honorific-prefix	The Right Honourable
name	Alan Clark
birth date	13 April 1928
birth place	London
residence	Saltwood Castle
death date	September 05, 1999
death place	Saltwood Castle, Kent
constituency mp	Kensington & Chelsea
term start	1 May 1997
term end	5 September 1999
predecessor	''constituency established''
successor	Michael Portillo
constituency mp2	Plymouth Sutton
term start2	28 February 1974
term end2	9 April 1992
predecessor2	David Owen
successor2	Gary Streeter
party	Conservative
religion	Anglican }}

Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark (13 April 1928 – 5 September 1999) was a British Conservative MP and diarist. He served as a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's governments at the Departments of Employment, Trade, and Defence, and became a privy counsellor in 1991. He was the author of several books of military history, including his controversial work ''The Donkeys'' (1961), which is considered to have inspired the musical satire, ''Oh, What a Lovely War!''

Clark became known for his flamboyance, wit, and irreverence. Norman Lamont called him "the most politically incorrect, outspoken, iconoclastic and reckless politician of our times". He is particularly remembered for his three-volume diary, a candid account of political life under Thatcher, and a moving description of the weeks preceding his death, when he continued to write until he could no longer focus on the page.

Clark was a passionate supporter of animal rights, joining activists in demonstrations at Dover against live export, and outside the House of Commons in support of Animal Liberation Front hunger-striker Barry Horne. When he died after radiation therapy for a brain tumour, his family said Clark wanted it to be stated that he had "gone to join Tom and the other dogs."

Early life

Clark was born at 55 Lancaster Gate, London, the elder son of art historian, Kenneth Clark and his wife Elizabeth Winifred Martin. At the age of six he went as a day boy to Egerton House, a preparatory school in Marylebone, and from there at the age of nine went on to board at St Cyprian's School, Eastbourne. Clark was one of the seventy boys rescued when the school building were destroyed by fire in May 1939, and relocated with the school to Midhurst. In September 1940, with the Luftwaffe threatening the south-east, the Clarks moved their son to a safer location at Cheltenham College Junior School. From there he went to Eton College in January 1942. In February 1946 while at Eton he joined the Territorial training regiment of the Household Cavalry based at Windsor, but was discharged in August when he had left Eton. He then went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he read Modern History under Hugh Trevor-Roper, obtaining a second-class honours degree. After Oxford he wrote articles for the motoring press before he went on to read for the bar. He was called to the bar in 1955 but did not practise. Instead, he became a military historian.

Historical writing

Clark's first book, ''The Donkeys'' (1961), was a revisionist history of the British Expeditionary Force's campaigns at the beginning of World War I. The book covers Western Front operations during 1915, including the offensives at Neuve Chapelle, Aubers Ridge and Loos, and ending with the dismissal of Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF, and his replacement by Douglas Haig. Clark describes the battle scenes and criticises the actions of almost all the generals involved in the heavy loss of life that occurred. However much of the book is based on the political manoevres behind the scenes as commanders jostled for influence, and as Sir John French had difficulties dealing with his French allies and with Kitchener. Haig's own diaries are used to demonstrate how Haig positioned himself to take over command. Clark does not reflect on Haig's performance as Commander-in-Chief nor on the battles of 1916 and 1917.

The book's title was drawn from the expression "Lions led by donkeys" which has been widely used to compare British soldiers with their commanders. In 1921 Princess Evelyn Blücher published her memoirs, which attributed the phrase to the German GHQ in 1918. Clark was unable to find the origin of the expression and prefaced the book with a supposed dialogue between two generals and attributed it to the memoirs of Falkenhayn. Clark was equivocal about the source for the dialogue for many years although in 2007, a friend Euan Graham recalled a conversation in the mid sixties when Clark on being challenged as to the dialogue's provenance looked sheepish and said "well I invented it". This invention has provided a major opportunity for critics of "The Donkeys" to condemn the work.

Clark's choice of subject was strongly influenced by Lord Lee of Fareham, a family friend who had never forgotten what he saw as the shambles of the BEF. In developing his work, Clark became close friends with historian Basil Liddell Hart, who acted as his mentor. Liddell Hart read the drafts and was concerned by Clark's "intermittent carelessness". He produced several lists of corrections which were incorporated, and wrote "It is a fine piece of writing , and often brilliantly penetrating". However, even before publication, Clark's work was coming under attack from supporters of Haig, including his son 2nd Lord Haig and historians John Terraine, Robert Blake and Hugh Trevor-Roper, former tutor to Clark, who was married to Haig's daughter. On publication, ''The Donkeys'' received very supportive comments from Lord Beaverbrook, who recommended the work to Winston Churchill, and ''The Times'' printed a positive review. However, John Terraine and A.J.P. Taylor wrote damning reviews, and Michael Howard wrote "As history it is worthless" and criticised "slovenly scholarship". Howard however commended its readability and noted that descriptions of battles and battlefields are "sometimes masterly". Field Marshal Montgomery later told Clark it was "A Dreadful Tale: You have done a good job in exposing the total failure of the generalship". The book was considered to be the inspiration for the popular pacifist musical ''Oh! What a Lovely War'', and Clark, after legal wrangles, was awarded some royalties.

The book became popular with the reading public as provocative and entertaining and reflected the public attitudes at the time. In more recent years, as the pendulum has moved in favour of Haig and the British generals, the work has been criticised by some historians for being one-sided in its treatment of World War One generals. Brian Bond, in editing a 1991 collection of essays on First World War history, expressed the collective desire of the authors to move beyond "popular stereotypes of ''The Donkeys''," while also acknowledging that serious leadership mistakes were made and that the authors would do little to rehabilitate the reputations of, for instance, the senior commanders on The Somme. War Museum historian Peter Simkins complained that it was frustratingly difficult to counter Clark's prevailing view. Professor Richard Holmes made a similar complaint writing "Alan Clark's ''The Donkeys'', for all its verve and amusing narrative, added a streak of pure deception to the writings of the First World War. Its title is based on 'Lions led by Donkeys'. Sadly for historical accuracy, there is no evidence whatever for this; none. Not a jot or scintilla. The real problem is that such histories have sold well and continue to do so. They reinforce historical myth by delivering to the reader exactly what they expect to read". Clark's work was described as "contemptible" by the Marquess of Anglesey who regarded Clark as the most arrogant and least respectable writer of the War. In this case, there was "form" as Anglesey's history of the British Cavalry had been reviewed by Clark with the comments "cavalry are nearly always a disaster, a waste of space and resources."

Journalist Gary Mead, in conjunction with Professor Hew Strachan of Oxford University, and Dr. A. R Morton of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, criticised Clark's use of passages written by Haig to demonstrate Haig's own 'incompetence' in his book, ''The Good Soldier''. He wrote, "Alan Clark['s] .....own 1961 anti-Haig book, ''The Donkeys'', shamelessley wrenched Haig's words out of context". Graham Stewart, Clark's researcher for ''The Tories'' noted "Alan wasn't against quoting people selectively to make them look bad" Bond maintained that Clark criticised British Generalship, most of all Haig, for its 'obsession' with cavalry, which was obsolete in industrial warfare. Bond and John Bourne write that cavalry had rarely been used on the Western Front in the First World War, or indeed in the decade leading up to the war. By 1915-1916, the Cavalry Corps was reduced from five to three divisions, and soon constituted less than three percent of the British Army.

