By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

CHARIOTS OF FIRE – THE FORGOTTEN FACTS

Posted Friday, July 13th, 2012 - Comments Off on CHARIOTS OF FIRE – THE FORGOTTEN FACTS
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Press Release: For immediate release

13.07.2012 – As Chariots Of Fire returns to cinemas in the UK this weekend, film critics & the media appear to have forgotten that without the financial involvement of Mohamed Al Fayed, Chariots Of Fire would never have been made!

Chariots Of Fire was co-produced and financed by Allied Stars, the film production company run by the late Dodi Al Fayed which also produced and financed Breaking Glass, FX, FX:2, Hook, The Scarlet Letter and Peter Pan.

Commenting on Dodi’s involvement in Chariots Of Fire, his father Mohammed said: “When Dodi first came across the script for Chariots Of Fire, it had been collecting dust on a shelf at Goldcrest because no-one else wanted to invest in it. But Dodi was a filmmaker of real vision and when he showed me the script, I knew it was something very special.”

“Chariots Of Fire was unlike any other film being made at the time; a story of loyalty, determination and standing up for what you believe in; refusing to be knocked down when everyone around you wants you to fail. These were principles Dodi and I shared. Principles I have lived my life by. There was no question, we wanted this story to come to life in film and put the money forward so it could be made.”

Based on a true story, CHARIOTS OF FIRE was the winner of four Academy Awards®, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, in addition to receiving nominations for three more.

Mohamed adds: “The evening of the 1981 Oscars, was one of the proudest nights of my life; it was the night that a film my son Dodi had had the foresight to back, won four Oscars, including Best Film and Best Original Screenplay. Chariots Of Fire would never have been made if it hadn’t been for Dodi, its executive producer.”

As an Egyptian, Mohamed understood Harold Abrahams’ struggle to triumph over British racism and snobbery and warmed to Eric Liddell’s refusal to compromise his conscience.

The first British film to win four Oscars would never have seen a cinema without Egyptian vision and money and as Chariots Of Fire producer David Puttnam said in his Oscar acceptance speech “ thank you Dodi and Mohamed for putting your money where my mouth was “.

20th Century Fox will bring a new digitally re-mastered version of the film to over 100 cinema screens nationwide on July 13th thanks to BFI funding.

Mohamed Al Fayed said: “I hope you will take the time to go to see it in cinemas. If you do, you will be in for a treat. Through this incredible true story you will see that with courage and character you can overcome literally anything.”

ENDS

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon