Writer Paul Mayersberg, and Producer Jeremy Thomas
Transcript
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Yurika maybe the most affirmative word
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in any language
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it was Archimedes cry of triumph when he
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left from the bathwater after
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discovering specific gravity
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it was a growl imposed title for his
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last great work a meditation on the
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cosmos and it's the name of millionaire
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Jack McCann's Caribbean mansion in
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Nicolas Roeg's film Eureka
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an old mighty fable of one man's rise
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and fall and probably the most ambitious
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movie by a British director this decade
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Eureka I found it luckily there's no
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equivalent word for I've lost it
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otherwise it would surely have been
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yelled by rogues soon after completing
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this 11 million dollar film about a
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retired gold prospector living and dying
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on his lost dreams the costliest film
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yet by the director of don't look now
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and the man who failed to earth Eureka
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was barely out of the can back in 1982
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when Hollywood tried to put it firmly
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back in MGM took one look at this rogue
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product and deemed it so uncool that
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American release plans were canceled in
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Britain it was aborted as a video
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release and there was a time even the
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National film theater couldn't get a
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copy for a special screening I know
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because I tried I picked Eureka for a
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Critics Choice season and spent weeks
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telephoning round between MGM producer
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Jeremy Thomas and a Harris Nicolas Roeg
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to find a print whatever did MGM find so
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frightening it's true Eureka is not the
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sound of music it's a towering cinematic
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invention based on true life foundations
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the model for Jack McCann played by Gene
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Hackman was millionaire ex gold
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prospector Sir Harry Oakes
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it was brutally murdered in Nassau in
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1943 who did it
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no one knows to this day nor why though
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his French playboy son-in-law Alfred
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Damiani was tried and acquitted rogue
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and screenwriter Paul Myers burg have
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taken small hints from this coast
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earlier and turned him into a giant
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fiction a fiction that echoes like the
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icy mountains of the film's prologue set
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in the Yukon with whistling mysteries
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and questions McCann may also die a
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cruel death but did he die spiritually
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years before when his great adventure in
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the gold fields was fulfilled and ended
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out by that early ecstasy he now lives
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on in the spirit of his daughter Tracy
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played by Teresa Russell her near
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telepathic closeness has suggested in
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rogue Ian's scenes of rhyming crosscut
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action and Freudian imagery notably a
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gold chain that's like a father-daughter
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umbilical cord the film is about a man's
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soul that's up for grabs the murder in
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throg is part suicide McCann's willed
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self destruction and it's part
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cannibalism as he's closed in on by two
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groups of predators
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one group is materialistic miami-based
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gangsters and the other is spiritual the
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parasitic son-in-law cloade preening lee
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played by Rutger Hauer cloade leeches
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McCann soul through McCann's own
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daughter perhaps the film's most
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astounding turn comes in a long bizarre
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trial scene in which Tracy and Claude
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peel away at each other souls as if the
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eerily lit courtroom or a theatre
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presided over by Judge Strindberg
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but then expecting a straight story from
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Nicolas Roeg is like expecting a
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straight roller coaster Eureka swerves
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and swords through time and space and it
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rumbles thunderously with illusion and
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quotation not least from Citizen Kane
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and its portrait of a modern midas
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completed with Xanadu like mansion
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doom-laden marriage at a hand closing
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over a talismanic keepsake Eureka is
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that rare thing a true modern tragedy a
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tale that begins with passion and ends
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in an almost biblical passion and it
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boasts a hero played with powerhouse
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grandeur and unforced pathos by Gene
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Hackman that's what I feel about the
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film now we're going to hear three of
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the film's creators talk about it
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producer Jeremy Thomas writer Paul Myers
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Berg and even it's normally camera shy
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director Nicolas Roeg
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well I'd previously made a film with
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Nick bad timing
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which was the first time would work
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together and we enjoyed the experience
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very much and Nicholas this subject and
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got this book Kings X or who kills Harry
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Oakes it had two different different
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titles were written by Marshall hat Paul
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Meyers Berg has worked with Nick before
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on manna fell to work and he was right
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after the movie he expected me Nico
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expect me not to know the story now on
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the whole you wouldn't know the story
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but it so happened that someone years
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ago had come to me with the same book so
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I read it and it seemed to me that it
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was a magnificent idea for a film about
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family relationships if you like that
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were connected with the social
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circumstances of the time all the
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characters and I had a sense that they
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were all the terrible word symbols but
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as in as in some great play let's say
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the daughter the father the wife the
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husband young husband mother rather
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extraordinary more extraordinary
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larger-than-life than the can with man
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who was them single-mindedly wanted to
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be more than his own person that
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- thank no one for
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we made an explicit reference to to
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Wells's film with the big house which
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she called Eureka which was a corollary
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if you like to Xanadu in King but there
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was no connection in our minds between
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jack mccann a semi invented character
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and Citizen Kane and William Randolph
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Hearst the connection really was to
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Orson Welles because our story was one
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which tells of a man who having got what
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he wanted then finds that there's no
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further to go and his life slips and
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slides to a kind of chaotic despair and
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that was not the story of Hurst of
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mystery or came it was the story of
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Welles who struck gold if you like with
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Citizen Kane and then paid for the next
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fifty years of his life with despair so