Clark produced several more studies of the First World War and the Second World War, including ''Barbarossa'' — after Operation Barbarossa — a history of the Eastern Front in the Second World War, before becoming involved in politics.

Political career

Clark became MP for Plymouth Sutton at the February 1974 general election. During his first five years in parliament, the Conservative Party was in opposition. Although he was personally liked by Margaret Thatcher, for whom he had great admiration, she never entrusted him with high office.

Clark received his first ministerial posting as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Employment in 1983, where he was responsible for moving the approval of regulations relating to equal pay in the House of Commons. His speech in 1983 followed a wine-tasting dinner with his friend of many years standing, Christopher Selmes. The complexities of the regulations were too unclear for him to answer questions, and the then-opposition MP Clare Short stood up on a point of order and, after acknowledging that MPs cannot formally accuse each other of being drunk in the House of Commons, accused him of being "incapable", a euphemism for drunk. Although the Government benches were furious at the accusation, Clark later admitted in his diaries that the wine-tasting had affected him. To date, he is the only Member of Parliament to have been accused in the House of Commons of being drunk at the dispatch box.

In 1986 he was promoted to Minister of Trade at the Department of Trade and Industry. It was during this time that he became involved with the issue of export licences to Iraq. In 1989, he became Minister for Defence Procurement at the Ministry of Defence.

Clark left Parliament in 1992 following Margaret Thatcher's fall from power. His admission during the Matrix Churchill trial that he had been "economical with the ''actualité''" in answer to parliamentary questions over export licences to Iraq, caused the collapse of the trial and the establishment of the Scott Inquiry, which helped undermine John Major's government.

Clark became bored with life outside politics and returned to Parliament as member for Kensington and Chelsea in the election of 1997. Clark was critical of NATO's campaign in the Balkans.

Clark was an outspoken maverick with strong views on British unionism, racial difference, social class, and in support of animal rights. It is evident that he was a High Tory, nationalist and a protectionist and at the least, always put the British interest above all others, which included strong Euroscepticism. He referred to Enoch Powell as 'The Prophet'. Clark once declared: "It is natural to be proud of your race and your country", and in a departmental meeting, allegedly referred to Africa as "Bongo Bongo land". When called to account, however, by then Prime Minister John Major, Clark denied the comment had any racist overtones, claiming it had simply been a reference to the President of Gabon, Omar Bongo.

Forced to condemn the National Front in the 1970s, Clark pointed out that the media and the government failed to pick out the racism towards white people even though he met John Tyndall, chairman of the National Front and founder of the British National Party, and considered him 'a bit of a blockhead'. However, when called a fascist by The Guardian, Clark wrote a letter to the editor which stated: "I am not a fascist. Fascists are shopkeepers. I am a Nazi."

When Clark was Minister of Trade, responsible for overseeing arms sales to foreign governments, he was interviewed by journalist John Pilger who asked him:

:JP ''"Did it bother you personally that you were causing such mayhem and human suffering (by supplying arms for Indonesia's war in East Timor)?"'' :AC ''"No, not in the slightest, it never entered my head."'' :JP ''"I ask the question because I read you are a vegetarian and you are quite seriously concerned about the way animals are killed."'' :AC ''"Yeah?"'' :JP ''"Doesn’t that concern extend to the way humans, albeit foreigners, are killed?"'' :AC ''"Curiously not. No."''

While involved in the Matrix Churchill trial he was cited in a divorce case in South Africa, in which it was revealed he had had affairs with Valerie Harkess, the wife of a South African judge, and her daughters Josephine and Alison. After sensationalist tabloid headlines, Clark's wife Jane remarked upon what Clark had called "the coven" with the line: 'Well, what do you expect when you sleep with below stairs types?', and referred to her husband as an: 'S,H,one,T'.

Diaries

Clark published the first volume of his political and personal diaries in 1993, which caused a minor embarrassment at the time with their candid descriptions of senior Conservative politicians such as Michael Heseltine, Douglas Hurd, and Kenneth Clarke. He quoted Michael Jopling — referring to Heseltine, deputy PM at the time — as saying "The trouble with Michael is that he had to buy his own furniture" and judged it "Snobby but cutting". His account of Thatcher's downfall in 1990 has been described as the most vivid that we have and is now accepted by most contemporary political historians as the definitive account. Two subsequent volumes of his diaries cover the earlier and later parts of Clark's parliamentary career. The diaries reveal recurring worries about Japanese militarism but his real views are often not clear because he enjoyed making 'tongue in cheek' remarks to the discomfiture of those he believed to be fools, as in his sympathy for a British version of National Socialism.

Death

Clark died in 1999 of a brain tumour which he was convinced was caused by his heavy cellular phone use. His diary account of his slow death has been lauded as moving and explicit. He is buried in the grounds of Saltwood Castle. After his death, the Kensington and Chelsea constituency was won by Michael Portillo.

Media

In 2004, John Hurt portrayed Clark, and Jenny Agutter his wife, in the BBC's ''The Alan Clark Diaries'', re-igniting some of the controversies surrounding their original publication and once again brought his name into the UK press and media. An authorised biography of Alan Clark by Ion Trewin, the editor of his diaries, was published in September 2009.

Styles and honours

Mr Alan Clark (1928–1969)

The Hon. Alan Clark (1969–1974)

The Hon. Alan Clark MP (1974–1991)

The Rt. Hon. Alan Clark MP (1991–1992)

The Rt. Hon. Alan Clark (1992–1997)

The Rt. Hon. Alan Clark MP (1997–1999)

Books

''Diaries'': Three volumes 1972-1999

* Volume 1 ''Diaries: In Power 1983-1992'' (1993)

* Volume 2 ''Diaries: Into Politics 1972-1982'' (2000)

* Volume 3 ''Diaries: The Last Diaries 1993-1999'' (2002)

''The Donkeys, A History of the British Expeditionary Force in 1915'' (1961)

''The Fall Of Crete'' (1963)

''Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict 1941-45'' (1965)

''The Suicide of Empires'' (1971)

''Aces High, The War in the Air Over the Western Front 1914-18'' (1973)

''The Tories: Conservatives and the Nation State 1922-1997'' (1998)

''Backfire, A Passion for Cars and Motoring'' (2001)

''Summer Season: A Novel''

''The Lion Heart: A tale of the war in Vietnam''

Notes

References

External links

Alan Clark - Daily Telegraph obituary

BBC: The Alan Clark I knew

BBC Drama: The Alan Clark Diaries

Guardian obituary for Alan Clark

Channel 4 biography of the Conservative Politician

Offices held

Category:1928 births Category:1999 deaths Category:Members of the United Kingdom Parliament for English constituencies Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Category:English vegetarians Category:English historians Category:English diarists Category:People connected with Plymouth Category:UK MPs 1974 Category:UK MPs 1974–1979 Category:UK MPs 1979–1983 Category:UK MPs 1983–1987 Category:UK MPs 1987–1992 Category:UK MPs 1997–2001 Category:Old Etonians Category:Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Category:Deaths from brain cancer Category:British military historians Category:Cancer deaths in England Category:Animal rights advocates

he:אלן קלארק (היסטוריון) sv:Alan Clark (politiker)

Name	Clark
Meaning	Clerk, scribe, secretary
Region	England
Language	Old English
Related names	Clarke, Clerk
Footnotes	Frequency Comparisons }}

Clark is surname in the English language, ultimately derived from the Latin ''clericus'' meaning "scribe", "secretary" or a scholar within a religious order, referring to someone who was educated. ''Clark'' evolved from "clerk". First records of the name are found in 12th century England. The name has many variants.

