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'Celluloid Dreams': The film production designer on art, life, films and exhibitions Author(s): Benet Simon Source: The British Art Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Spring 2000), pp. 70-73 Published by: British Art Journal Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41614971 Accessed: 19-02-2020 15:27 UTC

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This content downloaded from 86.9.45.239 on Wed, 19 Feb 2020 15:27:37 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The BRITISH AKT Journal Volume I, No.2 FEATURES

'Celluloid Dreams' The film production designer Ken Adam on art, life, films and exhibitions Benet Simon

-w-^en Adam's triumphant exhibition 'Celluloid Dreams' at wC the Serpentine from November 1999 to January this year JLYseems, with 20/20 hindsight, to have been inevitable, long overdue and something of a coup for the gallery. It was the first public gallery exhibition in Britain dedicated solely to the work of a movie production designer. The visionary art of Ken Adam was revealed in his designs for many of cinema's finest sets, for Moonraker, Strangelove and other celluloid dreams. Walking around, it seemed almost impossible that so many enduring visions could have come from a single Flowmaster- wielding hand. There were intricate designs for the dramatically involved sets of Sleuth (1972, Joseph L Mankiewicz) and weirdness flying off the page in colourful visions of a bizarre parallel world for (1968, Ken Hughes). 'Lavish' only hints at the direction of his work on The Madness Illustrations are of works by Ken Adam (b 1921) in the exhibition of King George (1994, Nicholas Hytner) and ' Moonraker , Strangelove and other celluloid dreams: (1975, ), the latter one of just two set designs the visionary art of Ken Adam', unless otherwise stated

for Kubrick films on display. The other was Dr Strangelove , with 1 Drawing for the War Room, Dr Strangelove , 1962-3 the famous War Room, so real in the public consciousness that (reworked by Ken Adam 1999)

when Reagan entered office he asked to be taken there. Most 2 Portrait of Ken Adam, cl963. Photograph © Ken Adam impressive of all, though, were the sketches that created the look for cinema's most successful secret agent. internment as an 'enemy alien') Adam enlisted with the Starting with Dr No (1962, Terrence Young), Adam worked on Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps, specially designed to allow seven early Bond films and set both the tone and the standard immigrants active service. A transfer soon saw him in the raf, for future instalments, especially for the vast secret lairs of flying Hawker Typhoons in the famous 609wr squadron. The megalomaniac super-villains. Many of these sets had to pull off end of the war led to nine months of unemployment and finally the tricky stunt of appearing futuristic for the very near future. a draughtsman's job at Riverside Studios on This Was a Woman Adam did this so well that although the films' haircuts, gadgets, (1948, Tim Wheelan). By 1957 he was a production designer on flares and film stocks may have dated, his sketches and many of Night of the Demon () and over the last 43 their resulting sets still look futuristic, up to 39 years later. years he's established himself as the best. No wonder two In total Adam worked on no fewer than 88 film projects, 75 Oscars sit quietly in a dim corner of his office. Of course he's of them realized. Then there are the two opera sets, various got two Oscars. It would be shocking to discover he had fewer. private interiors, a few coffee bars and, this year, the In a small, paper-littered office in his Kensington house, the the Martin-Gropius-Bau Millennium exhibition in , 'Seven behind-the-scenes movie legend eases into a comfy chair, Hills: Images and Signs of the Twenty-first Century'. In 1995 smiles kindly, toys with a cigar, and chats about this and that Adam received an honorary doctorate from the Royal College with infectious ease until, a bundle of nerves five minutes of Art and an obe in the 1996 New Year's honours list. earlier, I realize we're doing the interview. How can one man have done so much in one lifetime? And Benet Simon How did you get started in design ? that's just his artistic career. He was born Klaus Adam in Berlin, Ken Adam I trained for three years in architecture, I was an 1921, but his family left for the uk in 1934 for a better life than external student from 1937 at the Bartlett, London University, that offered by National Socialism. Education in and and I was articled with a firm of architects in Gower Street, CW London followed, until in October 1940 (after narrowly avoiding Glover & Partners. So I never really had a fine arts training. The

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3 ( top left) Moonraker, 1979, Shuttle Launch Pad

