Legendary Director John Boorman talks morality, living in Ireland, and 50 years in film

Culture
13 Mar 17

Credit: Brian Mulligan

Based in Wicklow for nearly 50 years, legendary film director John Boorman is celebrated for classics like Point Blank and Deliverance. In a fascinating interview, he reflects on the making of those movies, his experiences in Hollywood, the changing face of Ireland, coping with personal trauma, mortality – and his recently published debut novel, Crime Of Passion.

While we here at Hot Press are commemorating our 40th anniversary, renowned film maker John Boorman is also celebrating a momentous milestone this year: it’s exactly 50 years since he first jetted over to LA – on the back of his hugely successful debut flick about The Dave Clarke Five band – to make his first Hollywood picture, Point Blank.

A hard boiled thriller, shot in 1967, it cemented Boorman’s reputation as a brilliant new talent. On the set of the first film to be made at Alcatraz after the prison had closed, Boorman formed a life-long friendship with its star, Lee Marvin. Indeed, there was such a strong bond between the two men that Boorman named one of his seven children after the Hollywood star; and he made a documentary about Marvin in 1998, which he subtitled “A Personal Portrait”.

The two men made Hell in the Pacific (1968) together, but it was Boorman’s 1972 film, Deliverance, that made him a household name – even today, movie buffs still talk about the film’s infamously brutal buggering scene, which leaves very little to the imagination.