Inside Out (33 page)

Alan Parker has one particular recollection of Steve O’Rourke. During post-production Steve took a phone call in Alan’s office,
a bungalow in the Pinewood gardens, from Roger in the main building. Steve turned to rush back, but ‘with his bad eyesight
he failed to see the closed glass doors, which he ploughed through and shattered. Steve was badly cut, concussed, and lying
on the floor. He opened his eyes to see my secretary Angie, gently picking the shards of glass out of his face. He immediately
fell in love and eventually married her.’

My belief is that Alan was the best man for the job. And on occasion he did listen to what was said or suggested by others.
I still have a small film canister that he sent to me. We had argued for some time about a particular shot of the boy on the
beach, which I thought a bit on the whimsical side. In the can was a roll of film of this sequence and a note saying ‘OK,
you win’. Alan remembers few creative disagreements with Roger over the material – he remains very proud of the finished film
– but says that the problems that arose from a clash of two strong egos did often make him miserable. The sign on Alan’s door
at Pinewood said, ‘Just Another Prick On The Wall’.

Steve as executive producer was responsible for ensuring that we survived the financial disasters of film making. ‘As for
the accounts,’ says Alan, ‘someone said that Steve O’Rourke had written the cost of the animation off in so many books they
could fill a shelf at Foyle’s.’ We were initially at risk for the start-up costs on the film of $2 million (all our
The Wall
record earnings), but eventually David Begelman at MGM came through with the guarantee for $10 million that we needed. Bernd
Eichniger at Neu Constanin provided a further $2 million and Goldcrest, through Lazards, financed the actual production. Regrettably
for Goldcrest it had gone into liquidation by the time we were to pay them back their profit element, though we did give Jake
Ebberts, who was the president of Goldcrest, two free tickets for the show in Canada when he called in 1994.

Alan Parker recalls that when he and Steve first offered the film to MGM (he had recently made
Fame
for the company), David Begelman ‘told me he was entrusting their many millions of dollars of investment to me even though
he had absolutely no idea what the film was about. What’s more neither did his eighteen-year-old son, who was a Pink Floyd
fan. Steve O’Rourke and I shook Begelman’s hand on the deal, and I said, “Don’t worry,
David, you can trust us because we treat other people’s money as if it’s our own.”’ Steve then told Alan in the lift that
that remark was probably inappropriate as David Begelman had been ousted from a previous job as chairman of Columbia Pictures
after being accused of embezzling a cheque for $60,000.

There never was a film soundtrack album, partly because it was inevitably so faithful to the original record, but there were
some interesting versions of songs where Bob Geldof was able to bring his own interpretation to bear.

Various premieres took place in 1982, including a late-night showing at the Cannes Film Festival that was fun, particularly
as it coincided with the Monaco Grand Prix, and I was able to take a guest in the shape of James Hunt. The sound system at
the old Palais du Festival had been upgraded with a little help from the Britannia Row stores. As the music started, plaster
began to crumble from the ceiling, creating a curtain of dust and paint. Alan Parker remembers that Steven Spielberg attended
the Cannes screening and, ‘as the lights went up at the end, he looked across at me with enormous pity and shrugged, as if
to say, “What the fuck was that all about?”’

There were various shows, too, in LA and NY, including one US press conference where the producer, Alan Marshall, when asked
about the meaning of the film said, rather succinctly, ‘It’s about some mad bastard and this wall, innit…’

A
FTER ALL
the work on
The Wall
was complete, my overriding feeling – and by now a pattern may be emerging – was less of elation than exhaustion. Given that
we had only performed the show thirty-odd times in two years, it was difficult to blame this on physical exertion. It was
more a feeling that the whole project appeared to have been going on for an eternity. However, perhaps another reason for
my lethargy and lack of enthusiasm was caused by the thought of confronting each other once again.

Following the end of the tour and the film, the four-man Pink Floyd that had existed since 1968 was no more. Rick was enjoying
self-imposed exile: he was living in Greece, the home of his second wife Franka, and relishing a taste of lotus eating. Rick’s
absence in the sun only served to underline the fact that we were locked into a cycle of non-communication.

In July 1982
The Wall
had gone on general release. We had all been involved in promotion to a greater or lesser extent. I remember being sent to
Spain as the sole ambassador for the premiere there – since I think all the others were in America for openings in New York
and California – and smiling through gritted teeth for the cameras. Meanwhile I waved in what I thought was a regal way from
the royal box in Madrid and modestly admitted that it had not been entirely my own work…

Back in London Roger had started work on an album that underwent a number of changes in fairly quick succession. My recollection
is that the original scheme was to incorporate a number of tracks that were left over from the
Wall
project. There
were some songs that had been included on the film soundtrack but had never made it onto the original album, and these were
to be augmented with new material.

This is borne out by the fact that the original working title for
The Final Cut
was ‘Spare Bricks’, an idea that was dropped as the record gestated into something rather different. I think various factors
contributed to this change of tack. Roger was dissatisfied with the original piecemeal approach and by now had a much clearer
idea of what he wanted to tackle.
The Final Cut – A Requiem For The Post War Dream
was a much more focused piece. Although still linked to elements contained in
The Wall,
it dealt with Roger’s feelings about the death of his father at Anzio in the Second World War. The fact that for the initial
years of the war Roger’s father had been a conscientious objector added more poignancy. The underscore to this was the failure
of post-war Britain to provide the better world that so many had died for.