4 (left) Pyramid Control Room, Moonraker, 1979

5 Design for Launch Chamber, 1978

Do you find certain materials or tools particularly suited to your medium? The most important change for me, to express myself as a designer, was when I started working with a Flowmaster. It was very nice to see examples at my exhibition: I hadn't worked with a Flowmaster for the last ten years, because you couldn't get them any longer - the ink was considered poisonous. You couldn't take them to America, where I used American felt- tipped pens. With a Flowmaster I developed a technique whereby I could graduate my sketches, the black and white. At the first-night dinner of the last exhibition reason I studied architecture was not really to become an newspaper had received a letter from the makers of Flowmaster architect; it was a basis for designing films or theatre. At the and they sent me, dedicated with an inscription, six of their last age of 16 I wasn't sure which. remaining Flowmaster pens, which I thought was very sweet. When you were starting out as a production designer in In Dr Strangelove and Barry Lyndon you worked with 1947, whom did you admire? Stanley Kubrick, who was both one of the most famously Obviously I respected , who had initially advised talented and infamously perfectionist film directors ever. me to study architecture when I was a boy of 15. He had What was it like? created around him a team of fabulous designers. There was a He was a very difficult, very demanding person. I probably had Russian called Andrejev who was brilliant, another Russian who the closest relationship with him ever, in terms of directors, was mainly involved with opera and theatre design who I which strangely enough started when we met in 1961 and I worked for called George Wakhevich. In England I admired admired his intelligence and he flattered me and my scribbles, John Bryne who did some of the earlier David Lean pictures. so we had an understanding. Since I had in those days an e- He unfortunately became a producer; he should have stayed a type Jaguar he insisted I drive him to Shepperton Studios every designer. He worked closely with William Cameron Manzies, day. If you spend an hour-and-a-half, an hour-and-three- who was really the father of production design. quarters in a car with a director, for six months, every day, you Didn't he do Gone With The Wind? get to know each other pretty well. But I also realized that he He did, becoming the first art director to receive a production was a very difficult person to work for and I made up my mind design credit, through Selznick. He deserved it. He had a after Strangelove that we would remain great friends but I considerable influence on my ideas of introducing a bit of would never work with him again. theatricality. And yet you did for Barry Lyndon. Are you impressed by any new faces in production design? Yes. I managed to avoid 2001 and others but he rather tricked Less, I think. There are obviously some very talented designers me into Barry Lyndon because our first conversation was that I around. I Ike [ Gandhi , , The was too expensive. So I said, 'Well, Stanley, I quite agree with English Patient ] and is showing signs [he worked you.' And he said, 'You really mean that? It means I'll have to with Adam on the The Madness of King George ] . Nowadays, take the second-best production designer.' And I said, 'Stanley, most of the pictures are shot on location and so really the be my guest.' And I told my wife, 'Well, we've won that part.' work of the production designer has somewhat changed. It's And then about five weeks later, full of charm, he said, 'Well, still very important but, justifiably or non-justifiably, the Ken, the second-best doesn't seem to understand what I want director of in the last 20 years has become almost and please, money is no problem.' I think he failed to see that more important. They get paid a great deal more. people had to work for him for the pleasure of it, the How do you think the advances in cgi [Computer excitement. Having said that, I learned an enormous amount Generated Imagery] are affecting your profession? from him on Strangelove , hopefully he learned something Obviously they're a great help. . . but don't make a picture of about design. Although he had one of the best visual eyes of CGIs. There's a danger, we've had proof of that. Films are any director I've worked for, and could do almost every film made entirely by visual effects and everybody says'How clever!' technician's function, he didn't know design. This made it with explosions and the changing of faces ['morphing'] and moreso difficult for me because he tried to find out what makes on. But still what matters is the story you are trying to tell and me tick with his probing mind, and to intellectualize every line how you visualize that story. you draw is soul destroying, you know.

