<<Während
des Falklandkrieges wurde die britische
Premierministerin Margaret Thatcher zur
Zielscheibe argentinischer Propaganda. Eine
der Zeitschriften bezeichnet sie als
"Die Herrin des Todes - ihr Mann haßt
sie; ihre Tochter ist drogenabhängig; ihr
Großvater war ein Dieb ....">>
(Quelle:
Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts, Bd. 8; Bertelsmann
Club GmbH)
"It's rather difficult
to be objective about it as a drama. I got to
know Robert Lawrence very closely and it was a
very strange relationship because he's not
someone I think I would have become friends with
under normal circumstances. Seeing it, all I
could think of, was 'Is that all, is that all
that's made it onto the screen?' After what I
learnt, what I went through, what we all went
through - it's just a film, that's all it
is."
"Tumbledown was the most exciting film
script to work on that I've ever had, [...]
Nothing else has been interesting in the same
way."
Chicago Tribune 25
May 1990
" 'Tumbledown' caused a fantastic
controversy in Britain."
"The cream of British reactionism came out
in force before 'Tumbledown' aired,
demanding the film`s incineration, repeating
every slur you can think of"
"The Left didn't like it either. There were
front-page headlines for months. Then it
went on the air and there was another three
months of headlines. It was fun to be in
the middle of it."
"It's about the
creation of a chocolate soldier, a man made to
impress tourists outside Buckingham Palace,
who turns into a psychotic beast during wartime,
as any man must if he doesn't run away.
"It's not about the suffering war victim;
it's about a man who was the perpetrator of
his own misfortune"
"He comes back furious and inglorious, minus
43 percent of his brain, dribbling and
incontinent. Instead of being lauded he's
relegated to the back of the church during the
memorial service, finally given a medal and told
to shut up."
TV Times (UK)
September 1994
The part had a profound
effect on him - for three years afterwards he was
haunted by nightmares. 'I was worried about my
sanity,' he confesses. 'I really felt as if I'd
experienced all these terrible things. It messed
my head up a bit. 'Since then, I've constantly
asked myself the question: Is acting worth it? On
the one hand it's not, but if another part like
Robert Lawrence came along, I don't think I'd be
able to turn it down.'
The Guardian, 10
Februar 1996
"I remember talking to Robert Lawrence,
who I played in Tumbledown, and knowing that
something happens in war when the adrenalin flows
and thereís only going for it in a bestial sort
of way. Just occasionally a part comes along
which provokes that recklessness in me and yes,
Hamlet would be one. But you get eaten up by it -
and I'm afraid. I don't want to be lost to the
world."
Time Out March
19-26 1997
"Being honest, I didn't
think too much of my performance at the time,
although a few years have passed now. You know,
its that sort of part. He gets paralysed here, he
stabs someone there, he cries here. It's straight
drama school fare. Robert is a far more nebulous
character than that. He's not reliant on his
looks or his charisma; when you meet him you
realise here's a man who's cracked by his own
imagination."
"The thing that shocked me most about
Tumbledown was I'd got so close to Robert. Here
was a guy who was at my side through the whole
shoot. And I thought: I'm really like him. I was
imagining being him, and then when the thing came
out and all those familiar facial gestures
appeared, I was physically ill with
disappointment. It took years to appreciate what
I'd done. It's just an actor and his
vanity..."
Observer 9. April
2000
'I lived with him,' he says of Lawrence. 'And
he was a goldmine. An articulate soldier who will
talk.' Firth began to identify with Lawrence. He
poured himself into the role. He even began to
have nightmares about the Falklands war. When he
looked at the camera as Lawrence, Firth says,
'his face was in my mind's eye. His face on me.'
'At the time, I loved to think I was making this
incredibly reckless sacrifice for my craft. If I
was screwed up at the end, so be it. Now I can
see that that was glamorous to me. I wasn't
really suffering at all.'
"I still believe that what I did in the
Falklands war was worth doing. I still believe
what I did had to be done."
"And I had, and still
have, this white-hot pride. the kind of pride
that the Army trains young soldiers to build up,
the kind of pride that enables them to go off to
war and fight and kill for what they are taught
to believe in;..."
"What I didn't realize, until, like so many
others, I came back crippled after doing my bit
for my country, was the extent to which we had
been conned. Conned into believing in a set of
priorities and principles that the rest of the
world and British society in general no longer
gave two hoots about. We had been 'their boys'
fighting in the Falklands, and when the fighting
was over, nobody wanted to know.
The indifference, embarrassment, exploitation and
countless bureaucratic cock-ups that followed my
return home were not what I'd expected. They
opened my eyes. They changed me."