The name is often, especially within the British Isles, considered to be Scottish due to the name occurring more often in Scotland than many other places. ''Clark'' is the twenty-seventh most common surname in the United Kingdom.

According to the 1990 United States Census, ''Clark'' was the twenty-first most frequently encountered surname, accounting for 0.23% of the population.

Clark is also an occasional given name.

List of people with surname Clark

People with the surname Clark include:

Abraham Clark (1725–1794), American politician and Revolutionary War figure

Alan Clark (1928–1999), British Conservative politician and author, son of Kenneth Clark

Allen George Clark (1898–1962), British businessman

Andy Clark (musician), British musician

Anne Clark (born 1960), poet-songwriter

Benjamin S. W. Clark (1829–1912), New York politician

Bob Clark (Benjamin "Bob" Clark) (1941–2007), American director

Brian Clark (disambiguation), several people

Buddy Clark (1911–1949), American singer

Carmel Clark (born 1965), New Zealand swimmer

Catherine Clark (born 1976), Canadian television host

Charles Clark (disambiguation), several people

Chris Clark (disambiguation), several people

Christian Clark (born 1979), Australian actor

Claudine Clark, R&B; singer and performer of the 1962 hit record "Party Lights"

Colin Clark, British economist

Corrie Clark (born 1982), American breaststroke swimmer

Dallas Clark, American football player

Daniel Clark (Canadian politician and actor), Canadian actor

Daniel Kinnear Clark (1822–1896), British railway mechanical engineer

Darius Clark (1798–1871), New York physician and politician

Dave Clark (musician) (born 1942), drummer of The Dave Clark Five

David Clark (disambiguation), several people

Davis Wasgatt Clark (1812–1871), American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church

Dick Clark (born 1929), entertainer and producer

Dick Clark (disambiguation), several people

Douglas Clark (disambiguation), several people

Duncan Clark (1910–2007), an American public health specialist

Duncan Clark (athlete) (1915–2003), Scottish hammer thrower

Dwight Clark, American football player

Ernest Clark (1912–1994), British actor

Eugene Clark (disambiguation), several people

Frank Clark (footballer), English football player

Frank M. Clark (1915–2003), American Congressman

Gavin Brown Clark (1846–1930), MP for Caithness

George Clark (disambiguation), several people

Gerry Clark (1927–1999), New Zealand sailor and ornithologist

Ginger Clark (1879–1943), American baseball pitcher

Glenn Clark (born 1969), Canadian coach of Toronto Rock

Helen Clark (born 1950), Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008

Hilda Clark (1872–1932), American Coca-Cola advertising spokesperson

Hugh Massey Clark (1886–1956), person of New York

Hilda Margery Clarke (born 1926), English painter and curator

Hulda Regehr Clark, alternative medicine practitioner

Isabella Clark, wife of Prime Minister of Canada Sir John A. Macdonald

Jack Clark (disambiguation), several people

James Clark (disambiguation), several people

Jeff Clark (disambiguation), several people

Joe Clark (born 1939), former Prime Minister of Canada

John Clark (disambiguation), several people

Jonas Gilman Clark (1815–1900), American businessman and the founder of Clark University

Joseph Clark (disambiguation), several people

Joshua Clark, (born 1980), American writer

Karen Clark (born 1945), American politician from Minnesota

Katy Clark (born 1967), British politician and trade union official

Kenneth Clark (psychologist) (1914–2005), African American psychologist who testified in ''Brown v. Board of Education''

Kenneth Clark (1902–1983), British art historian; creator of the series ''Civilisation''

Leslie J. Clark (1924–2003), British engineer and founder of Parvalux

Louis Clark, musician and conductor with the Orchestra (former members of ELO and ELO Part II)

Manning Clark (1915–1991), Australian historian

Marcus R. Clark (born 1956), Louisiana Supreme Court justice

Mark Wayne Clark (1896–1984), American Army General in WW2 (Italy) and the Korean War

Nancy B. Clark, person of Marstons Mills, Massachusetts

Naomi Clark, fictional character from The CW primetime drama 90210, the fourth series of the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise

Ocky Clark (born 1960), American middle distance runner

Otey Clark (born 1915), American baseball pitcher

Ramsey Clark (born 1927), American Attorney General and activist

Ranza Clark (born 1961), Canadian middle distance runner

Roger Clark, British rally driver

Ryan Clark (disambiguation), several people

Samuel Clark (disambiguation), several people

Samuel Delbert Clark (1910–2003), Canadian sociologist

Sherman Clark (1899–1980), American Olympic rower and Rear Admiral

Simon Clark, English horror novel writer

Steve Clark (1960–1991), British guitarist for Def Leppard

Stuart Clark (born 1975), Australian cricketer

Theresa Maria Clark (c.1890–1953), person of New York

Thomas Clark (disambiguation), several people

Tom Clark (journalist), Canadian television journalist

Tom C. Clark (1899–1977), Attorney General of the United States, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, father of Attorney General Ramsey Clark

Tracy Clark, fictional character from The CW primetime drama 90210

Wendel Clark (born 1966), retired Canadian ice hockey player

Wesley K. Clark (born 1944), American Army General in the Vietnam War and Kosovo

Wilfrid Le Gros Clark (1895–1971), British palaeanthropologist

Will Clark (born 1964), American baseball player

William Clark (disambiguation), several people

The Clark Sisters, American gospel vocalists from Detroit

References

External links

Clark(e) Surname DNA Project

See also

Clark (taxonomic authority)

Clarke

Clerke (disambiguation)

Category:English-language surnames Category:Lists of people sharing a surname Category:Occupational surnames Category:Surnames originating in England

de:Clark (Familienname) sv:Clark vi:Clark

name	John Pilger
birth date	9 October 1939
birth place	Sydney, Australia
residence	United Kingdom
nationality	Australian
occupation	Journalist, writer, documentary filmmaker
website	johnpilger.com
footnotes	}}

John Richard Pilger (born 9 October 1939) is an Australian journalist and documentary maker, based in London.

Since his early years as a war correspondent in Vietnam, Pilger has been a strong critic of United States, and British, foreign policy which he considsers is driven by an imperialist agenda. Pilger has also criticised his native country's treatment of Indigenous Australians and the practices of the mainstream media. In the UK print media, he has had a long association with the ''Daily Mirror'', and writes a fortnightly columnn for the ''New Statesman'' magazine.

