy, you know, in the

John Schlesinger26:19

In the film.

John Schlesinger26:20

Um

John Schlesinger26:21

By that time, then with Jo Yanni producing You Know, Who Knew All About Me.

John Schlesinger26:28

as my family did, no problem. I mean my father did say once on a country walk when I he said, Tell me about this um Sunday Bloody Sunday it was called Bloody Sunday in those days. Tell me about Bloody Sunday. What is all this? And I s told him the story of it, and he said,

John Schlesinger26:45

They knew it was rather autobiographical.

John Schlesinger26:47

And he said

John Schlesinger26:49

I think it's very sounds interesting. But does he have to be Jewish as well as everything else?

John Schlesinger26:57

Which was lovely.

John Schlesinger27:01

Well, s part of m I travel a great deal and and and

John Schlesinger27:05

since space is limited, it always includes a Mozart work of some kind, usually a piano concerto. So I'd want to take Mozart, a Mozart piano concerto with me. And when I was in Salzburg,

John Schlesinger27:17

A couple of years ago, I heard Mitsuko Shida play this with Jeffrey Tate and uh and the orchestra and

John Schlesinger27:25

Uh it was quite lovely.

Speaker 428:13

Uh

Presenter28:21

Part of the first movement of Mozart's piano concerto in B-flat played by Mitsuku Ushida with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Geoffrey Tait.

Presenter28:30

Your latest project, John Schlesinger, we hear is the making of John Major the movie, or at least his party political broadcast for television. How's it been working for Conservative Central Office?

John Schlesinger28:43

Rather strange because you never quite know. Um

John Schlesinger28:47

When they're going to require one's services. I mean, I was approached.

John Schlesinger28:51

by Saatchi and Saatchi who are doing the the masterminding the whole thing. Would I like to to come and do a b a a broadcast, you know, with with John Major? And I was went to breakfast at Downing Street and met him and he was obviously looking at me too.

John Schlesinger29:09

And I liked him. I like him very much, actually. I've got to know him a bit better now.

John Schlesinger29:14

And I admire him and I think he's he's a a very good guy, very good man.

Presenter29:19

And did they choose you because they knew you to be in political sympathy with him? Or do you have to be or can you just do it?

John Schlesinger29:24

I don't think so. I mean, uh they did ask me had I voted would I vote conservative? Have I voted conservatives? Indeed, I have in my time. I've voted

John Schlesinger29:33

Also, for the liberals and the socialists, at part of some time in my life.

John Schlesinger29:38

I'm a woolly minded liberal, and I've never really thought of myself as a very political animal.

Presenter29:44

Well, now Hugh Hudson had the Kinnocks walking hand in hand across the cliffs of North Wales. This was the image that he he gave to them. Um what sort of image are you giving to John Major?

John Schlesinger29:56

Oh, I I don't think I'm going to get drawn into this conversation'cause we haven't really done it yet. I mean I'm doing I've done some shooting, I'm doing some more. All I can say, I think, is that

John Schlesinger30:09

I don't think you can force an image on him which he doesn't which he d he won't want to have. But I I can't really say more.

Presenter30:17

Can you say if you'll include misses Major or not?

John Schlesinger30:21

Uh I don't even know that.

Presenter30:22

Let me press you once more. Will you be taking him away somewhere romantic and beautiful to shoot him?

John Schlesinger30:28

At the moment in time, I don't think we are.

Presenter30:32

Well, now tell me about you on a romantic and beautiful desert island. Do you think you'd enjoy it?

John Schlesinger30:38

I'd hate it. I like b to being alone

John Schlesinger30:41

Sometimes, but not

John Schlesinger30:44

I think I would be be I would be terribly lonely on the a desert island, but maybe one would

John Schlesinger30:49

I don't know, there are things that one might adapt to do because we're all adaptable human beings.

Presenter30:55

So you'd remain optimistic.

John Schlesinger30:57

I would try to remain optimistic. I'm not always optimistic in my life.

John Schlesinger31:03

Which is probably the understatement of the

John Schlesinger31:08

But I uh

John Schlesinger31:09

It would be very difficult, but I think the music I've chosen

John Schlesinger31:13

A lot of it is optimistic or um or upbeat.

John Schlesinger31:18

And I've chosen th for that reason, because I would need to be m goaded into some kind of optimism, yes.

Presenter31:26

What's the last piece?

John Schlesinger31:28

Well, the last piece is a is a a great work, the the Mahler Resurrection Symphony, Symphony No. Two. And I have a great admiration for Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Orchestra, which I think is one of the best, not only British orchestras, best orchestras in the world that he's made it into. And he is one of our very, very best conductors and I'm an enormous fan.

John Schlesinger31:51

So

John Schlesinger31:52

I take him and the orchestra and Marla with me.

Presenter32:54

The finale of Mahler's Symphony No. Two in C minor, Resurrection, played by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Simon Rattle.

Presenter33:03

So which of the eight records John is the favourite there?

John Schlesinger33:08

I think I'd take the the Elizabeth Schwarzkopp singing the Richard Strauss leader.

Presenter33:12

It's optimistic, you said.

John Schlesinger33:15

Yeah.

Presenter33:15

Uh

John Schlesinger33:19

Um the title is Dedication.

John Schlesinger33:24

and the opening words I know are Yes, you know it, dear soul.

John Schlesinger33:28

that far from you I pine, so it has a sort of

John Schlesinger33:33

Apt.

John Schlesinger33:35

It's apt lyric, I think, to it.

Presenter33:37

And a book. You've got the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare there.

John Schlesinger33:42

Can I take a collected works of somebody?

Presenter33:44

I'm afraid you can't.

John Schlesinger33:45

I can't.

John Schlesinger33:46

Well then I would take uh uh uh the biggest dictionary of English quotations with me.

John Schlesinger33:55

Because I don't I think I might get bored with reading the same novel over and over again, and I'd like to take something which I can actually.

John Schlesinger34:03

feel that I'm doing some constructive work with

Presenter34:06

And you're

John Schlesinger34:07

Luxury.

John Schlesinger34:08

Mosquito net? Am I allowed that? Oh, it's a bit practical. Oh, is that too practical? May I have a Maggie mix with a battery so that I can make nice tropical fruit juices? Or is that too practical?

Presenter34:12

Hmm.

Presenter34:18

No, I I think that's perfectly permissible. I mean you're not exactly going to sail away on it.

John Schlesinger34:22

No, I'm not.

John Schlesinger34:24

Unfortunately.

Presenter34:24

A battery-powered Magimix it is.

John Schlesinger34:26

Teachers.

Presenter34:27

John Schlesinger, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

John Schlesinger34:29

Yeah.

John Schlesinger34:30

Thank you very much.

Speaker 434:39

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.