Q&A with Roger Mitchell, author of the new Zardoz! book

Q&A with Roger Mitchell, author of the new Zardoz! book

Why do you think Zardoz appealed to you as a schoolboy?
I was walking through Limerick on a rainy Saturday afternoon, and I passed the Savoy Cinema and saw a very weird poster on the wall outside. The choice was: Sean Connery standing on a giant disembodied hand, or going home on the bus. Actually, the girl at the till shouldn’t have even let me in - Zardoz was an “X” in Ireland. I came out a couple of hours later sort of... blinded. I think I was at just the right age - I was awed by the innovative visuals, the unusual story, flashes of realistic violence, dreamy atmospheres... but I didn’t feel cheated that I couldn’t really follow the plot. Kids are used to not-quite-understanding things.

Was it easy to get interviews with the people involved?
I started trying to get to the Zardoz people in 1983, when I was at film school, and it was lucky I did, cos several of them have since died. Sean Connery never answered my letter, but one thing I’ve learned is that there’s very little point talking to huge movie stars about a film they were in: if you can get to them - which you can’t - they’ll tell you three stories you’ve already heard, then fall back on, “It was a wonderful script with an amazing cast, and Bronislav Pinkenheimer in an incredible director...”. But when I sat down with the editor, the designer, the man who operated the camera, I got wonderful behind-the-scenes stories, and they were delighted to talk to me. I was about 23, and for me Zardoz was a movie from long ago - I was too young to understand that for these guys, all their hard work - and the optimism that had gone with it - had happened just ten years before.

I understand you used to work as a television film editor - did that inform how you wrote your book?
I’d been collecting Zardoz info for years - articles, interviews, photos, reviews. There was a danger of it just turning into a big, random soup.
When you edit news items, someone rushes in with a roll of film (later a tape, now a camera card), and they say, “Bridge collapse in town - we need thirty seconds.” You view it: ten minutes of various shots of fallen bricks, a blocked road, some stopped cars, people staring, a fallen tree, an ambulance arriving, a dog running about. How do you quickly telescope that into thirty seconds? The important question is: What’s the story? From those shots you could make any number of items: Drivers Escape Death, Road Maintenance Disgrace, Rare Tree Uprooted, Commuters Stranded, Dog Not Kept On Lead... unless you know what story you’re hoping to guide the viewer through, you’re lost: you won’t know what’s relevant and what isn’t. I’d decided early on to use the movie script as a structure to give my readers a beginning, middle and end.

What’s working with BearManor like?
My first contact with Ben at BearManor was a soul-crushing disappointment, as he didn’t answer my email! He hadn’t received it, but he later contacted me through the Facebook page I’d set up. I was very lucky - Zardoz was on the “Crappest Films Ever Made” lists for decades, but over the years it had moved, as director John Boorman put it, “...from Failure to Classic (though without ever passing through Success)”.
Ben wanted my book, which was flattering. He wasn’t too keen on the 700-page manuscript I sent him, though, and suggested splitting it into two volumes. I used to be a film editor, and I spent my life Chucking Stuff Out to achieve a clear, direct message, so I set about doing that (I also didn’t want the fans to spend their money twice to get the whole story).
BearManor didn’t impose any sort of deadline on me, and never tried to rewrite me. I think they have confidence that the sort of book they publish will find its audience. Overall, BearManor is enthusiastic - and that attitude comes from Ben’s energy and sense of fun, I think.

Zardoz was regarded as being shit for a long time - why isn’t it now?
Very few science fiction movies manage to show you a genuinely “different” version of the future - look at the astronauts’ chauvanism in Forbidden Planet or the women’s hairstyles in 2001 - absolutely of their time. Zardoz has some very 1973 elements in it, which looked quaint just a few years later... but those comparisons don’t apply any more, particularly with younger people.
And - more importantly - the writers were heavily influenced by a late-1960s social and ecological conscience. The whole film is packed with warnings about overpopulation, rich people trying to live forever, weaponized viruses, pollution, and Artificial Intelligences invading our brains... those are today’s big issues.

Were you able to visit the locations?
I went to the locations, just outside Dublin, a couple of years ago. I’ve been watching this film for 45 years (on and off, I mean I’m not obsessed or anything...) and walking into those places had a genuinely psychedelic effect on me - as if I was actually inside of one of my own dreams.

How did you feel when you first saw a printed copy of your book?
You think you’re cool until the damn thing is in your hands, and it’s a REAL book. You’d have to be a bit weird not to feel proud that you’ve had a book published.

Do you have advice for anyone who wants to write a book like this?
I wrote this book for myself, hoping a few other people might like it too. Probably if I’d approached it from “How do I make money out of this?” I’d have produced something nobody would really want to read.
Oh - advice: “Back up often!”

What’s next?
I’m writing a book about a brilliant Australian TV series from the 1970s - Boney was a detective who tracked murderers across the Outback, using the intelligence, intuition and skills he’d inherited from a white father and an Aboriginal mother. A really interesting show, never shown in America, but a big hit everywhere else.

What difference will finishing the book make to your life?
My wife will stop asking me to shut up about it.