Pilger has twice won Britain's Journalist of the Year Award, and his documentaries, screened internationally, have gained awards in Britain and worldwide, and the journalist has received several honorary doctorates. One of Pilger's many critics though, the writer William Shawcross, considers him "one of the worst journalists writing in the English language".

Early life and career

Pilger was born and raised in Bondi, a suburb of Sydney. He attended Sydney Boys High School, where he started a student newspaper, ''The Messenger'', and later joined a four-year journalist trainee scheme with the Australian Consolidated Press. Beginning his career in 1958 as a copy boy with the ''Sydney Sun'', he later moved to the city's ''Daily Telegraph'' where he was a reporter, sports writer and sub-editor. He also freelanced and worked for the Sydney ''Sunday Telegraph'', the daily paper's sister title. After moving to Europe, he was for a year a freelance correspondent in Italy.

Settling in the UK in 1962, working as a sub-editor, Pilger joined British United Press and then Reuters in London on their middle-east desk, and was recruited by the English ''Daily Mirror'' in 1963, again as a sub-editor at first. Later, he was a reporter, a feature writer and Chief Foreign Correspondent for the title. On 5 June 1968 he witnessed the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Pilger has commented that "there's no question that there was another gunman". During the next twenty years, Pilger became the ''Daily Mirror'''s star reporter, particularly on social issues. He was a war correspondent in Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt, India, Bangladesh and Biafra. Nearly eighteen months after Robert Maxwell bought the ''Mirror'' (on 12 July 1984), Pilger was sacked by Richard Stott, the newspaper's editor, on 31 December 1985.

Early television work

His career on television began on ''World in Action'' (Granada Television) in 1969, for whom he made two documentaries broadcast in 1970 and 1971, the earliest of more than fifty involving Pilger. ''The Quiet Mutiny'' in 1970 was the first of these. Filmed at Camp Snuffy, the film presented a character study of the common US soldier during the Vietnam War, revealing the shifting morale and open rebellion of Western troops. Pilger described the film as "something of a scoop" - it was the first documentary to show the open rebellion within the drafted ranks of the US military that led to the withdrawal of the land army in 1973. "When I flew to New York and showed it to Mike Wallace, the star reporter of CBS' ''60 Minutes'', he agreed. "Real shame we can't show it here"", Pilger said in an interview with the ''New Statesman''. Later films about Vietnam followed ''The Quiet Mutiny'', ''Vietnam: Still America's War'' (1974), ''Do You Remember Vietnam?'' (1978) and ''Vietnam: The Last Battle'' (1995).

Following a brief unhappy period on the BBC's ''Midweek'' television series during 1972-73, five reports were completed, but only two were broadcast, the journalist was given a regular television outlet at ATV. The ''Pilger'' half-hour documentary series was commissioned by Charles Denton, then a producer with ATV, for screening on the British ITV network. The series ran for five series from 1974 until 1977, at first runnng in the UK on Sunday afternoons after ''Weekend World''; later it was scheduled in a weekday peak-time evening slot. The last series included "A Faraway Country" (broadcast in September 1977) about dissidents in Czechoslavakia, then part of the Communist Soviet bloc. Pilger and his team interviewed members of Charter 77, and others, secretly using domestic film equipment. In the documentary Pilger praises the courage and commitment to freedom of Charter 77 and describes the communist totalitarianism as "fascism disguised as socialism".

Pilger's programmes were then extended to fill an hour, placed in the 9pm slot before ''News at Ten'', and gained the journalist a high profile in Britain. After ATV lost its franchise in 1981, he has continued to make documentaries for screening on ITV, initially for Central, and later via Carlton Television.

Documentaries and career: 1978-2000

Cambodia

In 1979, Pilger and two colleagues with whom he collaborated for many years, documentary film-maker David Munro and photographer Eric Piper, entered Cambodia in the wake of the overthrow of the Pol Pot regime. The result was a series of world exclusives, the first of which occupied almost an entire ''Daily Mirror'', which sold out. This was followed by an ITV documentary, ''Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia'', which brought to people's living rooms the suffering of the Khmer people. Some $45 million was raised, unsolicited, in mostly small donations following the showing of ''Year Zero'', including almost £4 million raised by schoolchildren in the UK. This funded the first substantial relief to Cambodia, including life saving drugs like penicillin and the manufacture of clothes to replace the black uniforms people had been forced to wear. According to Brian Walker, director of Oxfam, "a solidarity and compassion surged across our nation" from the broadcast of ''Year Zero''. Pilger and Munro made four later films about Cambodia. During the filming of ''Cambodia Year One'', they were warned that Pilger was on a Khmer Rouge 'death list' and, in one incident, they narrowly escaped an ambush. The British Film Institute (BFI) has described ''Year Zero'' as one of the ten most influential documentary films of the 20th century.

Pilger himself described the British reaction to ''Year Zero'' in 2006:

The documentary as a television "event" can send ripples far and wide... ''Year Zero'' not only revealed the horror of the Pol Pot years, it showed how Richard Nixon's and Henry Kissinger's 'secret' bombing of that country had provided a critical catalyst for the rise of the Khmer Rouge. It also exposed how the west, led by the United States and Britain, was imposing an embargo, like a medieval siege, on the most stricken country on earth. This was a reaction to the fact that Cambodia's liberator was Vietnam - a country that had come from the wrong side of the Cold War and that had recently defeated the US. Cambodia's suffering was a wilful revenge. Britain and the US even backed Pol Pot's demand that his man continue to occupy Cambodia's seat at the UN, while Margaret Thatcher stopped children's milk going to the survivors of his nightmare regime. Little of this was reported. Had ''Year Zero'' simply described the monster that Pol Pot was, it would have been quickly forgotten. By reporting the collusion of "our" governments, it told a wider truth about how the world was run... Within two days of ''Year Zero'' going to air, 40 sacks of post arrived at ATV ... in Birmingham - 26,000 first-class letters in the first post alone. The station quickly amassed £1m, almost all of it in small amounts. "This is for Cambodia," wrote a Bristol bus driver, enclosing his week's wage. Entire pensions were sent, along with entire savings. Petitions arrived at Downing Street, one after the other, for weeks. MPs received hundreds of thousands of letters, demanding that British policy change (which it did, eventually). And none of it was asked for. For me, the public response to ''Year Zero'' gave the lie to clichés about "compassion fatigue", an excuse that some broadcasters and television executives use to justify the current descent into the cynicism and passivity of Big Brotherland. Above all, I learned that a documentary could reclaim shared historical and political memories, and present their hidden truths. The reward then was a compassionate and an informed public; and it still is."

In a 2007 speech, "Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire", Pilger described his experience with executives of the American Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) who refused to screen ''Year Zero'', which, according to Pilger, has never been broadcast in the USA.