The other unlikely candidate for a muse was Margaret Thatcher. In 1982 Britain, under Thatcher’s premiership, declared war
on Argentina over sovereignty of the Falkland Islands in a conflict most expertly described by Jorge Luis Borges as ‘two bald
men fighting over a comb’; the atmosphere in Britain at the time was alarmingly jingoistic and I think this particularly upset
Roger.
The Final Cut
became a real tool for expressing his horror at these events.

I could hardly fail to sympathise with these political sentiments, but I think David’s view was that it was becoming unsuitable
as a band album. David wanted time to produce some material of his own. Roger, now totally motivated, was not interested in
waiting. He wanted to press on, and once he has the bit between his teeth he leaves little time for prevarication by anyone
else. In addition, he appeared doubtful of David’s ability to produce anything in the foreseeable future.

Certainly, the imposition by Roger of a deadline to complete the album seemed to staunch David’s creativity. I’m not sure
that this was a conscious power play by Roger. I suspect that he might have been angry or simply impatient with David’s apparent
lack of speed in producing material, or it may be that in Roger’s head he was already moving into his solo career, and merely
wanted David and me to assist him in his aspirations. During the
Wall
recordings we had maintained some semblance of democracy, but even this semblance was under threat. The matter rapidly became
‘an issue’, and like a menacing U-boat, poked a periscope up above the murky waters of our relationship.

The upshot was that the album consisted entirely of Roger’s writing. David’s input was minimised – apart from his guitar solos,
which even Roger was not foolhardy enough to try and influence – and most significantly Roger decided to take on the bulk
of the vocal duties himself, leaving David to sing one song, ‘Not Now John’. In the past, the inflection of David’s vocals
had inevitably made some subtle changes to the melodic structure of Roger’s songs. So this change, and the loss of Rick’s
trademark keyboard sound, meant the disappearance of key elements from what had become an established ‘Pink Floyd sound’.

Another missing link was Bob Ezrin. In bandspeak this parting of the ways might be described as ‘musical differences’, but
in reality it could have been due to one of a number of incidents: Roger was still seething over an unfortunate interview
Bob had granted an American magazine just prior to the
Wall
shows. A journalist friend (friend no more) had weaselled out of Bob – and published – a full description of the show, including
the exclusive revelation of the tumbling wall as the grand finale. Bob was as mortified as anyone by this betrayal, but to
add fuel to the fire the journalist also gave glowing credit to Bob for rather more than he deserved, or at least more than
we felt he deserved.

Bob now got a call from Steve threatening litigation and suggesting that, being in breach of contract by talking to the press,
he might not be seeing any of his hard-earned royalties. Bob was shaken by all of this. From being one of the inner circle
he was suddenly out in the cold. It was made clear to him that he would not even be welcome at the shows. I think now that
we just had no idea of how terrifying our combined disapproval could be. With the record just beginning to show every sign
of being a huge hit Bob could not even enjoy this moment of glory.

Eventually the whole issue was dropped, but a couple of years later the dust was still pervading the atmosphere rather than
settling, and Roger was certainly not ready to take Bob back on board – even assuming Bob wanted the ride. For my money this
was a shame. Bob’s mind may be addled but he’s always prepared to speak it…

The gap left by Bob was, in part, filled by Michael Kamen, who was not only a highly rated – and later an Oscar-nominated
– composer but a very able keyboard player. Michael had originally studied oboe at the Julliard School in New York, and began
composing film music in the 1970s. After
The Wall,
he went on to score, amongst other movies,
Brazil, Mona Lisa, Die Hard, Licence To Kill, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves
(for which he got his Oscar nomination) and
Mr Holland’s Opus,
and created the music for the TV series
Edge Of Darkness.

This solved the practical problems left by Rick’s departure. However, Michael had no interest in a confrontational approach
to making records. Indeed he had no need to. He would simply get on with producing wonderful work in whatever situation he
found himself. His work on
The Wall
had been done without any face-to-face contact, and band politics were simply not in his remit.

Much of the work for
The Final Cut
was done at Mayfair
Studios in Primrose Hill in north London. Apart from its convenient location close to a restaurant we all rather liked, James
Guthrie was anxious to work there. In Bob’s absence, James had been the obvious choice as engineer and co-producer, especially
for his ability to breeze through the tricky business of working with all of us. In 1981 he had helped us re-record ‘Money’
for the compilation release
A Collection Of Great Dance Songs.
Dave had programmed the groove on the recently released Linn Drum Machine, and then I went into the studio to overdub live
drums. Unfortunately, there were some discrepancies between my timing and the machine’s, and James felt he needed to confront
me directly. He explained that there were some consistency problems in both timbre and timing. He recalls that I listened
intently to his comments, nodding and weighing each word carefully, and then responded, ‘Mmm, timing and consistency never
were my strong points. I was always much better at the after-gig parties.’