Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- The James MacTaggart Lectures
- TV Drama: The Case against Naturalism
- Naturalism and Television
- Taboos in Television
- Signposting Television in the 1980s: The Fourth Television Channel
- Television Drama, Censorship and the Truth
- The Day after Tomorrow: The Future of Electronic Publishing
- The Primacy of Programmes in the Future of Broadcasting
- Reflections on Working in Film and Television
- ‘Opening up the Fourth Front’: Micro Drama and the Rejection of Naturalism
- Power and Pluralism in Broadcasting
- Ethics, Broadcasting and Change: The French Experience
- Freedom in Broadcasting
- Deregulation and Quality Television
- The Future of Television: Market Forces and Social Values
- The Future of the BBC
- Occupying Powers
- A Culture of Dependency: Power, Politics and Broadcasters
- Talent versus Television
- A Glorious Future: Quality Broadcasting in the Digital Age
- Rewarding Creative Talent: The Struggle of the Independents
- Television versus the People
- Public-Interest Broadcasting: A New Approach
- A Time for Change
- The Soul of British Television
- Television's Creative Deficit
- Freedom of Choice: Public-Service Broadcasting and the BBC
- First Do No Harm
- Appendix A Edinburgh International Television Festival, 29 August–2 September 1977: Programme
- Appendix B Précis of Ted Turner, James MacTaggart Lecture 1982; Dr Jonathan Miller, James MacTaggart Lecture 1983
- Index
Reflections on Working in Film and Television
from The James MacTaggart Lectures
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- The James MacTaggart Lectures
- TV Drama: The Case against Naturalism
- Naturalism and Television
- Taboos in Television
- Signposting Television in the 1980s: The Fourth Television Channel
- Television Drama, Censorship and the Truth
- The Day after Tomorrow: The Future of Electronic Publishing
- The Primacy of Programmes in the Future of Broadcasting
- Reflections on Working in Film and Television
- ‘Opening up the Fourth Front’: Micro Drama and the Rejection of Naturalism
- Power and Pluralism in Broadcasting
- Ethics, Broadcasting and Change: The French Experience
- Freedom in Broadcasting
- Deregulation and Quality Television
- The Future of Television: Market Forces and Social Values
- The Future of the BBC
- Occupying Powers
- A Culture of Dependency: Power, Politics and Broadcasters
- Talent versus Television
- A Glorious Future: Quality Broadcasting in the Digital Age
- Rewarding Creative Talent: The Struggle of the Independents
- Television versus the People
- Public-Interest Broadcasting: A New Approach
- A Time for Change
- The Soul of British Television
- Television's Creative Deficit
- Freedom of Choice: Public-Service Broadcasting and the BBC
- First Do No Harm
- Appendix A Edinburgh International Television Festival, 29 August–2 September 1977: Programme
- Appendix B Précis of Ted Turner, James MacTaggart Lecture 1982; Dr Jonathan Miller, James MacTaggart Lecture 1983
- Index
Summary
John Schlesinger's lecture is based around a ‘few observations about my time in this business’ working in television and film. Schlesinger readily conceeds that he could never ‘understand the difference’ between ‘making television’ and ‘making a film for television’. The one difference is the distinctive audience reaction to the two media: the cinema creates a ‘special experience’.
Schlesinger began in television working on Tonight (‘I got the sack’) and with Huw Weldon on Monitor; the year with Monitor was ‘among the happiest I've ever spent in this profession’. Schlesinger went to America to make Midnight Cowboy. On arrival, he recalls his mix of embarrassment and delight. Embarrassment which prompted him to hide with Julie Christie during the premiere of Far From the Madding Crowd, which flopped badly in the States; delight and irrepressible excitement at meeting celebrities – ‘it is very exciting when you're at a traffic light and Hitchcock's in the next car’. Other films followed: Gorky Park, Marathon Man, The Englishman Abroad and Yanks. Schlesinger confesses to not enjoying shooting a film, but he loved ‘dreaming it all up with the writer’, the editing and ‘the fantasy into reality when you're talking about design’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Television PolicyThe MacTaggart Lectures, pp. 97 - 104Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2005