A claim in one of those later Pilger documentaries, ''Cambodia - The Betrayal'' (1990), led to a libel case. ''The Times'' of 6 July 1991 reported:

Two men who claimed that a television documentary accused them of being SAS members who trained Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge to lay mines, accepted "very substantial" libel damages in the High Court yesterday. Christopher Geidt and Anthony De Normann settled their action against the journalist John Pilger and Central Television on the third day of the hearing. Desmond Browne, QC, for Mr Pilger and Central Television, said his clients had not intended to allege the two men trained the Khmer Rouge to lay mines, but they accepted that was how the program had been understood.

Australia's indigenous population

Pilger has long been a critic of Australian government policy, particularly of what he regards as its inherent racism and the poor treatment of its indigenous population. He has made several documentaroes on this subject, such as ''The Secret Country-The First Australians Fight Back'' (1985), and has wriiten the book ''A Secret Country'' published in 1989.

Pilger wrote in 2000 that the 1998 legislation that removed the common law rights of Indigenous Australians "is just one of the disgraces that has given Australia the distinction of being the only developed country whose government has been condemned as racist by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination."

East Timor

In 1993 Pilger slipped into East Timor and shot ''Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy''. The revelations of this film alerted the British public to the horror of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, which began in 1975. ''Death of a Nation'' prompted an international outcry which ultimately led to Indonesian withdrawal from East Timor and eventual independence in 2000. When ''Death of a Nation'' was screened in Britain it was the highest rating documentary in 15 years and 5,000 telephone calls per minute were made to the programme's action line. When ''Death of a Nation'' was screened in Australia in June 1994, Foreign Minister Gareth Evans declared that Pilger "had a track record of distorted sensationalism mixed with sanctimony."

Documentaries and career since 2000

Later newspaper career

In 1987 Pilger was a founder of ''News on Sunday'' in London, and titular Editor-in-Chief, but resigned before publication. Pilger has a fortnightly column in ''New Statesman'', his most frequent outlet, which began in 1991 while Steve Platt was editor of the magazine. Reportedly, Pilger has described his role at the ''Statesman'' as a "fig leaf". In 2001, while Piers Morgan was editor of the ''Mirror'', he returned to his old paper in 2001, after the 9/11 attacks.

''Palestine Is Still the Issue''

Following broadcast on ITV in the UK, Pilger's documentary ''Palestine Is Still the Issue'' (2002) was alleged by the UK press to be inaccurate and biased. The UK television regulator, the Independent Television Commission (ITC), ordered an investigation. Based on the results of the investigation, the ITC rejected the complaints made about the film, stating:

The ITC raised with Carlton all the significant areas of inaccuracy critics of the programme alleged and the broadcaster answered them by reference to a range of historical texts. The ITC is not a tribunal of fact and is particularly aware of the difficulties of verifying 'historical fact' but the comprehensiveness and authority of Carlton's sources were persuasive, not least because many appeared to be of Israeli origin.

Pilger's documentary, the ITC added, "was not in breach of the ITC Programme Code... Adequate opportunity was given to a pro-Israeli government perspective."

In 2010, Pilger endorsed the Canadian Boat to Gaza , part of the Freedom Flotilla 2 which aims to end the Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip.

Diego Garcia

Pilger's 2004 film ''Stealing a Nation'' told the story of the people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean. In the 1960s and 70s, British governments expelled the entire population of the Chagos Archipelago, dumping them in the slums of Mauritius. The aim was to give the principal island of this Crown Colony, Diego Garcia, to the Americans who wanted it as a major military base, from where US planes have since bombed Afghanistan and Iraq. The International Criminal Court later described this act as "a crime against humanity". Pilger strongly criticised Tony Blair for not making any real response to the 2000 High Court ruling that the British expulsion of the island's natives to Mauritius in order to make way for a United States Air Force base had been illegal.

In March 2005, ''Stealing a Nation'' was awarded Britain's most prestigious documentary prize, the Royal Television Society Award.

In May 2006, the UK High Court ruled in favour of the Chagossians in their battle to prove they were illegally removed by the UK government during the depopulation of Diego Garcia, paving the way for a return to their homeland. The leader of the Chagos Refugee Group, Olivier Bancoult, described it as a "special day, a day to remember". In May 2007, the UK Government's appeal against the 2006 High Court ruling was dismissed and they took the matter to the House of Lords. In October 2008, the House of Lords ruled in favour of the Government, overturning the original High Court ruling.

Latin America

His 2007 film ''The War on Democracy'' was Pilger's first cinema release and was named Best Documentary at the 2008 One World Media Awards. The film explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with Latin American countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Using, among other sources, archive footage sourced by Michael Moore's archivist Carl Deal, the film explores the role of US intervention, overt and covert, in toppling a series of governments in the region since the 1950s. This includes, for example, discussing reports of US involvement in the overthrow of the democratically elected Chilean government of Salvador Allende in 1973 and its replacement by the military dictatorship of General Pinochet. Pilger interviews several ex-CIA agents who purportedly took part in secret campaigns against democratic countries. He investigates the School of the Americas in the US state of Georgia, where Pinochet’s torture squads were reportedly trained along with tyrants and death squad leaders in Haiti, El Salvador, Brazil and Argentina.

The film also explores the attempted overthrow of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez in 2002 and how the people of Caracas rose up to force his return to power. It looks at the wider rise of populist governments across South America led by figures calling for loosening ties with Washington and a fairer redistribution of the continent's natural wealth. "[The film]" says Pilger, "is about the struggle of people to free themselves from a modern form of slavery". These people, he says, "describe a world not as American presidents like to see it as useful or expendable, they describe the power of courage and humanity among people with next to nothing. They reclaim noble words like democracy, freedom, liberation, justice, and in doing so they are defending the most basic human rights of all of us in a war being waged against all of us".

In May 2007, Pilger co-signed and put forward a letter supporting the refusal of the government of Venezuela under Hugo Chavez to renew the broadcasting licence of Venezuela's largest television network Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV), as they openly supported a 2002 coup attempt against the democratically elected government. Pilger and other signatories suggest that if the BBC or ITV used their news broadcasts to publicly support a coup against the British government, they would suffer similar consequences. Human rights groups including Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have described the RCTV decision as an effort to stifle freedom of expression.

Western leaders

In addition to criticizing the policies of former United States President George W. Bush, Pilger has also taken aim at former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whom he believes to be just as culpable as President Bush for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

On 25 July 2005, Pilger ascribed blame for the 2005 London bombings that took place the same month to Blair, whose decision to follow Bush helped to generate the rage that he maintains precipitated those bombings.

In the same column a year later, Pilger described Blair as a war criminal for supporting Israel's actions during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. He also asserted that Blair gave permission to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 to initiate what would ultimately become Operation Defensive Shield.

Pilger has also criticised United States President Barack Obama, describing him as "a glossy Uncle Tom who would bomb Pakistan." and whose theme "was the renewal of America as a dominant, avaricious bully." Pilger asserts, "In his first 100 days, Obama has excused torture, opposed ''habeas corpus'' and demanded more secret government."

