Adventures in the Screen Trade

by William Goldman

Attenborough’s feeling the tension, too, more than any of the rest of us. But he can’t show it. (A crew on location is wildly mercurial—they can go from happy efficiency to sullen plodding in a wink. Attenborough has a marvelous relationship with his crew because he’s genuinely good with people. And he also always helps—if there’s any kind of move to make from one kind of shot to another, he’s always grabbing heavy equipment, lugging it along, and when the crew sees that—the director hustling that way—there’s not much they can do but join him. A director on location is very much like a military leader and he has to behave in like manner so the men won’t mutiny. There was a moment earlier in the shooting when Anthony Hopkins, who portrayed Colonel Frost, the hero of Arnhem, was playing a scene where he had to run from his building to the rest of his troops, headquartered across the street, and the street was in control of the Germans; there was constant sniper fire. It was not a safe place, that street, and Hopkins did the scene, running rapidly while the Germans fired at him. The real Frost happened to be on the set that day, and after the first take, while they were getting ready to try it again, the real Frost said to Hopkins, “Ah, you’re running too fast,” and Hopkins said, somewhat stunned, “Too fast?” and Frost answered, “Yes, you would never run that fast. You have to show the Germans and your own men your contempt for danger.”)