lord puttnam

8/6/2019 Lord Puttnam

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Friday, December 19, 2008 www.thejakartaglobe.com/features Section

 A splash o Indonesian manga artists > Fresh Pastimes C11

 A Lord’s Life,

Lived to the FullLord David Puttnam sits on a wooden bench in Nusa Dua, onBali Island, his pink sockspeeking out from beneathwell-pressed trousers.

With his full white beard andgenerous smile, he has the lookof a jolly grandfather.

“When my dad died, I was clearing up hisstuff. Inside h is desk there was a quote from a George Bernard Shaw play,” he says.

“It said ‘Be true to t he dreams of your youth.’ And I am. I know it may be very inconvenient and some people get cross withme.

“Some of the stuff that I think and feel,people probably think that by now I shouldhave gotten over, but in fact, I haven’t. I amquite the opposite.”

Puttnam, who was in Indonesia as thekeynote speaker for an intellectual property rights conference in Bali, made his nameproducing a string of successful films,

including Oscar winners “Chariots of Fire”and “The Killing Fields.”

Over the years he has also beenchairman of the prestigious NationalFilm Television School and vicepresident and chair of trustees at theBritish Academy of Film and Television

 Arts, or Bafta.He currently has a seat on the

Labor benches in Britain’s House of Lords.

 At 68, Puttnam continues to rollwith the punches.

 As president of Unicef UK, a position he has held since 2002,Puttnam is privy to seeing more of the world than the averageperson.

“Because of my job at Unicef, Iget to see things that [others]have never seen. And when yousee this stuff, when you areconfronted with this stuff,there is a part of me that i sin a permanent state of outrage. Real outrage,”he says, handsclenched in emotion.

“Because I seethe narrowness andthe complicity andthe hypocrisy, theterrible hypocrisy of the West. Where they talk globalization,where they talkhumanity — and then onthe ground, I don’t see it.”

The British have a reputation for conformity. ButPuttnam, unlike many of hiscontemporaries in the film industry and politics, is a free thinker.

He attributes his pluck to being born

in London in February 1941, during the bombing raids known as the Blitz.

“I am not a courageous person. But I don’tsuffer from fear. There is a big difference.

“Courageous people are people whounderstand fear and are brave any way. I don’tthink I have that. There’s like a piece missing from me. I think when you are born when

 bombs are dropping around you and you arestill a live, you have a sense of immunity.”

Puttnam lives life in a flurry of contradictions.

“There are two ‘me’s. There is the internal— very solid, very comfortable. I am very lucky.I get royalties from my movies, etc,” he says.

“And then there’s the external me that isalways fighting. I mean, I fight in Parliament.I’ve been chairman of the climate change

committee, so I’m fighting that. I’ve beenfighting energy issues. BBC. Privacy, citizen’srights. So I am in a permanent state of turmoil.My external state is turmoil. My internal life —

 very calm,” Puttnam says.Puttnam grew up in a lovi ng household,

with a father — a renowned Fleet Streetphotographer — he idolized, and a mother hedescribes as “brave.”

 Amid a whirlwind career, Puttnam’s rootsare grounded and sincere. He is still with thewoman he fell in love with at the age of 20, hiswife Patsy. They live on the west coast of Ireland with their t hree children, one of whomthey adopted after rescui ng her from a lepercolony in her native India.

“My external life is confusing in the sensethat I have never had a clear set of ambitions,”

he says. “But I havealways been very 

determined.

 And I have always been a socialist . And it hassort of informed everything.”

His nerve and daring have both aided and jeopardized his career.

Following the success of his earlier films,Puttnam was elected chief executive of Columbia Pictures in the late 1980s. Executiveshad pinned their hopes on Puttnam turning around the ailing studio. But instead of conquering the box office, Puttnamconcentrated on stiffening the moral fiber of its movies.

Clearly he lacked the money-making mind-set Tinseltown demanded. One year,Puttnam donated the studio’s entire Christmasgift allocation to charity. Pursuing reform, not

 box-office gold, he only lasted two years.“I didn’t really want to be there in the first

place. The hubris was taking the job. Notfailing at it,” he laughs.

“I don’t mind losing. A lot of people won’t battle, won’t fight, because they’re scared tolose.”

In 1993, Puttnam established Skillset — a government-funded film-trainee scheme thatprovides skills and training for the audio-

 visual industry in Britain.

With British film schoolslike NFTS focusing onproducing, directing andcinematography,Puttnam was concernedthere was not enoughattention on entry-levelindustry training.“Because I mademovies, I knew that if 

the focus puller got itwrong, or if the sound

recordist got it wrong, wewere screwed,” he says.

He also observed thatteachers were undervalued, and

in 1998, he established Britain’sNational Teaching Awards.

“Not a genius idea,” he says humbly.“On its own it doesn’t change anything 

 but symbolically it allows teachers tofeel they are being valued t he same way as singers or movie stars are valued.”

Using his name and contacts as a draw card, he convinced friends such as

Jeremy Irons and Helen Mirren to pres ent

the teachers’ awards. “It just elevates thewhole thing,” he says.

Puttnam is also receptive to new ideas. Aschairman of the board of trustees and vicepresident of Bafta he fought for the inclusion of new media.

“Most of my colleagues at Bafta said , ‘Well,that’s them — and we are the movies,’ ”Puttnam says.

“Bafta is Baf ta only because we were able toget them to change from British Fi lm Academy to British Fi lm and Television Academy. When

 you have been around long enough, you seethat these things have to happen.”

Even so, it was five years before the Baft a council relented and created a new media award.

Puttnam believes that, in a world in flux,people must be willing to let go of oldassumptions.

“What’s the point of saying what you weresaying 15 years ago — and the context is nolonger relevant,” he says.

“But people are frightened of doing that.Somehow it makes them feel insecure.

I don’t have those fears. I think that’s the best thi ng I’ve got going for me,” he says.

Puttnam’s biggest hang-up in life is being too comfortable and “believing [his] ownrhetoric”

“I question myself constantly, ‘Have I gotthis right? Is there a better way of doing this?Has the world changed in such a way that it isno longer relevant?’ ”

If the decades of doing battle on theintellectual front lines have taken their toll onPuttnam, it does not show.

“It’s the being angry that makes you tired,the sense of injustice,” he pauses.

“And then things happen, like Barack becoming president. And you think, ‘Hey! I ’vegot to start again.’ ”

Puttnam balances his unending fight for justice with time at home with family inCounty Cork, Ireland.

“My dad took me for a walk, two or three years before he died. We were in a parkwalking. I will always remember this. He saidto me, ‘You know, if I died tomorrow, I’d haveabsolutely no regrets. And I wouldn’t want youto be sad because I’ve really had a great, greatlife.’ ”

“And I feel t hat way.”

JG Photo/Titania Veda

 A British lord, the flm icon and ree thinker 

 David Puttnam stays true to the dreams o his youthReport Titania Veda

‘I don’t mind losing. A lot o people won’t battle, won’t fght, because

they’re scared to lose.’David Puttnam

Tollgate Primary School with Lord Puttnam

in London for the Teaching Awards 2008.Courtesy of www.teachingawards.com 

David Puttnam and his wife Patsy

with their daughter Rina.EPA Photo/Richard Rayner