Other issues

Critic of mainstream media

He is a strong critic of the institutions and economic forces that structure 'mainstream' journalism. In an address at Columbia University on 14 April 2006, he said:

During the Cold War, a group of Russian journalists toured the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by their hosts for their impressions. 'I have to tell you,' said their spokesman, 'that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV, that all the opinions on all the vital issues were by and large, the same. To get that result in our country, we imprison people, we tear out their fingernails. Here, you don't have that. What's the secret? How do you do it?'

Pilger said, while speaking to journalism students at the University of Lincoln, that mainstream journalism means corporate journalism, and as such represents vested corporate interests over those of the public.

He is particularly scornful of pro-Iraq war commentators on the liberal left, or 'liberal interventionists', such as Nick Cohen and David Aaronovitch.

In 2003 he was interviewed by the New Zealand journalist Kim Hill on her television show ''Face to Face With Kim Hill''. The interview became infamous in New Zealand. Pilger, being interviewed via a live-cross, complained that Hill had not researched him before the interview, saying "You waste my time because you have not prepared for this interview, as any journalist does, and I've done many interviews. The one thing is to prepare for them and this interview, frankly, is a disgrace." Hill, who had commenced the interview by proposing that the Iraq war was "a just war", eventually threw Pilger's book at his image on the screen.

Honours and awards

Pilger has received human rights and journalism awards, including the Richard Dimbleby Award for factual reporting at the 1990 BAFTA Awards, as well as many honorary doctorates. The jury’s citation reads as follows: "For work as an author, film-maker and journalist as well as for courage as a foreign and war correspondent in enabling the voices of the powerless to be heard. For commitment to peace with justice by exposing and holding governments to account for human rights abuses and for fearless challenges to censorship in any form."

''Other awards include:'' One World Media Awards - TV Documentary Award for his ITV1 film ''The War on Democracy'', on the role of Washington in Latin American politics. (2008) The Grierson Trust Award, UK (2011)

Praise and criticism

Praise

In ''Breaking the Silence: The Television Reporting of John Pilger'', his appraisal of the journalist's documentaries, Anthony Hayward wrote, "For more than a generation, he has been an ever stronger voice for those without a voice and a thorn in the side of authority, the Establishment. His work, particularly his television documentaries, has also made him rare in being a journalist who is universally known, a champion of those for whom he fights and the scourge of politicians and others whose actions he exposes." Noam Chomsky said of Pilger: "John Pilger's work has been a beacon of light in often dark times. The realities he has brought to light have been a revelation, over and over again, and his courage and insight a constant inspiration." According to Harold Pinter, Nobel Laureate and member of the Stop the War Coalition, "John Pilger is fearless. He unearths, with steely attention to facts, the filthy truth, and tells it as it is... I salute him." Martha Gellhorn, the American novelist, journalist and war correspondent, said that "[John Pilger] has taken on the great theme of justice and injustice... He documents and proclaims the official lies that we are told and that most people accept or don't bother to think about. [He] belongs to an old and unending worldwide company, the men and women of conscience. Some are as famous as Tom Paine and William Wilberforce, some as unknown as a tiny group calling itself Grandmothers Against The Bomb.... If they win, it is slowly; but they never entirely lose. To my mind, they are the blessed proof of the dignity of man. John has an assured place among them. I'd say he is a charter member for his generation." John Simpson, the BBC's world affairs editor, has said, "A country that does not have a John Pilger in its journalism is a very feeble place indeed."

Criticism

The English writer Auberon Waugh, writing in ''The Spectator'' in the 1970s in response to an article Pilger had written alleging Thai complicity in child trafficking (whose research was challenged), coined the verb "to pilger", defined as: ''to present information in a sensationalist manner to reach a foregone conclusion''. The word was included in the Oxford Dictionary of New Words in 1991, but removed from the subsequent edition after Pilger complained and, according to some sources, threatened legal action. Noam Chomsky responded to Waugh's neologism by stating that "pilgerize" was "invented by journalists furious about his incisive and courageous reporting, and knowing that the only response they are capable of is ridicule." The Anglo-American writer Christopher Hitchens said of Pilger: "I remember thinking that his work from Vietnam was very good at the time. I dare say if I went back and read it again I’d probably still admire quite a lot of it. But there is a word that gets overused and can be misused – namely, anti-American – and it has to be used about him. So that for me sort of spoils it... even when I’m inclined to agree." Gerard Henderson, a Conservative Australian newspaper columnist, has accused him of "engaging in hyperbole against western democracies." ''The Economist'' Lexington columnist commented on Pilger's account of the Arab uprising:

Next up is the egregious John Pilger, who thinks the Arab revolts show that the West in general and the United States in particular are "fascist":

The revolt in the Arab world is against not merely a resident dictator, but a worldwide economic tyranny, designed by the US Treasury and imposed by the US Agency for International Development, the IMF and the World Bank, which have ensured that rich countries such as Egypt are reduced to vast sweatshops, with 40 per cent of the population earning less than $2 a day. The people's triumph in Cairo was the first blow against what Benito Mussolini called corporatism, a word that appears in his definition of fascism.

... Maybe he hasn't noticed, but what most of the Arab protesters say they want are the very freedoms that they know full well, even if Pilger doesn't, to be available in the West. No doubt he believes they are labouring under some massive mind-control delusion engineered by the CIA.

Bibliography

Books

''The Last Day'' (1975)

''Aftermath: The Struggles of Cambodia and Vietnam'' (1981)

''The Outsiders'' (with Michael Coren, 1984)

''Heroes'' (1986)

''A Secret Country'' (1989)

''Distant Voices'' (1992 and 1994)

''Hidden Agendas'' (1998)

''Reporting the World: John Pilger's Great Eyewitness Photographers'' (2001)

''The New Rulers of the World'' (2002)

''Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs'' (ed.) Cape (2004)

''Freedom Next Time'' (2006)

Plays

''The Last Day'' (1983)

Selected documentaries

''World in Action''

* "The Quiet Mutiny" (1970)

''Pilger''

* "An Unfashionable Tragedy" (1975)

* "Nobody's Children" (1975)

* "Zap-The Weapon is Food" (1976)

* "Pyramid Lake is Dying'' (1976)

* "Street of Joy" (1976)

* "A Faraway Country" (1977)

''Do You Remember Vietnam'' (1978)

''Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia'' (1979)

''The Mexicans'' (1980)

''Heroes'' (1980)

''In Search Of Truth In Wartime'' (1982)

''Nicaragua. A Nations Right to Survive'' (1983)

''The Outsiders'' (series, 1983)

''The Truth Game'' (1983)

''Burp! Pepsi V Coke in the Ice Cold War'' (1984)

''The Secret Country-The First Australians Fight Back'' (1985)

''Japan Behind the Mask'' (1987)

''The Last Dream'' (1988)

* "Heroes unsung"

* "Secrets"

* "Other People′s Wars"

''Cambodia: The Betrayal'' (1990)

''War By Other Means'' (1992)

''Cambodia: Return to Year Zero'' (1993)

''Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy'' (1994)

''Flying the Flag, Arming the World'' (1994)

''Vietnam: the Last Battle'' (1995)

''Inside Burma: Land of Fear'' (1996)

''Breaking the Mirror - The Murdoch Effect'' (1997)

''Apartheid Did Not Die'' (1998)

''Welcome to Australia'' (1999)

''Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq'' (2000)

''The New Rulers of the World'' (2001)

''Palestine Is Still the Issue'' (2002)

''Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror'' (2003)

''Stealing a Nation'' (2004)

''The War on Democracy'' (2007)

''The War You Don't See'' (2010)

References

See also

Media Lens

External links

John Pilger - official website

John Pilger Videos - documentaries online, official website

John Pilger at IMDb

''Freedom Next Time: Filmmaker & Journalist John Pilger on Propaganda, the Press, Censorship and Resisting the American Empire'', Democracy Now!, 7 August 2007. Listen and Watch.

