Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 218

A Great Eye & A Tin Ear

This is going to be a column about two Terry Gilliam movies; ‘Brazil’ VS ‘The Zero Theorem’. But don’t let the geekiness put you off – I’m trying to make a point about how we experience things. In my old job I saw a lot of films accompanied by artists. After, we’d compare notes. I’d […]

The European Country I Know Least

When I lived in America I at least got to travel a bit and see some cool places – not a lot because I was running my own company and the US legal holiday entitlement is among the lowest in the world (along with Chinese and Canadian). My regret is that I haven’t been to […]

A Disturbing Tale In Any Language

When it comes to translating titles, some distributors seem to go out of their way to wreck the films they’ve paid for. ‘The Witches of Zugarramurdi’ was always going to be a problem title, but changing it to ‘Witching & Bitching’ didn’t help. Likewise turned the twisted thriller ‘The Hidden Face’ into ‘The Xxxxxx’ (I […]

Short Life, Great Books

I’ve mentioned JG Farrell in passing before, but thought it might be good to look at the life of this interesting author.Even Booker prizewinners are not immune to the amnesia of passing time. James Farrell is a classic example of the novelist cut short in his prime. ‘There is no question that he would today […]

Does World Cinema Have To Be Arthouse?

Arthouse cinema is, in its own modest way, doing well in the UK. New branches of Picturehouse and Curzon are opening, new lifelines have come from screenings of live events including sport, opera and theatre, and even museum exhibitions. My local cinema is now a multiplex arthouse with a dedicated documentaries screen. But what exactly […]

Here Come The Sand Men

I’m really sorry about this but I seem to have another novel coming out this summer, just as you’re getting over the arrival of ‘The Burning Man’. To be fair, I’d been working on it for three years, and it underwent a massive revision after I got notes from a New York editor who’s a […]

Are Clowns Actually Creepy?

I don’t understand why they terrify Americans. My US friends all seem to have a great fear of clowns when there are surely bigger things to worry about; the guns thing, irrational behaviour (like the woman who just shot up a McDonalds for leaving bacon out of her burger), Fox News, US Customs & Excise […]

10 Bits Of London We Mislaid (And Sometimes Put Back)

Do you ever get the feeling when you walk along a familiar street that something is different and a bit of it has perhaps vanished? I get this feeling all the time, usually because developers have whipped something away behind my back – but the mislaying of bits of London is not a new thing […]

The Disastrous Life Of Jeremy Thorpe

Hardly any of my friends remember what happened to Jeremy Thorpe, one of those peculiarly English stories filled with awful details – so I decided to read up on it. I first made the mistake of reading Auberon Waugh’s ‘The Last Word: An Eye Witness Account of the Thorpe Trial’, but Waugh was never a […]

Publicising Your Work

When you’ve sold a book, your publishing house will traditionally appoint a PR for you. Sometimes they’re terrific, sometimes they’re overworked looking after a bigger author and you don’t see them. When I first started you used to have a meeting to discuss your publicity campaign. Looking back, this seems like a fantastical thing to […]