In June 2009, I had the great pleasure of meeting the screenwriter Tony Grisoni, for the second time. The first time had been a few years before at the eat our shorts festival at the BFI. As we got ourselves a drink, we got onto talking about the Red Riding Trilogy, in which Tony adapted all three screenplays from which the books are based.
Tony asked for my opinion, concerning my viewing of the three films, with not so great results. At that point, I told him how I found it very hard to watch the first part in the trilogy, as I didn't believe the main character of Eddie Dunford played by Andrew Garfield. Tony listened with great interest before descending into black humour regarding my lack of taste, as I wasn't able to watch the other two films as a result. As we discussed the joys of being a screenwriter, the conversation ended with me wanting to give the trilogy another go, this time seeing all three of them through, and here is the result...
1974: I was pleasantly surprised at as I watched it this time. I was throughly interested, as opposed to my first outing with it, which I was so distant from. My feelings about the main actor's performance, him not convincing me, wasn't as bad this time and I suddenly became intrigued by this story about police corruption and child abductions.
1980: I was really excited to getting around to watching this second installment, with both Considine and Clarke as the main leads. This second part I felt was quite an amazing piece of filmmaking. Through incredible cinematography and thoughtful direction, this was a fascinating piece to watch and probably, for me, the best in the trilogy, in many ways.
1983: David Morrissey's performance in this final installment, blew me away, he was simply masterful in this role. This last film had an eerie edge to it, as the missing girls over the years were shown in portraits before the Red Riding title card. I thought it was a fitting end to a large story that had alot to say.
All together, I think that the Red Riding trilogy was a very, very dark piece of British drama, that I haven't seen on British primetime TV in a long time, unless there's something I've missed. This was about topical issues and subjects, that have been going and are still going on today. Extremely intelligent, not spoonfeeding the audience but challenging them until the very end. I loved it, am throughly impressed and am thrilled to have seen it.
Tony asked for my opinion, concerning my viewing of the three films, with not so great results. At that point, I told him how I found it very hard to watch the first part in the trilogy, as I didn't believe the main character of Eddie Dunford played by Andrew Garfield. Tony listened with great interest before descending into black humour regarding my lack of taste, as I wasn't able to watch the other two films as a result. As we discussed the joys of being a screenwriter, the conversation ended with me wanting to give the trilogy another go, this time seeing all three of them through, and here is the result...
1974: I was pleasantly surprised at as I watched it this time. I was throughly interested, as opposed to my first outing with it, which I was so distant from. My feelings about the main actor's performance, him not convincing me, wasn't as bad this time and I suddenly became intrigued by this story about police corruption and child abductions.
1980: I was really excited to getting around to watching this second installment, with both Considine and Clarke as the main leads. This second part I felt was quite an amazing piece of filmmaking. Through incredible cinematography and thoughtful direction, this was a fascinating piece to watch and probably, for me, the best in the trilogy, in many ways.
1983: David Morrissey's performance in this final installment, blew me away, he was simply masterful in this role. This last film had an eerie edge to it, as the missing girls over the years were shown in portraits before the Red Riding title card. I thought it was a fitting end to a large story that had alot to say.
All together, I think that the Red Riding trilogy was a very, very dark piece of British drama, that I haven't seen on British primetime TV in a long time, unless there's something I've missed. This was about topical issues and subjects, that have been going and are still going on today. Extremely intelligent, not spoonfeeding the audience but challenging them until the very end. I loved it, am throughly impressed and am thrilled to have seen it.
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