John Pilger at Random House Australia

John Pilger: There Is a War on Journalism - video interview by ''Democracy Now!''

John Pilger: Global Support for WikiLeaks is "Rebellion" Against U.S. Militarism - video report by ''Democracy Now!''

Category:1939 births Category:Australian documentary filmmakers Category:Australian expatriates in the United Kingdom Category:Australian freelance journalists Category:Australian investigative journalists Category:Australian war correspondents Category:Living people Category:People from Sydney Category:People educated at Sydney Boys High School

bn:জন পিলজার cs:John Pilger cy:John Pilger de:John Pilger es:John Pilger fr:John Pilger it:John Pilger nl:John Pilger no:John Pilger pt:John Pilger ru:Пилджер, Джон fi:John Pilger sv:John Pilger

birth name	Simon Timothy Roth
birth date	May 14, 1961
birth place	Dulwich, London, England, UK
occupation	Actor/Director
years active	1982–present }}

Simon Timothy "Tim" Roth (born 14 May 1961) is an English film actor and director best known for his roles in the American films ''Reservoir Dogs'', ''Pulp Fiction'', ''Four Rooms'', ''Planet of the Apes'', ''The Incredible Hulk'' and ''Rob Roy'', receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for the latter. He most recently starred as Cal Lightman in the TV series ''Lie to Me''.

Early life

Roth was born in Dulwich, London, the son of Ann, a painter and teacher, and Ernie, a Fleet Street journalist, painter and, until the 1970s, a member of the British Communist Party. Roth's father was born under the surname "Smith" in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York, to a British immigrant family of Irish descent. He changed his surname to "Roth" after World War II "partly through solidarity with the victims of the Holocaust, partly because the English were far from welcome in some of the countries to which his job took him".

Roth attended the Strand School in Tulse Hill. As a young man, he wanted to be a sculptor and studied at London's Camberwell College of Art.

Career

Roth made his acting debut at the age of 21 playing a white power skinhead in a TV movie titled ''Made in Britain''. Roth played an East End character in ''King of the Ghetto'' which was made by the BBC. This four-part drama was shown in 1986 on national television, based on a novel by Farukh Dhondy. Partly set in Brick Lane, the drama caused a sensation among the public, especially amongst the Bengali community. In 1985, he appeared in the television movie ''Murder with Mirrors'' opposite Bette Davis, John Mills and Helen Hayes and in 1984, Roth played an apprentice hitman in Stephen Frears' ''The Hit'' with Terence Stamp and John Hurt, earning an "Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer". With that recognition, he appeared in several other films during the end of the decade. In 1989, he had a memorable supporting role as the buffoonish lackey Mitchell in Peter Greenaway's ''The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover''. In 1990, Roth began to enjoy international attention with starring roles as Vincent van Gogh in Robert Altman's ''Vincent & Theo'' and as Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard's ''Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead''. Roth and other young British actors who were becoming established film actors such as Bruce Payne, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Paul McGann were dubbed the ''Brit Pack'', a nickname based on the Brat Pack of the United States.

Roth impressed director Quentin Tarantino and was cast as Mr. Orange in his 1992 ensemble piece ''Reservoir Dogs''. This film paved the way for more work in Hollywood. In 1994, Tarantino cast him again as a robber in the acclaimed ''Pulp Fiction''. They worked again in the 1995 movie ''Four Rooms'', where Roth played the extremely physically animated role of Ted the Bellhop. Roth was very successful playing viciously evil English nobleman Archibald Cunningham in ''Rob Roy'' opposite Liam Neeson; for this role he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, a Golden Globe nomination, and won a BAFTA.

In 1996, he went a different way, starring with Drew Barrymore in Woody Allen's musical comedy ''Everyone Says I Love You''. He also starred as Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900 (or just "1900") in ''The Legend of 1900'', and in the same year co-starred with the late Tupac Shakur in the drama ''Gridlock'd''. He made a critically acclaimed debut as a director in 1999 with ''The War Zone'', a film version of Alexander Stuart's novel. In 2001, he portrayed General Thade in Tim Burton's ''Planet of the Apes''.thumb|200px|The Abomination in ''[[The Incredible Hulk (film)|The Incredible Hulk'' (2008).]] Roth was the original choice for the role of Severus Snape in the ''Harry Potter'' film series, but he turned it down for the ''Planet of the Apes'' job. He was also considered for the part of Hannibal Lecter in the 2001 film ''Hannibal'' before Anthony Hopkins returned to reclaim the role. Roth appeared in Francis Ford Coppola's ''Youth Without Youth'' and Michael Haneke's ''Funny Games'', then starred opposite Edward Norton in ''The Incredible Hulk'' as Emil Blonsky.

In 2009, he began starring in a new series on Fox called ''Lie To Me''. He plays Dr. Cal Lightman, an expert on body language who assists local and federal law organisations in the investigations of crimes. His character is based on Dr. Paul Ekman, notable psychologist and expert on body language and facial expressions.

In 2010, Roth appeared on the cover to Manic Street Preachers' 2010 studio album, ''Postcards From A Young Man''.

Personal life

Roth has a son, Jack, born to Lori Baker in 1984. He married Nikki Butler in 1993 and they have two sons, Timothy Hunter (b. 1995) and Michael Cormac (b. 1996). Roth is a supporter of the Green Party of England and Wales.