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Barry Lyndon is remarkable in its attention to period Well, you know, a lot of people have asked me that and famous detail. What kind of research did that involve? art critics and art historians have always, particularly lately, said A great deal. I knew that period pretty well, [it was] part of my I might have been influenced by Piranesi or Boulle. Piranesi I academic background. We researched every [contemporary] knew, Boulle I didn't know. I think I'm more of an instinctive painter, in particular the satirical painters like Hogarth and designer. If I really think back on influences, possibly German Rowlandson but also Gainsborough, Reynolds, Watteau. . . So Expressionism, in films like The Cabinet of Dr Caligari , has Stanley's standards of reference were based on artists of the period been a strong influence on me. But I also remember my elder and very often he would reproduce those paintings literally brother had a very good modern collection. In the Fifties or You've incorporated a variety of degrees offactuality in early Sixties he had two or three paintings by Soulange and I your designs, from precise period work, like Barry was very attracted by these enormous black brush strokes, Lyndon, to the fictional Fort Knox interior in Goldfinger seven or eight inches wide on a white background. So I then to the completely imaginary War Room of Dr Strangelove. started to liberate myself drawing with very wide felt pens to Do you prefer to create new realities or capture the look express my feeling and really work against my inhibitions and of beautiful places lost until you recreate them ? so on. So when we talk about influences, obviously they were I enjoy both but I'd rather do something completely different. there but I wasn't aware of definite influences, except I liked For instance, like I'm doing at the moment, designing this modern architecture. . . whether it was Le Corbusier, whether it Millennium exhibition in Berlin which opens in May. I'd never was Gropius, whether it was Mandelson, it influenced me. I really done that before but when they approached me in also had worked briefly here for a splinter group of the Hollywood about 18 months ago I said well. . . maybe. Bauhaus called the Mars Group, drafting for them. So what was your brief for the exhibition? The Bond bad guys used to be very keen on Bauhaus- DNA, brain - a professor had a new system for projecting inspired furniture for their secret lairs. thoughts on to both lobes of the brain. I came up with a sort of In my designs, normally I designed the furniture myself or I cinema idea, a projection inside a skull for DNA. I designed an found some very avant-garde furniture. In, for instance, The enormous stainless-steel sculpture, a double helix sixty feet high. Spy Who Loved Me, with Kurt Jurgen's Atlantis apartment. I had to deal with the atrium of the Martin-Gropius, over seventy Those white fibreglass chaise longues I found had just been feet high and quite big. I felt I had to come up with about six or designed in Sweden, and then I designed the rest around that, seven major objects to attract the public the moment they came like some of those famous lamps. But I always mixed it with in. And then I created a structure of steel, rather like a rhombus antique furniture. For a number of Bond villains I used pieces or pyramidal structure striving into space and at the same time from my home, from the Italian Renaissance, and so on. preserve the Victorian architecture behind. As with Dr No? How functional are your sets, for instance the war room I used it for Dr No, I used it for You Only Live Twice. in Dr Strangelove and the Goldfinger Fort Knox interior? Remember there was a volcano? The villain's private apartment Well, I mean they are filmically functional in terms of the drama was mainly furnished from my house. I loved the Italian required of the scene. It depends what you mean. Renaissance: it gave the villains some feeling of taste. For instance, the bullion lift in Goldfinger? What do you think of production design on Bond films Oh that was functional, a good question, that was absolutely today? functional and I repeated that in The Spy Who Loved Me in the Well, I think it's very professional, you know . . . Bond films have supertanker. I seem to be fascinated by lifts. always been very professionally made. I think, unfortunately, What about the weight of the gold on the bullion lift? they've lost some of the design appeal of the earlier Bonds Would it really have been able to lift that much gold? because, particularly the last one, the villain is no longer that No, not at all. From that point of view it was a completely important. As I said to Barbara [Broccoli] , I think it is a mistake unfunctional set because you would never store gold in that because we had these almost supernatural villains, megalomaniacs, way, it's much too heavy. But our gold was fibreglass or plaster, wanting to conquer space, wanting to conquer the world; whereas except the few bricks that we used in the fight sequences, they here it's villain who wants to destroy an oil liner or something like had to be heavy. that. So it doesn't give the designer the opportunity. What were the influences and inspirations for the Bond When you design your sets, how do you relate to the other look you created? creative elements?

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6 {opposite) Drawing for Pyramid Control Room, Moonraker, 1978. Photograph courtesy Ken Adam.

