On July 31, news came that legendary London-born filmmaker Alan Parker had died at the age of 76 – leaving behind a legacy of incredible movies, bringing his extraordinary craft to kid-gangster musicals, blazing prison movies, supernatural noirs, and Irish soul dramas alike. In the Dune issue of Empire – on sale now – we asked Hollywood’s finest to share their tributes to the man himself. Among them is actor Alec Baldwin, who never worked with Parker but – as you’ll read below – always admired his work. Read his full tribute below.
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Like a lot of people in the States, Fame was the first film I knew Alan Parker from. Fame was such a phenomenon. I was still in acting school when the film came out. Everybody was so taken with the eclectic tone of the cast: not everyone was a shiny, Disney-like star. They all looked like real kids who wanted to go to acting school. Alan Parker cast people who were all imperfect in some way. Not every guy is Brad Pitt, not every woman is Gwyneth Paltrow – they’re not all gleaming. These are just real people, and he captured their dreams and frustrations in a very authentic way. Fame is one of the best movies ever made.
You often hear people talk about directors ‘getting a performance out of an actor’ and that’s normally complete bullshit. Ninety-five per cent of the people who are directors have no influence whatsoever on the performance... Parker is someone who you can honestly say, he got performances out of people.
Alan had this perfect mix of being able to convey truth, suffering, pain and joy.
In Mississippi Burning, Parker manages to be very effective in getting Gene Hackman to sit on certain impulses he had, where many directors were not. Hackman does a lot of laughing and a lot of smirking inside of the very powerful roles he played, as if to immunise himself against the stakes of the scene. Hackman has so many great performances, but you do believe he spends an inordinate amount of time in some films trying to charm the camera. Parker succeeded in getting him out of that and it’s one of Hackman’s best performances as a result.
Casting Madonna as Eva Perón in Evita was another great move. There was a need for Madonna to develop as a film actress. When she appeared in films, all of the confidence, power and intensity on stage, when she was completely in command of what she was doing, seemed to disappear... but Parker was a genius to assume that if he could get her to a certain place, and occupy a certain place as an actress, there was every indication she could achieve.
Some of his films have tough material. There’s a couple of films where I almost have to prepare myself to watch them again because they’re so disturbing or unsettling, and that was true of Midnight Express for me. As a filmmaker, you’re telling a story, but you don't want to push people too far away. Alan had this perfect mix of being able to convey truth, suffering, pain and joy. It’s a real [art form] to achieve that balance.
Anybody that makes a great film, and I don't mean a great film in terms of box office, occupies a very unique perch in this business. People who make multiple great films... well, that’s a really rare place to go. Any guy that did Midnight Express, Fame, Birdy, Mississippi Burning and The Commitments… that’s an amazing legacy.
Read more tributes to Alan Parker by Dexter Fletcher, Gurinder Chadha, Matthew Modine and many more in the Dune issue of Empire – on sale now.