Filmography

As actor

Year	Film	Role	Notes
	''Made in Britain''	Trevor the Skinhead	TV
	Colin	TV
1984		Myron	Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer
	''Murder with Mirrors''	Edgar Lawson	TV
''Return to Waterloo''	Boy Punk
		Harold
''To Kill a Priest''	Feliks
		Role Unspecified
1989	''The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover''	Mitchel
	''Vincent & Theo''	Vincent Van Gogh
''Farendj''	Anton
1991	''Backsliding''	Tom Whitton
	''Reservoir Dogs''	Mr.Orange/Freddy Newandyke
''Jumpin' at the Boneyard''	Manny
	''Bodies, Rest & Motion''	Nick
''El Marido perfecto''	Milan
''Murder in the Heartland''	Charles Starkweather	TV
		Marlow	TV
''Captives''	Philip Chaney
''Little Odessa''	Joshua Shapira	Nominated – Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead
	'Ringo' (Credited as 'Pumpkin')	Starring
		Archibald Cunningham	BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting RoleKansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting ActorNominated – Academy Award for Best Supporting ActorNominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion PictureNominated – Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor
''Four Rooms''	Ted the Bellhop
	''No Way Home''	Joey
''Everyone Says I Love You''	Charles Ferry
''Mocking the Cosmos''	Myrodemnon/Myron
	''Gridlock'd''	Alexander 'Stretch' Rawland
	Dutch Schultz
	James Walter Wayland
''Animals with the Tollkeeper''	Henry
1998	''Legend of 1900''	Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900
	''The Million Dollar Hotel''	Izzy Goldkiss
	Marquis de Lauzun
''Lucky Numbers''	Gig
		Thade
	Hersche Steinschneider alias Erik Jan Hanussen
''The Musketeer''	Febre the Man in Black
2002	''Emmett's Mark''	John Harrett/Frank Dwyer
	''Whatever We Do''	Joe
''To Kill a King''	Oliver Cromwell
		William Pitt
''The Beautiful Country''	Captain Oh
''With It''	"Chicken Louis" Farnatelli
	Mitch Paine
	''Don't Come Knocking''	Sutter
	Jeff Platzer
2006	''Tsunami: The Aftermath''	Nick Fraser	TV
		Victor
	Dominic
''Virgin Territory''	Gerbino
		George
	''King Conqueror''	King Pedro II of Aragon
''Lie to Me''	Dr. Cal Lightman	TV Series, 2009–2011 (Every Episode)
	Skellig
	''Sea Wolf''	Death Larsen	TV Mini series (2 Episodes)
''Pete Smalls Is Dead''	Pete Smalls	post-production
		Det. Michael Bryer	filming
	Gautier	filming

As director

''The War Zone'' (1999)

Awards

People's Choice Awards 2011 – Favorite TV Crime Fighter (''Lie to Me'')

References

External links

The Officially Unofficial Tim Roth Web Page

Allmovie entry for Tim Roth

Audio Interview w/ Rafferty/Mills Connection Podcast (2009)

Category:1961 births Category:Alumni of Camberwell College of Arts Category:Alumni of the University of the Arts Category:European Film Awards winners (people) Category:BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:English film actors Category:English stage actors Category:Living people Category:Old Strandians Category:People from Dulwich Category:English people of Irish descent

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Name	Alan Clarke
Birth date	October 28, 1935
Birth place	Wallasey, Merseyside, England
Death date	July 24, 1990
Occupation	Film director }}

Alan Clarke (28 October 1935 – 24 July 1990) was a television and film director, producer and writer, born in Wallasey, Merseyside, England.

Most of Clarke's output was for television rather than cinema, including work for the famous play strands ''The Wednesday Play'' and ''Play for Today''. His subject matter tended towards social realism, especially with respect to deprived or oppressed communities.

As Dave Rolinson's book (see 'Further reading', below) on Clarke details, between 1962 and 1966 Clarke directed several plays at The Questors Theatre in Ealing, London. Between 1967 and 1969 he directed various ITV productions including plays by Alun Owen (''Shelter'', ''George’s Room'', ''Stella'', ''Thief'', ''Gareth''), Edna O’Brien (''Which Of These Two Ladies Is He Married To?'' and ''Nothing’s Ever Over'') and Roy Minton (''The Gentleman Caller'', ''Goodnight Albert'', ''Stand By Your Screen''). He also worked on the series ''The Informer'', ''The Gold Robbers'' and ''A Man Of Our Times'' (but not, as ''Sight and Sound'' once claimed, ''Big Breadwinner Hog''). Clarke continued to work for ITV through the 1970s but now made much of his work for the BBC. This included pieces for ''The Wednesday Play'' (''Sovereign's Company'' 1970), ''Play for Today'' and ''Play of the Month''. Distinctive work for these strands included further plays by Minton including ''Funny Farm'' (1975) and ''Scum'' (further details below), but also ''Sovereign’s Company'' (1970) by Don Shaw, ''The Hallelujah Handshake'' (1970) by Colin Welland and ''Penda’s Fen'' (1974) by David Rudkin. He also made ''To Encourage the Others'' (1972), a powerful drama documentary about the Derek Bentley case, and several documentaries, including ''Vodka Cola'' (1981) on multinational corporations.

A number of his works achieved notoriety and widespread criticism from the conservative end of the political spectrum, including ''Scum'' (1977), dealing with the subject of borstals (youth prisons), which was banned by the BBC, and subsequently remade by Clarke as a feature film in 1979 (the original television version was eventually screened after his death). His 1982 television play ''Made in Britain,'' starring Tim Roth (in his television debut) as a racist skinhead and his negative relationship with authorities and racial minorities, was based on a screenplay by David Leland. He directed the feature film ''Rita, Sue and Bob Too'' released in 1987.

Clarke's work in the 1980s is fiercely stark and political, including the David Leland plays ''Beloved Enemy'' (1981) on multinational corporations and ''Psy-Warriors'' (1981) on military interrogation. But he also directed David Bowie in ''Baal'' (1982) for the BBC, part of Clarke’s interest in Bertolt Brecht. His film work became more sparse, culminating in ''Contact'' (1984) on the British military presence in Northern Ireland, ''Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire'' (1985), ''Road'' (1987) and his short film (40 mins.) ''Elephant'' (1989) which dealt with 'the troubles' in Northern Ireland and featured a series of shootings with no narrative and hardly any dialogue; all were based on accounts of actual sectarian killings that had taken place in Belfast. The film took its title from Bernard MacLaverty's description of the troubles as "the elephant in our living room" - a reference to the collective denial of the underlying social problems of Northern Ireland. His final production, ''The Firm'' (1989), covered football hooliganism through the lead character played by Gary Oldman, but also the politics of Thatcher’s Britain.

Clarke inspired a generation of actors, writers and directors, including Paul Greengrass, Stephen Frears, Tim Roth, Ray Winstone, Gary Oldman, Danny Brocklehurst and Iain MacDonald. Filmmaker Harmony Korine has cited Clarke as a major influence on his work.

Clarke's son is Gabriel Clarke, an award-winning sports journalist with ITV.

External links

Biography and filmography from the British Film Institute's Screenonline

''Senses of Cinema'' profile

''Village Voice'' article (09/2004)

"The Hallelujah Handshake" from "Play for Today website"

''My Hero Alan Clarke'' Paul Greengrass tells of his unexpected encounter with Clarke at a court martial

Further reading

''Alan Clarke'', Richard Kelly (editor), London: Faber, 1998

''Alan Clarke'', Dave Rolinson, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005

Andrea Grunert, "Alan Clarke: Die unglaubliche Energie der Rechtlosen"; in: ''Lexikon des Kinder- und Jugendfilms im Kino, im Fernsehen und auf Video'', Meitingen: Corian, November 2003 (p. 1-7)

Category:1935 births Category:1990 deaths Category:English film directors Category:English television directors Category:ITV people Category:People from Birkenhead Category:Social realism

de:Alan Clarke fr:Alan Clarke