BFI – Christopher Hampton

Earlier this evening I attented the Bafta / BFI Screenwriters’ Lecture held at the BFI Southbank in which Christopher Hampton gave a lecture on Screenwriting.

Excerpt from pamphlet ‘Screenwriters. On Screenwriting’ as part of the season of The Bafta  and BFI Screenwriters’ Lectures 2010.

Hampton’s career enjoyed an auspicious start when his debut play, ‘When Did You Last See Your Mother?’ (1966), made him the youngest playwright ever to have a play in the West End, a record which still stands.

His television work includes adaptations of his own plays ‘The Philanthropist’ (1975), Savages (1975), and other works including Hotel du Lac (1986), and The Ginger Tree (1989). He also wrote Able’s Will (1977), which marked his first screen collaboration with Stephen Frears.

After early film screenplays including A Doll’s House (1973) and The Honorary Consul (1983), Hampton reunited with Frears for perhaps his best-known work to date: Dangerous Liaisons (1988).  The tale of bored aristocrats indulging in games of passion and betrayal brought both BAFTA and Oscar success to Hampton, who enjoyed two further collaborations with Frears on Mary Reilly (1996) and Cheri (2009).

His second BAFTA nomination came for Carrington (1995), a script which he both wrote and directed. The biographical drama about the relationship between painter Dora Carrington and author Lytton Strachey earned Hampton a BAFTA nomination for British Film and won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes.

Hampton’s masterly adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement (2007), in which a young girl’s lie has life-changing effects, brought two more BAFTA nominations for Adapted Screenplay and British Film, and his second Oscar nomination.

His latest script, A Dangerous Method (2011), is being filmed by David Cronenberg, and stars Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen.

Christopher Hampton appeared a little shell-shocked by the swell of attendance but this did not damper his enthusiasm to quote Hitchcock and make comparisons to his own movies.

Enjoy

Click here to listen to Christopher Hampton’s lecture