A long interview with Steve Coogan in The Independent today:
Murray, says Coogan, is “recklessly truthful” and “heroically flawed”, the sort of well-intended but slightly damaged character that he relishes.
http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2859337.ece
I am pretty happy with his characterisation of me and of Murder in Samarkand. I trust Steve and Michael, and I think they have got the message the film needs to convey. If it can be conveyed with humour, all the better. I am really starting to look forward to the filming now. We are just about at the point where production work will really take off, as filming on Genova is almost finished.
I think you've got the right people doing your book.
Incidentally, any reflections on Robert Byron? He reminds me of you in some ways.
Im wary of these characterisations. I don't like what they connote. Specifically, Craig wasn't reckless with the truth – to have withheld it would have been reckless with the plight of victims he encountered.
Heroic and reckless go together naturally, heroically truthful is fine. Why are the terms switched up here? I think its artistic claptrap.
Craig's flaws aren't connected with bearing decent witness to personally dangerous truths. The flaws were basic human vulnerabilities to defamation, ostracisation and Mortal Threat.
Sadly, I fear the worst about this film adaptation. It already seems permeated with damaging, and typically English, self-deprecation by those making it. Whilst I accept that Winterbottom/Coogan are hardly Scorsese/De Niro in terms of important film partnerships, I nevertheless think this film risks wrongly making Mr Murray a too comic and foolish creation – one that bears witness to the horrors of Uzbekistan but ultimately has no real understanding of (or answers to) realpolitik, which would be grossly unfair on him. What Mr Murray did was extremely courageous and as a consequence he was left abandoned and isolated and victimised by a ruthless and duplicitous regime (and I'm talking about the British Government here). 'Murder In Samarkand' deals with issues of immense importance (the clue's in the title Mr Winterbottom, if you hadn't noticed) and is a reflection of all that is insidiously corrupt and morally bankrupt about the Blair/Bush relationship; and the film adaptation is a golden opportunity to illustrate this. Unfortunately, at the moment this project sounds like it's merely trying to be some sort of faux-political Ealing comedy (or even 'Carry On' meets 'Alan Partridge'). How very unamibitious.
On the other hand, it is great that a film is being made at all. And it would have to be really messed up to be negative publicity.