Mike Kaplan Never Apologize Interview

Arbiter Online 4/21/08

Summer Jenkins: Tell me about your friendship and working relationship with McDowell, is that what lead you to collaborate on Never Apologize?

Mike Kaplan: We've been friends since "A Clockwork Orange" and have worked together many times. When the Edinburgh festival agreed to do a retrospective on Anderson's films in 2004, I told Malcolm about it and he said he would do a show about Lindsay and so that's where it began. I originally proposed the retrospective to the festival and they agreed. Lindsay was a Scottish director and had roots so it seemed fitting. Malcolm just felt he could do it, I was in England and also involved with a group of filmmakers and friends who organized the Lindsay Memorial Foundation. We were also trying to get a book of Lindsay's critical writings, also called "Never Apologize," together, which is something the editor and Lindsay had wanted to get out for years. Because we had the retrospective in Edinburgh it spurred the publication of the book. All of his critical work, letters, etc. were available but not assembled at that point. We were able to read all of those and do some selections from those as well, which spurred Malcolm on with personal memories.

SJ: Tell me about the decision to bring Never Apologize to film.

MK: When we put the show together we always felt the material was really rich. Malcolm is a wonderful performer and creates the essence of other performers so well, not really impressions, more their essence: Laurence Olivia, Bette Davis, Rachel Roberts and John Ford and all these people who Lindsay or Malcolm had personal dealings with. The response to the first show was terrific even though it was a little long and we had to cut certain areas. We wanted to continue exposing it because it was a wonderful evening. About a year and a half after London, Malcolm wanted to do it again in Ojai. The other two venues [where "Never Apologize" had been performed] were in professional theaters and this was in a junior high school. One of the attributes of the film festival being a benefit was that we would have [the performance] on video. A local production person would come up to me everyday while I was blocking movements and tell me he had a camera we could use … by the end of it he had five cameras that could shoot the performance. We went over briefly where the cameras would be and had him look over the blocking from the other performances, it kind of just happened. When the performance went on I was mainly concerned with the theatrical performance I wasn't sure what the quality of the film material would be, because not all of the cameras were working, but I knew there would be enough footage to make a film. How much additional footage had to be added in was another question. We added 200 additional elements, stills and rare footage.

SJ: How did you incorporate all of the various media into the film, did you cut between Malcolm performing and the stills?

MK: I wanted the audience to experience the live dynamic of Malcolm's performance while maintaining a cinematic flow without tricking it up with lots of intercutting. That would dilute the impact. The 200 visuals are incorporated within the performance and with a variety of shapes and styles so that one is presented with expanded graphic and pictorial imagery without ever really leaving Malcolm. The objective was to make the film as organic as possible. He's either seen or heard throughout "Never Apologize," aside from the Richard Harris-Rachel Roberts scene from "This Sporting Life" (for which they both received Oscar nominations). Because of the richness of the material, the personalities involved and foremost Lindsay Anderson's fascinating life and provocative nature, "Never Apologize" has a dramatic arc that ranges from the hilarious to the emotionally moving. Much of this is accomplished through the scenes between Malcolm and the famous colleagues he embodies, beginning with his jousting with Lindsay and then as Bette Davis, Alan Bates, John Gielgud, Lillian Gish, Rachel Richard and the penultimate scene with Malcolm as both Lindsay and John Ford at Ford's bedside.

"Never Apologize" opens at The Flicks on April 25, Mike Kaplan will be present after the film for a question an d answer session.