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Evelyn Waugh on ‘Face to Face’, 1960: ‘If someone praises me, I think what an arse!’
09.04.2013
08:12 pm
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The interviewer, John Freeman, thought Evelyn Waugh was being unnecessarily tetchy when he questioned him on Face to Face. Yet, by today’s standards, Waugh seems positively chummy—which perhaps confirms how brash the art of interviewing has become. Waugh’s biographer, Selina Hastings, thought Waugh adopted a “pose of world-weary boredom,” which (at times) is apparent. However, I thought Freeman was far too preoccupied with sticking to his scripted questions, often moving onto the next subject without having actually listening to what Waugh said.

Interestingly, Waugh knew he was in for a grilling from former politician Freeman, and wrote to a mutual friend, Labour MP, Tom Driberg to get some inside skinny on his interlocutor—it wasn’t needed, as Waugh (with the look of “an exhausted rogue jollied up by drink”) easily batted the majority of Freeman’s questions out of the boundary.

Waugh was one of (if not) the greatest author(s) of the twentieth century (Brideshead Revisited, Scoop, Vile Bodies, and A Handful of Dust), his brilliant career covered his move from atheist, radical, and one of the bright, young people, to devout Catholic, olde school Tory and country squire. Though Freeman never fully gets Waugh to explain how and why this happened, there are many memorable moments in this interview (for example the discussion on his nervous breakdown and the writing of The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold being one), and several which (unintentionally) reveal more about Freeman than perhaps he intended. One gem, is Waugh’s disarming response to Freeman’s prodding over criticism.

John Freeman: “Have you ever brooded on unfair or unjust criticism?”

Evelyn Waugh: “No, I’m afraid if someone praises me, I think what an arse, and if they abuse me I think they’re an arse.”

John Freeman: “And if they say nothing about you at all, and take no notice of you…?”

Evelyn Waugh: “That’s the best I can hope for.”

Waugh described the experience of appearing on Face to Face in a letter to Nancy Mitford:

Last week I was driven by poverty to the humiliating experience of appearing on television. The man who asked the questions simply couldn’t believe I had had a happy childhood. ‘Surely you suffered from the lack of a sister?’

It may have been “humiliating” for Waugh, but his interview gives a fascinating insight into one of the world’s greatest authors.
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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09.04.2013
08:12 pm
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‘Face to Face’ with Carl Jung on the BBC, 1959
12.21.2012
01:53 pm
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This is fascinating, an extended interview with Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung conducted by the BBC’s John Freeman in October of 1959, when Jung was 84-years-old. The format of this program, Face to Face, is fascinating, almost like an interrogation. The camera zooms in on the subject and they rarely cut away.

Face to Face was the first program on British television to unmask public figures and show what lies beneath the surface. Harsh lighting and close-up camera angles were employed to capture each flicker of emotion, a method critics referred to as “torture by television.” Among those who submitted to Freeman’s remorseless scrutiny were Evelyn Waugh, Henry Moore, Bertrand Russell, and Carl Gustav Jung.

When Carl Jung consented to be interviewed, the medical community was surprised that this very private figure was suddenly willing to allow an interviewer into his personal space. When the program was first aired in 1959, Jung himself was taken aback at the unexpectedly positive response from the general public. This strong interest in his work inspired Jung to write his final work, Man and His Symbols, his theory of the symbolism of dreams, explained in lay terms so as to be accessible to all who would come seeking answers.

 

 
Thank you Jesse Merlin!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.21.2012
01:53 pm
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