Shooting the Past
Encyclopedia
Shooting The Past is a television drama by Stephen Poliakoff
, produced by TalkBack Productions
for BBC Two
and first shown in 1999. It was TalkBack's first drama production, the company being mainly known for its television comedy work. Focused around a photographic library threatened by closure, and the lives of its eccentric staff, it featured Timothy Spall
and Lindsay Duncan
, was awarded Best Drama Series at the Royal Television Society
Awards of the same year and received other international awards, including the Prix Italia
.
Magazine (1938–57). At least two of Bert Hardy's photos, for example, can be seen in this series, including his view of a panda "taking a picture" of Mr. Hardy's son Michael. The Hulton Collection is part of Getty Images, the world's largest picture library as of early 2008.
The two stories which staff members present to Mr. Anderson are fictional accounts created for this film. According to Poliakoff on the commentary track of the DVD, Lily Katzmann, the Jewish girl, was played by Emma Sackville. Hettie, the Irish musician and Anderson's grandmother, was played by a model whom Poliakoff did not name.
Stephen Poliakoff
Stephen Poliakoff, CBE, FRSL is an acclaimed British playwright, director and scriptwriter, widely judged amongst Britain's foremost television dramatists.-Early life and career:...
, produced by TalkBack Productions
Talkback Productions
Talkback Productions was formed in 1981 by Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. The company is one of the UK’s leading production companies and part of the RTL Group, a major European broadcast and content company....
for BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
and first shown in 1999. It was TalkBack's first drama production, the company being mainly known for its television comedy work. Focused around a photographic library threatened by closure, and the lives of its eccentric staff, it featured Timothy Spall
Timothy Spall
Timothy Leonard Spall, OBE is an English character actor and occasional presenter.-Early life:Spall, the third of four sons, was born in Battersea, London. His mother, Sylvia R. , was a hairdresser, and his father, Joseph L. Spall, was a postal worker...
and Lindsay Duncan
Lindsay Duncan
Lindsay Vere Duncan, CBE is a Scottish stage, television and film actress. On stage she won two Olivier Awards and a Tony Award for her performance in Les Liaisons dangereuses and Private Lives , and she starred in several plays by Harold Pinter. Her most famous roles on television include:...
, was awarded Best Drama Series at the Royal Television Society
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...
Awards of the same year and received other international awards, including the Prix Italia
Prix Italia
The Prix Italia is an international Italian television, radio-broadcasting and Website award. It was established in 1948 by RAI - Radiotelevisione Italiana in Capri...
.
Storyline
Shooting the Past delves into a world quite separate from modern life, and demonstrates that the preservation of the past, in order to tell the extraordinary stories of the lives of ordinary people, can be astonishingly powerful and revealing. An American company buys the building in which the Fallon Photo Library is kept, planning a complete remodeling and modernisation to turn it into a business school. The company president, Christopher Anderson, had informed one of the members of staff, Oswald, but Oswald fails to pass on the news. On their arrival, having expected the library of ten million photographs to have been disposed off and the building evacuated, Anderson tell the staff that the majority of the collection must be destroyed if they cannot sell it. However, the staff members believe that the collection must be kept in its entirety, not broken up or sold to different buyers. As such, there is little interest. Marilyn manages to make a successful pitch to an advertising company, but as most of the collection is in black and white the potential sale falls through. To prove the value of their library, the group presents Anderson with intriguing stories put together by researching photos from all over the collection, including finally the colourful history of his own grandmother. The research was conducted largely by Oswald, who is recovering from an attempted suicide. Finally convinced that the collection should be saved and kept whole, Anderson eventually finds a buyer in America who will accept all ten million pictures.Production
The collection's photos, as seen in this series, are drawn from Britain's greatest picture library, the Hulton Collection, which had its origins with the photos taken for Picture PostPicture Post
Picture Post was a prominent photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,700,000 copies a week after only two months...
Magazine (1938–57). At least two of Bert Hardy's photos, for example, can be seen in this series, including his view of a panda "taking a picture" of Mr. Hardy's son Michael. The Hulton Collection is part of Getty Images, the world's largest picture library as of early 2008.
The two stories which staff members present to Mr. Anderson are fictional accounts created for this film. According to Poliakoff on the commentary track of the DVD, Lily Katzmann, the Jewish girl, was played by Emma Sackville. Hettie, the Irish musician and Anderson's grandmother, was played by a model whom Poliakoff did not name.
Cast
- Marilyn Truman - Lindsay DuncanLindsay DuncanLindsay Vere Duncan, CBE is a Scottish stage, television and film actress. On stage she won two Olivier Awards and a Tony Award for her performance in Les Liaisons dangereuses and Private Lives , and she starred in several plays by Harold Pinter. Her most famous roles on television include:...
- Oswald Bates - Timothy SpallTimothy SpallTimothy Leonard Spall, OBE is an English character actor and occasional presenter.-Early life:Spall, the third of four sons, was born in Battersea, London. His mother, Sylvia R. , was a hairdresser, and his father, Joseph L. Spall, was a postal worker...
- Christopher Anderson - Liam Cunningham
- Veronica - Billie WhitelawBillie WhitelawBillie Honor Whitelaw, CBE is an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and is regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works...
- Spig - Emilia FoxEmilia FoxEmilia Rose Elizabeth Fox is an award-winning English actress, known for her role as Dr. Nikki Alexander on BBC crime drama Silent Witness, having joined the cast in 2004 following the departure of Amanda Burton. She also appears as Morgause in the BBC's Merlin beginning in the programme's second...
- Nick - Blake RitsonBlake Ritson-Early life:Blake attended the Dolphin School in Reading, Berkshire until 1993, before going to St Paul's School, an independent school for boys in Barnes in West London on an academic scholarship. He then attended the University of Cambridge, where he studied English and Medieval Italian, Dante...
- Garnett - Arj BarkerArj BarkerArjan Singh , known by the stage name Arj Barker, is an American stand-up comedian and actor from San Anselmo, California. He has toured in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. He was born to an engineer father and artist mother, and is half-Indian, half-European...
- Styeman - Andy SerkisAndy SerkisAndrew Clement G. "Andy" Serkis is an English actor, director and author. He is popularly known for playing Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, for which he earned several award nominations, including the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Two Towers...
External links
- Information from the BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
- Getty Image Archive Current home of the Hulton collection.
- Shooting the Past Fansite Contains some of the stories from the film, reviews and articles, background information and links.