In 1994 Dennis Potter knew he was going to die. The writer of such television theater masterpieces as "The Singing Detective" and "Pennies from Heaven" had just been diagnosed with untreatable cancer of the liver and pancreas. In a strange move,...
[more]In 1994 Dennis Potter knew he was going to die. The writer of such television theater masterpieces as "The Singing Detective" and "Pennies from Heaven" had just been diagnosed with untreatable cancer of the liver and pancreas. In a strange move, he agreed to talk with the BBC about his life and imminent death in a "Last Interview." What may seem like a morbid idea became a glowing, life-affirming discussion of art, a passionate demonstration of television's potential, and a real look back at a life lived fully despite chronic illness.
The interview shows the unbelievable grace of this dying man. His face is open, shoulders and neck relaxed, the years of illness only evident in hands so gnarled Potter could barely hold his beloved cigarette. It's startling to realize that these hands, which wrought 30 years of television history, had been chronicly afflicted with psoriatic arthropathy. Poignantly yet matter-of-factly, Potter discusses his relationship with pain -- during the interview he drinks liquid morphine out of a liquor flask -- and pain's relationship to his art.
His work moves through pain of all sorts, but it balances torment with pleasure and redemption. "Brimstone and Treacle" features a crippled girl who finds spiritual relief after being raped by the devil. It's grotesque, to be sure, but Potter wanted to consider how good can result from demonic acts and vice versa.
After "Blackeyes" aired in 1989, the press called Potter "TV's Mr. Filth" and labeled him a misogynist. (The latter hurt more.) But perhaps the movie, which dealt with ways men abuse women, is not so much filthy as complicated. Telling stories about the stickier sides of human relations has brought the wailing criticism of the press down on Potter.
Potter saw television as an extension of the theater, a medium for thoughtful storytelling, a laboratory in which to dissect human problems. He made the BBC a crucible for incredible experiments in fantasy and realism. His work is incredibly clear but never easy; perhaps this is why it was so controversial. Even "Pennies from Heaven" used the musical form to take drama further, to interpret rather than mask humanness.
Memory, a term that gets thrown around a lot in art circles these days, is a prominent theme in Potter's work. The play "Blue Remembered Hills" casts adults in children's roles. What could have been a gimmick becomes a formal necessity; the casting was, as Potter put it, a "magnifying glass" through which to examine the past from a present perspective. In fact, Potter was adamant about staying in the present. Death made this all too clear to him: "The nowness of everything is absolutely wonderful...If you see the present tense, boy do you see it, and boy can you celebrate it."
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