Director's Comments
While studying film at the I.D.H.E.C in Paris during the early sixties, I had seen a production of Jean Genet's 'The Maids' , with a cast of young male students. This is how Genet always wanted it performed, but it was Jouvet who first put the play on in Paris, and had it played by women.
This added conceit of an all male cast, went well with Genet's own fantasist dialogue of pretence within a strange world of his own. In French it had its own theatrical beauty, and I wondered even then how it would translate into English.
When the producer Robert Enders (who had formed a partnership with Glenda Jackson) asked me to consider directing a film of the play, I was intrigued. That same week I went to Greenwich to see the all female new production with Glenda and Susannah York with Vivien Merchant as Madame. It had been directed by Minos Volonakis on an all-white stage which was dominated by a part-flower, part-shell, and the floor was completely covered with white 'fun-fur' on top of mattresses from corner to corner. This made walking somewhat difficult for the actors, and although the performances were superb, the play's staging had not pleased everyone. I re-read Genet's own stage descriptions and decided to build a film set based on his descriptions. It was one of those suffocating Parisian apartments I knew so well of 'Louis-Quinze furniture with flowers in profusion'.
The next shock came when I learned the total budget was under £250,000 and the shooting period was 12 days - a tough assignment if ever a director saw one! Added to which two weeks before shooting, I realised that the production hadn't let me confirm a cameraman up until then, as the Associate Producer's opinion was that it didn't really matter who lit the film as you wouldn't be able to tell much in two weeks anyway.
Having threatened to walk off the production unless the remaining Heads of Department were decided on, matters then moved swiftly forward. We decided to only open up the play a little by introducing some added tension in showing Monsieur being carted off to jail, as I felt its claustrophobia was an essential part of what Genet was trying to achieve.
I wanted to work again with David Watkin who had launched his Oscar winning career with my film 'The Six-Sided Triangle' but after telling Vivien Merchant who was lighting she replied ….. "Well, Christopher, I have to tell you its either Watkin or me".
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David took it well when I told him, fearing he might have let her stand under a 20K light too long when he lit Pinter's 'The Homecoming' the year before - I then chose Douglas Slocombe, whose excellent work I knew right from my student days with 'Kind Hearts and Coronets', but the Completion Guarantors turned him down saying he was too slow. So I went to see Douggie, who lived near me, and we discussed the problems of shooting a feature in 12 days. We both decided on one camera; a very flat studio floor to track on, using wheels, not rails as was then the norm. He had a slight stutter, so when I rang back the Guarantors who asked me what Douggie had thought, I told them he said that he would 'F-f-fucking show them!" …. and he did, we completed the film in an impossible 12 day schedule, with an extra day in Paris.
All went well with the actors too, even though I had changed the set which resulted in all their moves being altered too, but at least they knew their lines! Also as there wasn't much time to argue with the director (except on one occasion which I detail in 'Carrying the Can') we captured three superb performances.