"I will, I have no doubt, be accused of
being bitter. I am. Not bitter about the war, the
injury, or even my disability, but bitter about
the pretence of real care and above all bitter
about the small-mindedness which stops us
changing as a society or race."
The Guardian 19 May 1988
One day Firth recalls lying in a hospital
bed, all his hair shaved off, surrounded by
IVs, blood and brains, nauseous, sick and
utterly distressed. The next, he was
outside, shooting the Tower of London
scene, and mounting the Guard. And
standing in that brilliant uniform with
huge bearskin, watching the precision drill
to his orders, yes, he felt attractive;
people were watching.
Which is why the film is so
important to Lawrence. Young men are easily
seduced into the services, but are not prepared
for what may happen afterwards. Nor does
the Army aid in the adjustment; it was, perhaps,
he admits, naive of him to think so, but loyalty
should be a two-way process. And to date,
from the Army there has been no
demonstration. As Lawrence says:"I
have tried to be honest. I wanted to take
part in this war, I wanted to go out there and do
my job. But I've acknowledged that my
life's been fucked up."
Some events in the past have
made him feel bitter. Like being banned
from the Victory Parade: " We were
specifically told the wounded couldn't take
part. I was told I couldn't wear my uniform
at the St Paul's service, as if I had no
right. The Army's been using manipulation
and using people for publicity. The press
were banned from meeting the wounded on
return. Then they hand-picked a small group
to meet them."
"This business
of looking after the wounded, the manipulation of
them that happened. If this is happening to
me, who is reasonably articulate and intelligent,
and who comes from a Service background, think
what is happening to the Welsh Guardsmen whose
fathers are unemployed, or in the mines.
Think what they've been through!"
"Es ist schwierig, dieses
Drama wirklich objektiv zu betrachten. Ich habe Robert
Lawrence sehr gut kennengelernt und es war eine sehr
eigenartige Beziehung, denn er ist nicht jemand, mit dem
ich mich unter normalen Umständen angefreundet hätte.
Als ich den Film sah, konnte ich immer nur denken 'Ist
das alles? Ist das alles, was es auf den Bildschirm
geschafft hat?' Nach all dem, was ich gelernt hatte,
durchgemacht hatte - wir alle durchgemacht hatten - ist
es doch nur ein Film, das ist alles, was es ist."
"'Tumbledown' war das
aufregendste Drehbuch, nach dem ich je gearbeitet habe,
[...] Nichts hat mich seitdem nochmals in gleicher Weise
interessiert."
Chicago Tribune 25 May 1990
'Tumbledown' verursachte ein
phantastische Kontroverse Großbritannien."
"Die Crème des britischen
Reaktionismus zeigte sich mit Macht im Vorfeld der
'Tumbledown'-Ausstrahlung und verlangte die Einäscherung
des Filmes, alle nur erdenklichen Beleidigungen
wiederholend."
"Die Linken mochten ihn
genauso wenig. Es gab Schlagzeilen über Monate hinweg.
dann wurde er ausgestrahlt und es gab Schlagzeilen für
weitere drei Monate. Es war ein Spaß, in all dem
mittendrin zu sein."
"Es geht um die Schaffung
eines 'Schokoladen-Soldaten', ein Mann, der die Touristen
vor dem Buckingham Palace beeindruckt, der sich während
des Krieges in ein psychopathisches Monster verwandelt,
wie das jeder Mann muß, wenn er nicht davonläuft."
"Es geht nicht um ein
leidendes Kriegsopfer. Es geht um einen Mann, der sein
eigenes Unglück herbeigeführt hat. Er kommt zurück,
wütend und un-glorreich, minus 43 % seines Gehirns,
sabbernd und blasenschwach. und statt belobigt zu werden,
wird er im Trauergottesdienst in die letzte Reihe
verbannt, am Ende bekommt er eine Medaille und wird
aufgefordert, den Mund zu halten."
TV Times (UK) September 1994
Der Part hatte einen tiefen
Einfluß auf ihn. Noch drei Jahre später wurde er von
Albträumen verfolgt. "Ich hatte Angst um meinen
Verstand," gesteht er. "Ich habe mich
tatsächlich gefühlt als hätte ich all diese
schrecklichen Dinge erlebt. Das hat meinen Kopf ein wenig
durcheinander gebracht. Seit dem stelle ich mir immer
wieder die Frage: 'Ist die Schauspielerei all das wert?'
Auf der einen Seite sicherlich nicht, aber wenn sich eine
andere Rolle wie die des Robert Lawrence anbieten würde,
wäre ich glaube ich nicht fähig, sie abzulehnen."