7 (right) Design for Volcano, You Only Live Twice , 1966

8 Entrance Hall, Kew, design for The Madness of King George

[3, 4, 6, 7, © 1977 Danjaq, llc and Untited Artists Corp. All rights reserved]

As a rule a production designer is the first person to be employed by a director and a producer. The script is the Bible to the film, so I normally find out how the director visualizes the film and then start throwing down ideas. The camera man or director of photography normally starts much later because they are so expensive and normally not employed until three or four weeks before we start shooting. By this time I will have done a great deal of my conceptual work and I always try to incorporate a feeling of atmosphere or lighting, which is why I do most of my sketches in black and white. It accentuates the chiaroscuro effect of design. Then it's very important that the cameraman, director and myself see eye-to-eye and hopefully have a great collaboration on the film and then everything else will fall into place. The actors have to feel comfortable in the settings and Do you ever watch any of your own films? with the lighting. That should all be ironed out initially. Yes, but mainly when there is a reason. Lately - well, over the Is it ever the case things are not ironed out and you don't last twenty years - 1 have been asked to give a lot of lectures all all see eye-to-eye ? over the world. What I normally do is show clippings from my [laughter] Yes. Unfortunately it is, and I must say that the most old films. Otherwise I don't think I normally would. successful pictures I have been involved with were always You have won two Oscars, one for Barry Lyndon, and one when I had a great relationship with the director, in fact with for The Madness of King George. Did you ever get the everybody involved. If the chemistry works and you feel that feeling while working on these films that this was Oscar- then normally you make a very good film. winning stuff? Do you always oversee the building of your sets? I would say that with all the pictures that I got Oscar Yes. Always. nominations for, I wasn't aware of any thoughts in that With which of your films have you been most satisfied ? direction while I was making the pictures. Maybe on The It's a difficult question to answer. Obviously Strangelove is one of Madness of King George , when we had finished the film and the most important films I have worked on, but I also loved Sam Goldwyn suddenly decided that he wanted the film edited doing the Bonds, I loved doing The Madness of King George , and and finished in a couple of months so it would qualify for some of my earlier films like The Trials of Oscar Wilde and The Academy nomination, for the first time I was really aware. But I Ipcress File. But when you have collaborated on so many films it's never thought we would get it. difficult to say which is your favourite because sometimes, even if Have you ever felt production designers in general, and the film was not a success, I enjoyed working on it. Oh, I also yourself in particular, are under-appreciated as artists? loved working with Joseph Mankiewicz on Sleuth. No. I was so involved in doing my job and have been very The house and grounds in Sleuth have a very involving fortunate working on a lot of important pictures, and I always design. They work like another character, providing try to choose the pictures I work for. I knew that within the film games. The garden maze is a game, the blank jigsaw industry one is respected if one is a production designer. I was puzzle is a game, the actors play games all the time. surprised when , a very fine art curator, decided John wanted the whole thing to be like a game in which there that he wanted to do an exhibition of my work. I always were the two actors and the third actor was the setting and the considered myself primarily as a craftsman and my sketches props. And he made that absolutely clear to me before I were my scribbles - never thought of exhibiting them - in order started. I was very fortunate because the head of the National to achieve the final result, which is the set on the film. Trust gave me carte blanche to look at baronial manor houses Your recent exhibition at the Serpentine, 'Celluloid I was interested in. Though none of them was suitable for this Dreams', attracted a wide variety of visitors, from art game playing, so I had to invent these squiggled galleries with critics to Bond fans. Did its popularity surprise you? staircases coming in, opening up from the main hall to the Yes, I must say. But what surprised me more were the young billiard room and the library and all that. It could only have people: there were people there in their early twenties, and been done as a studio set because it doesn't exist in reality. that I found unbelievably stimulating and exciting. What happens to a set after the film has been made? It is struck, [laughter] I have been asked that question many The exhibition 'Moonraker, Strangelove and other celluloid dreams: the visionary art of Ken Adam ' was at the Serpentine Gallery, London, 1 7 November- times, and 'don't you feel upset ?'. If that set has been well 9 January 2000. The exhibition designed by Ken Adam in Berlin, 'Seven Hills: filmed I want to get rid of it and start on something else. If it Images and Signs of the Twenty-first Century', is at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, until 29 October 2000 hasn't been well filmed I'm upset.

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