We spoke to Dunstan Bruce at Cambridge Film Festival this year about his documentary “A CURIOUS LIFE”, which follows the winsome Jeremy “The Levellers” Cunningham on a trip down memory lane via squids, folk-punk festival mayhem and the Battle of the Beanfield.
Anthony Davis: What has the response to A CURIOUS LIFE been from festival audiences and other media?
Dunstan Bruce: What was brilliant about the East End screening was that the bands did an acoustic show afterwards, an hour of songs, so the it was full of Levellers fans as well as sold out.
AJD: Who is your key audience for this? Not just Levellers fans.
DB: In the process of making the film I had this dilemma, pulling in both directions all the time, where I wanted to make a human film, a film that people who weren’t Levellers fans would come to see and be interested in the human element of the characters.
AJD: Jeremy is a man who is very intelligent, learned as well, and he sang some interesting things, but there will always be people who run a mile at the idea of talking to strange people with long hair or dreadlocks.
DB: That’s the thing, I was always trying to include elements that were more typically documentary elements, but I wasn’t trying to make a music documentary that would be on BBC4 at 9 o’clock for people like us to watch on a Friday night. My wife, Daisy Asquith, is a filmmaker as well, and she makes documentaries that are usually based around social issues and are character led rather than telling a chronological story. She was exec’ing the film and was always “I want to see a bit more about people, I want to be engaged with that person, I want to be interested in that person.”
AJD: So it’s more non-narrative?
DB: In a way, but also not like a chronological history of the band, it was important to me that it wasn’t just saying “We formed in 1988, we made this album and did that tour”, et cetera, et cetera.
AJD: So when Jeremy is talking about when he first met the lead singer, Mark, and he tried to steal his girlfriend, that’s a bit of a running joke – but it’s at that level of not just telling a story but engaging with that character.
DB: Also, when I suggested making a film about them, Mark in particular said “Do what you want to do, make the film you want to make, don’t just make a film about the chronological history of the band.” I was more interested in the idea of them as characters and how they managed to stay together as a band, how did they function as a band.
“If you want one of my paintings, and you think you can live with it, in your house, come and take it.”
AJD: Was that part of the impetus, that they were celebrating the 25 years?
DB: That’s why they agreed to the idea, they thought it would be a good time to do that sort of thing. And not many bands have so many original members still in them after 25 years.
AJD: I was listening to A Whiter Shade of Pale earlier, by Procol Harum.
DB: Are they all original members?
AJD: Yes, but unfortunately Matthew Fisher sued Gary Brooker about the rights so they’re not the best of friends.
DB: Like the Levellers, there’s a core of five of them. Simon was the last one to join in 1990, and they’ve been together ever since. You look at any other band that has been together that long and it’s very rare to find that percentage of original people.
AJD: Or you look at Status Quo and regret it! [laughter] Sorry if you’re a fan.
AJD: Back to the film: you’re shown round the premises at number 55, he’s lost the key and they had to knock a hole in the door, you couldn’t make that up if you wanted to. Jeremy’s artwork – are you a fan of that?
DB: I wasn’t but there’s a bit that’s not in the film, where he talks about what artists he’s been influenced by, where his art has come from; once he explained that and I looked at the artwork I understood it a lot more, what he was trying to do. There’s a bit in the film where you see how big his canvases are, he does this thing, it might be Willem de Kooning he’s based it on, where his paintings are as high as he can reach and as wide as he can reach. His screens are all that size. Jeremy has always said to anybody “If you want one of my paintings, and you think you can live with it, in your house, come and take it.” He’s not precious about it. There is one painting he did, a single cover – he called it The Kiss (with the colour contrasted faces) – he hates it, partly because everyone says that’s the one that they like, partly because it’s too literal, him trying to do a painting of two people kissing.
It all feels as though it happened by accident, they haven’t got a big plan.
AJD: And with setting up their own premises, they have a base that other people can use.
DB: I had an office in there, that’s how I got back in touch with them, it was good, it is a creative hub. It all feels as though it happened by accident, they haven’t got a big plan. The thing about the festival, they keep on going because 10-12 years ago they decided to do a festival. I think it’s true, I believe it, they just thought “Let’s do a festival.” Now that festival sells out every year, people love it, it helps them keep going as a band, as a creative entity. I really admire that. I think they’re unintentionally smart or something, I don’t know how to describe it. Also they give other people around them, and I’m one of those people now, the opportunity to express themselves and do their thing. They weren’t all over that film – I was doing stuff for them, making promotional videos, and I said “Can I make a documentary about you,” and they were like “Okay, yeah, go on then, off you go.”
AJD: Now the film has been made and is being seen, what are your hopes for people to get from it?
DB: I’ve always hoped they get a sense of humanity about the band – the band are flawed, they’re flawed as individuals –
AJD: We’ve got the controversial remark made about Michael Eavis from the stage at Glastonbury –
DB: I think what I love about the Levellers, the thing at the end about subsidised dysfunctionality, I see that, I totally get that, I think it’s wonderful that a group of people have found a way of working together for such a long period of time, I think there’s something really hopeful and optimistic about that. I feel as though they’ve done things the way they wanted to do it, they’ve never really kowtowed.
To be honest, they’re really frustrating to work for or with, because it takes them ages to come to any decision, a lot of them even don’t bother replying to emails, but that’s part of the reason they’ve lasted so long, and basically you have got to get into their way of working, they’ll never get into your way of working, you’ve just got to accept that they’ve done this, and whether by accident or design they’ve made a couple of really good decisions throughout the years, and they’ve managed to find a way of working together, the same people for a really long time, and I really admire that about them.
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