Director Finlay Pretsell On His Portrait Of Artist Douglas Gordon

On the face of it, Finlay Pretsell’s first feature, Time Trial (2017), seemed like any other underdog sports movie, chronicling the last hurrah of disgraced Scottish cyclist David Millar in his last year as a professional rider at the Tour De France. Others might have taken the easy option and milked this against-all-odds story for dramatic tension, but Pretsell chose instead to focus on the complex mass of confidence and insecurity that lay behind Millar’s public image — the question it asks is not whether Millar will defy the odds and win, but can he survive a loss?

His new film Douglas Gordon By Douglas Gordon is just as insightful, a portrait of the Scottish artist behind such works as 24 Hour Psycho — Hitchcock’s film slowed down to one frame per half a second — and Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, in which 17 cameras tracked the course of a football match by focusing on a single player. As the title suggests, Gordon was not a passive subject, actively fighting his director for authorship of the story. The result is a fascinating deconstruction of the documentary process, with Pretsell both charmed and exasperated by his mercurial and temperamental subject.

DEADLINE: Did you know Douglas Gordon’s work beforehand?

FINLAY PRETSELL: Yes. He was the biggest inspiration to set me on the journey to make films, to be honest. I saw Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait while I was attempting to make a cycling film and I wanted it to be something else. I wanted it to be experiential. I saw Zidane and it blew me away in its ability to take me onto the pitch. Then I met him. I was kind of blown away by his generosity.

DEADLINE: When did you first meet him?

PRETSELL: It was 20 years ago, here at the Edinburgh Film Festival, funnily enough. And he just stood and talked to me and he was so warm and generous and interested and sort of empowered me to do what I wanted to do. Not pretentious, not standoffish, not too busy. I think that’s what I really liked about him. I saw this amazing character. He was so comical, there was something behind the eyes, behind this very Glaswegian accent. There was something about him that made me think, “Oh, this isn’t what I expected.” Artists are generally sort of quiet and introverted, but there was some sort of… not danger about him, exactly, but there was something going on that was exciting and intriguing.

I didn’t think about making a film about him then, but we stayed in touch by email. And then during COVID, I said, “Look, are you up for doing something together?” I heard nothing back. I thought, “OK, whatever, fine.” And then out of the blue, I got a call from Berlin. A Scottish accent. I didn’t know who it was. It was Douglas. “So, what are we going to do?” he said. “Film? Fiction? Drama? Series? Episodic?” From then on, we just started talking, and it took me probably about a year to finally get into his studio, during which time I would record our conversations that we were having. It became this kind of confessional thing, because I’d get him at all times of the day: First thing in the morning, or in the afternoon, or late at night, I was recording our conversations. I never really thought I’d ever use them. But in the end, we used them quite a lot. and it became quite critical to the arc of the film.

DEADLINE: How do you start a project like this? Do you just start filming and see what happens?

PRETSELL: Sort of. I’m quite slow, in a way, at coming up with an idea. I think I saw various scenes in my head, but I have to be in the room with someone to really understand things and start to work it all out. I can’t just make something up and say, “Right, this is what I want to do.” But in my head I thought, “This is an experience of a successful working artist, and I want to capture this somehow.” I want to be a fly in the wall.

DEADLINE: Were you looking for moments in the life of an artist then?

PRETSELL: Yeah. The thing with Douglas is that he let us into something deeply personal. But he had to do it when he was ready to let us in, and it was really difficult to pin him down. I just had to let go [of the reins], and he would sort of deliver a performance of what he thought I would want to know about him, which was just amazing. Thematically, it runs all the way through the film. He’s in charge. Initially, I would always try and control everything, and I would get quite frustrated — as you see in the film — and he would get frustrated with me. But I realized that there was no other way, and I think it was that relinquishing of control that was essential to make the project work and not get too concerned with my own ego getting burnt all the time.

DEADLINE: When did you realize he wasn’t going to give anything away? Because people might go to this film thinking, “Why did he make 24 Hour Psycho? Why did he make Zidane?” What would you say to those people if they think that’s what they’re going to get?

PRETSELL: I would tell them, this is the mind that created them. And him explaining it would make it no clearer to anyone. Watching the film will explain it in a non-didactic way, I suppose. This is the mind of a conceptual artist. Too much context, I think, kills many documentaries. People feel like they’re forced to contextualize absolutely everything in docs, and I’m like, why are we not allowed just to be a bit freer with these narratives?

It’s not about being smart or holding something back, I just want to create an experience. As soon as you’re giving facts and dates, it starts to get in the way of the experience, or the feeling of what it is that he does. As he says in the film, ambiguity is what it’s all about. Not that the film itself should be ambiguous, necessarily, but you ask yourself, “Is he acting? Is he telling the truth? Are we seeing the real Douglas Gordon now?” Who cares! We’re telling a story, and he’s part of that story. He’s a performer.

DEADLINE: So, it becomes another artwork to hang next to the others?

PRETSELL: Yeah, exactly. It sort of does. But what I can say is that everything he did for us was authentic. It’s from him, and a;; these beautiful moments he would just produce out of nowhere. It wasn’t like we’d say, “Maybe we should talk about your mum now. Maybe we should talk about…” It would just come out. I’d often email him some points before we talked, and if we managed to do get to of these points, great. But if not, it didn’t matter. Something better would happen.

DEADLINE: Is there ever a chance he could have just walked away and destroyed the project?

PRETSELL: Oh, of course. Totally. I was thinking that all along, because I could imagine him doing just that. He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need a film about him. It was in the back of my mind the whole time. But I never give up in these situations. I’m like, “No, no, no. We are going to make this film.” So, yeah, of course, he could have absolutely walked away at any point. It’d be much easier for him not having us around, to have me not calling him up all the time, but he likes that discussion, that discourse.

DEADLINE: What did you learn about conceptual art?

PRETSELL: Oh God, I don’t know. Nothing. [Laughs.] I think what I learned is that everything is grist to the mill. All these discussions we would have around his kitchen table, he would write them on the walls all over his studio. That made me realize that everything could be turned into an artwork, in a way. He’s got an amazing mind. There’s a simplicity to those ideas, and that beautiful, really precise focus is what makes them so fascinating.