The Guardian, 10 Februar 1996
"Ich erinnere mich, mich
mit Robert Lawrence unterhalten zu haben, den ich in
'Tumbledown' spiele. ich wußte, daß etwas passiert,
wenn das Adrenalin einschießt und man nur in einer
bestialischen Art und Weise weitermachen kann. Und
manchmal gibt es eine Rolle, die genau diese
Rücksichtslosigkeit in mir weckt und, ja, 'Hamlet' wäre
so eine. Aber ich fürchte so etwas frißt Dich auf. Ich
möchte nicht für die Welt verloren sein."
Time Out March 19-26 1997
"Um ehrlich zu sein, ich
habe zu der Zeit nicht viel über meine Darstellung
nachgedacht, obwohl jetzt ein paar Jahre vergangen sind.
Wissen sie, das ist diese Art von Rolle. Er wird hier
gelähmt, ersticht dort jemanden, weint da. Es ist pure
Schauspielschul-Kost. Robert ist ein weit nebulöserer
Charakter als das. Er verläßt sich nicht auf sein
Aussehen oder sein Charisma; wenn man ihn trifft,
realisiert man, hier ist ein Mann der an seinen eigenen
Vorstellungen zerbrochen ist."
"Was mich am meisten an
'Tumbledown' geschockt hat, war, daß ich robert so nahe
kam. Da war jemand, der während des ganzen Drehs an
meiner Seite war. Und ich dachte: Ich bin tatsächlich
wie er. Ich habe mir vorgestellt, er zu sein, und dann,
als der Film rauskam und all die ganze bekannte Mimik zu
sehen war, ging's mir körperlich schlecht vor lauter
Enttäuschung, Es hat Jahre gedauert, bis ich schätzen
konnte, was ich da getan hatte. Das ist einfach ein
Schauspieler und seine Eitelkeit ..."
Observer 9. April 2000
"Ich habe mit ihm
gelebt", sagt er über Lawrence. "Und er war
eine wahre Goldmine. Ein Mann, der sich auszudrücken
weiß und dies auch tut. Firth begann sich mit Lawrence
zu identifizieren. er stürzte sich in die Rolle. Er
hatte sogar Albträume über den Falklandkrieg. Wenn er
als Lawrence in die Kamera blickte, sagt er, "hatte
ich sein Gesicht vor meinem geistigen Auge. Sein Gesicht
an mir."
"Zu der Zeit gefiel es mir
zu denken, daß ich ein unglaublich gewagtes Opfer für
mein Handwerk mache. Wenn ich am Ende neurotisch sein
sollte, bitte schön. Jetzt sehe ich, daß das ein etwas
betörender Gedanke war. Ich habe nicht wirklich
gelitten."
"It's rather difficult
to be objective about it as a drama. I got to
know Robert Lawrence very closely and it was a
very strange relationship because he's not
someone I think I would have become friends with
under normal circumstances. Seeing it, all I
could think of, was 'Is that all, is that all
that's made it onto the screen?' After what I
learnt, what I went through, what we all went
through - it's just a film, that's all it
is." 
"It's about the
creation of a chocolate soldier, a man made to
impress tourists outside Buckingham Palace,
who turns into a psychotic beast during wartime,
as any man must if he doesn't run away. 
The part had a profound
effect on him - for three years afterwards he was
haunted by nightmares. 'I was worried about my
sanity,' he confesses. 'I really felt as if I'd
experienced all these terrible things. It messed
my head up a bit. 'Since then, I've constantly
asked myself the question: Is acting worth it? On
the one hand it's not, but if another part like
Robert Lawrence came along, I don't think I'd be
able to turn it down.'
"Being honest, I didn't
think too much of my performance at the time,
although a few years have passed now. You know,
its that sort of part. He gets paralysed here, he
stabs someone there, he cries here. It's straight
drama school fare. Robert is a far more nebulous
character than that. He's not reliant on his
looks or his charisma; when you meet him you
realise here's a man who's cracked by his own
imagination."
"And I had, and still
have, this white-hot pride. the kind of pride
that the Army trains young soldiers to build up,
the kind of pride that enables them to go off to
war and fight and kill for what they are taught
to believe in;..."
Which is why the film is so
important to Lawrence. Young men are easily
seduced into the services, but are not prepared
for what may happen afterwards. Nor does
the Army aid in the adjustment; it was, perhaps,
he admits, naive of him to think so, but loyalty
should be a two-way process. And to date,
from the Army there has been no
demonstration. As Lawrence says:"I
have tried to be honest. I wanted to take
part in this war, I wanted to go out there and do
my job. But I've acknowledged that my
life's been fucked up." 
