Sam Mendes on his latest film Jarhead
Wednesday 11 January 2006 21:30-22:15 (Radio 3)
Sam Mendes discusses his life and work and why the French film industry is, for him, the definition of art hell.
Programme Details
On Night Waves tonight, Philip Dodd explores how the director Sam Mendes came to have such exceptional success in the fields of film and theatre before the age of forty. Having founded the Donmar Warehouse at 27, which went on to become one of the nineties' biggest theatrical success stories, he made his first film, American Beauty, at 33, which, in turn, went on to be nominated for 5 Oscars.
In a programme length interview, Philip discovers how Mendes' unhappy childhood influenced both his choice of career and some of the aesthetic decisions he makes in it. And he hears how Mendes feels that he uses entirely different parts of his brain to make film compared to theatre.
Philip also uncovers why Mendes has chosen to make a war film in which nothing happens in his new film, Jarhead, and why it would be accurate to describe him as film and theatre's street-fighting version of Tony Blair.
To get the answers join Philip Dodd in conversation with Sam Mendes on Night Waves at 9.30 tonight, here on BBC Radio 3.
Jarhead opens nationwide on the 13th January, certificate 15.