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the story that interested us really was
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how it would be how did it come about
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that when you get what you want it's not
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that you don't want it it's what it does
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to you and that then your life is really
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over it's in a sense Jack McCann died
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twice once at the moment that he found
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the gold and achieved his aim and twice
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the second time when he was no I've
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wanted to have it in the sense that it
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takes a lot to kill that a lot of
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killing to snuff out that life force if
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it seems that bullfights when of the
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bull seems to live on up against these
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little people that are struggling to
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kill this magnificent beast John still
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roars against being destroyed by
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people he could destroy and would not
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die my life is very precious and it's
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very powerful from a baby you know he
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was a mine in it originally and there
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was a stick there was another scene when
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Jacqueline and Tracy are driving in the
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car and he says to her I remember your
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birth I remember all covered in blood
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like a terrible murder when I thought I
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was wonderful but don't appreciate
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thought but but her birth was powerful
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above this thing relationship with the
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father and daughter was particularly an
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interesting dream because I wanted it to
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be more than merely um Oh a loving
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relationship as it is quite a natural
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tinglin yes I love my daddy and I love
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my daughter in that relationship the
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apple of my eye I wonders had to be the
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big clone of McCann that truly part of
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him and that it struck me that if we
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could find a way that they knew exactly
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what each other how how they was
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thinking or how their mind worked
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whenever it's the lovers oldest
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questions and do you love me dying what
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are you thinking and you could never
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tell anybody so how to get inside that
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and we do work just the dinner party
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scene was essentially to exclude
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everybody else but Jack and the daughter
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and our view was that for her a woman
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who had money as it were who had
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position and so forth what she wanted
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the gold of her life if you like was a
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man not property or the magic of gold
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itself or whatever and he couldn't stand
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this he couldn't stand this man so in a
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way it becomes a story of sexual
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jealousy
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that big enough to accept the fact that
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claude ends ends being a weak person in
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the trial he's told who he is comes to
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face-to-face with himself when you look
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at me what do you see I see a man that
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can't pass a mirror without looking I
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think was Velma in that said goodbye
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said the dying man as he looked in the
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mirror I shall be seeing you anymore so
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what was actually a trial about who
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killed jack mccann turned into a trial
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of the people themselves that their
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lives were equally on trial because of
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this horrendous event and then it turns
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out that everybody connected with the
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trial has something to hide so really it
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was the story of the things that were
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hidden maybe I read juice yes maybe
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what does it mean James iterate gonna
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cry from produce or filmmakers when the
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film is not popular but we didn't really
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get a proper of a shot anywhere it
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started off with MGM and started
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developing the film and then MGM was
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bought by United Artists and then it was
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merged with United Artists and then
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Eureka finally whilst win midway through
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production became United Artists picture
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and we had many studio bosses and heads
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of production about was know what sort
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of impotent was shame because I think
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there was own a lack of understanding of
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the film with an embarrassment of the
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film
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maybe the strength of the film were
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films very very strong and has a lot of
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subtext to the film and maybe that
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offended some people but on the surface
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I couldn't understand it because the
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film was an incredible adventure story
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very exciting it was an incredible cast
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my own feeling is that the film was
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disliked by the company who made it
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probably because it said something that
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was not acceptable or that they did not
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believe it was an acceptable commentary
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on let's say American life and that is
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that since the American Dream is one in
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which endeavour finally pays off here
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was a story about the way in which
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endeavour seemed to be a curse and
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victory turned into disaster curacy over
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the past years we've come to think that
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it was the beginning of an a different
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era and that we're looking back historic
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great was the beginning of a different
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year socially that mean England and
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America with the coming of at a very
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conservative time and we came out in
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England that was the election year the
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first election year of Margaret Thatcher
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which I think was wonderful for England
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in some ways and terrible you know
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there's
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and Ronald Reagan in America would be
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entering of a hugely conservative
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concerned I mean materialistic time and
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I think the idea summer even maybe
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subconsciously that a man who had made
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such a success wasn't happy
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okay I'm sure sound the matter but I'm
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sure subconsciously politically it was
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not at the right time it was very
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disappointing and I think the film even
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released today would still have a very
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you know a very good audience so really
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the sharing of them of the movie on
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television is it's quite exciting
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because the delay you're gonna probably
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be audience and we can't really gauge in
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a reaction to the film better there
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being so many opinions and so many
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people have wanted the you know from the
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studio to create everyone I think it's
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marvelous that the BBC ever and well we
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won't have an opinion about it you know
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and we will show it as it was you know
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let the poor little crippled walk if it
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can if it can't then let it not and
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that's the only way to behave with with
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things that give people a chance it
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might let them be their own personal let
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the film via to have its own say
