The Red Riding Trilogy is a BBC adaptation of the tetralogy of novels by British writer David Peace, Red Riding Quartet. The books use actual serial murders, including the Yorkshire Ripper case, as part of the narrative spine, although the broader theme of the story is multi-level government corruption.
The producers have chosen a novel approach to adapting the books to the screen. Rather than compressing all four books into a single film, they’ve chosen the expanded form of the mini-series. But they haven’t created a mini-series in the obvious sense of the term. Instead, three separate feature films have been produced, each one helmed by a different director. And while the films were shown on television in the UK, they’re slated for a February 2010 theatrical release in the US.
While you might think that allocating directorial duties to three separate directors would produce confusingly disparate results, the three films form a harmonious unity. Taken as a whole, the separate pieces fit together at least as well as Francis Coppola’s three Godfather films (not to say they measure up to that quality).
The overall narrative arc of Red Riding isn’t contiguous. The three segments are titled 1974, 1980 and 1983, and the temporal jumps accentuate the machinery-stalling effects of corruption in public office.
Interestingly, the directors and cinematographers made distinct technical choices: 1974 was shot in 16mm film, 1980 in 35mm film, and 1983 in digital, using the relatively new Red One camera. Nevertheless, the visual styles of the films all compliment each other well.
While there is some overlapping of characters from one film to the next, the protagonists and principal supporting players are rotated. Especially good are Paddy Considine, Sean Bean, Warren Clarke (former Droog in A Clockwork Orange), Maxine Peake and David Morrissey.
Essential to the concept of Red Riding is the sensibility behind a number of films produced in Hollywood in the 1970’s, American cinema’s latter day golden era. Think The Conversation, Taxi Driver, Three Days of the Condor, Prince of the City (actually 1981, but I say it qualifies as being on the cusp) and Alan J. Pakula’s “paranoid trilogy,” Klute, The Parallax View and All the President’s Men.
Screenwriter Tony Grisoni, and directors Julian Jarrold, James Marsh and Anand Tucker, all seem to have schooled themselves on these films, and while the end products might not quite measure up to the models used, the attempts are laudable and effective.
