The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde + Interview with Director Hope Dickson Leach.

by Oliver Spicer.

Hope Dickson Leach's retelling of the classic story by Robert Louis Stevenson is as unique as the original. A co-production with the National Theatre of Scotland, the film began as a live show performed February of this year. Its theatrical beginnings are still visible in the final piece through the characters freedom to move around the scene and its emphasis on dialogue - yet the multiple cameras, crafted sets, insert shots of the city, and chiaroscuro noir aesthetic fully presents the story of a doctor willing to split his psyche into two as cinema. Underline themes in the novel of class and masculinity have been embossed above the surface of the well known story and a sense of Scottish-ness reignighted with its relocation of the narrative back to Edinburgh. The perspective of Utterson, a lawyer taking into his own hands the investigation and the goals of the city, turns this adaptation into a mystery that will delight and surprise versed readers.

Here is my interview with Director Hope Dickson Leach where the films beginnings, alterations, themes, and messages are discussed...

The first thing is that it's a coproduction with the National Theatre of Scotland. How did that come about to be?

So during lockdown and during the international festival, the international festival wanted to present stuff for their audiences that they could put online. So they went to all the national companies in Scotland and said "please can you make a film," basically. So the National Theatre came to me and we made this film called Ghostlight, which was kind of crazy and done in six weeks madness of filming Scottish theatre past, present, future like ghosts in a theatre. The idea of a ghostlight is a light that's left on in the theatre when the theatre goes dark. So we we're following the ghostlight round the theatre and it was great, really positive experience, really fun. And then the international festival said we should do something else and there was a lot around innovation and how to provide experiences for audiences during the pandemic. So this really started very much as a pandemic project and it was kind of developed very quickly, I sort of said "Let's do Jekyll and Hyde" and then we were looking at all different types of locations, and it was going to be done in June.

It was very ambitious and also completely mad. Having done the first short film there was this expectation it was really easy to make a film and I don't think they quite understood. We're all learning a lot here about the different culture of film and theatre. Because they're very different so it was complicated but... cool. I learnt a lot from some really fabulous theatre artists and I worked with Vlad the writer who's fantastic. And I think the challenge was always how do we make something that's two things at once, it's gotta be a live experience then it's gotta be a film afterwards. So it was about keeping both of those things in mind and how do we find something that's fitting.

For me, theatre was kind of about the live experience. But also we needed chunky scenes for actors to get their teeth into, and that's where the film noir black and white idea came from and I thought it could feel like quite an old fashioned film. So that's how it worked, after doing the live show we shot some more material and did another edit. Then we shot even more material and finished it off.

And perspective wise the book is quite weird right? Because it starts from the lawyers point of view and then I think it's just the final chapter is Dr.Jekyll.

And there's a letter from Lanyan as well. I'd never read it before, actually. So when I read it, I was really excited because for me it felt like a serial killer detective novel. You know, I love crime books and read them compulsively. So I had no idea that there's a detective in this, basically. So we like "This is Utterson's story, let's make it Utterson's story," and just sort of make him the main character. Because the audience all know, let's actually watch someone that's discovering it. It's not like when you read the book for the first time, they wouldn't of had any idea. So it kind of felt like the right way to do it, you know what I mean. We were all kind of leaning into the book, and I love the book! It was so brilliant! And we just spent a few days unpicking it and all the little clues that were there because it's very short. "What is the relationship between Jekyll and Uterrson?" and that became the kind of heart of the question for the think. But being two things at once is kind of what the story is about. So it really worked well as a challenge, but obviously being two things at once is really hard.

And the fact it was two things at once, when you were making the film - did you incorporate aspects of film that are not possible with theatre or were you trying to make it like a more cohesive experience?

So we did pre-shoot a few things, but we were trying to make it feel like it was all live for the audience. So there were a couple of scenes that were in the live show, for example, when he goes up Colton Hill and sees the big monument. But there's also a scene where a man hangs himself and obviously we needed stunts and all kind of things, so we couldn't of done that live. But I think people who didn't know anything about the film thought we were doing it live, so we wanted to trick them. There were couple of shots and effects we used. But, oh god, it was done so quickly. I think it's interesting because I keep thinking about the experience for the audience, it was aways meant to be a live film and they knew and saw things going on around them and had that experience.

But when you think about how people read film, we're so used to it being edited and finessed and sound mixed and perfect. And a lot of that is possible, but when we came to edit it you realise how powerful cinema is. And actually sometimes you just need an image and that leaves the question in the audiences mind, whatever it is. It was like they were watching the rushes, you know what I mean. So it was kind of interesting to go "Let's make a film out of this. We don't need that, we don't need that, but we do need this and this." And understanding the different kind of demands you have as an audience member for a film.

It's a really weird and completely over-intellectualized kind of space you get into when thinking about this. But that was part of it in the first place: this was live. And a lot of theatre that incorporates film is that you see an actor and see something projected behind them, and that's not what we're doing here. Everything you see is through the camera but it's all live. The first night we got something wrong, and I think audiences love that. But the problem was everyone was so good at their job that it didn't happen much. There was one thing in the final scene in the lab, where that was a nightmare because it was all live and we had a camera really close. They we're all packed into this space, three cameras. And one of them the focus fell out, it just wasn't working. And we practised it all and rehearsed it, so I was like "Cut to camera two and this point," and I was sitting there live doing it. You know, we had to do a different shot and he was so devastated afterwards. But it's fine, that was kind of always the joy and it wasn't his fault. And the level of technicians, people were so committed to making it perfect and I almost think that worked against us. But it was an extraordinary experience... and a weird way to make a film.

And Stevenson [author of the original book], was from Edinburgh but the book is set in London. But it's kind of an Edinburgh version of London. And this film really brings it back to Edinburgh by incorporating the history of the city and all the beautiful shots of the skyline. I was wondering what lead you to that choice of bringing it back to Edinburgh and really focusing in on it.

I mean being an Edinburgh person myself I think, as you say, when you read it you go "This is clearly Edinburgh." You know for anyone who knows Edinburgh when reading the books, you just see the streets of New Town and we actually shot in his family home for some of the stuff. And I think working with the National Theatre of Scotland, it was just a delicious opportunity to celebrate Stevenson's Scottish-ness and I think he's one of the most extraordinary writers and sort of forgotten about when he's an absolute genius. But also a fascinating opportunity to learn about the city and during lockdown i'd learnt so much about plague pits and wondering round this city as everyone did, you just walked and walked and walked. And I'd learnt so much about these horrifying things that had happened in Edinburgh city, it's such a beautiful thing but underneath The Prince's Street Garden is where they drowned witches. And playing with that texture, and questions of power and privilege in the city that's still absolutely embedded here.

It's present in the book, but it's maybe brought out more in the film, which is the class issue at the time.

Yeah that was something we totally went for. We sort of were looking at Utterson and Jekyll and their "clubbable". We called them "the clubbable men," there was this whole thing about "Us," you know and friends. They were all very lonely, and we started looking into masculinity and just thinking about that and also just who these men were in society. When you've got a sparse text like that, you kind of just grab on every little clue. We loved this idea that this is about class and that's one of the things that puts pressure on people to behave in a certain way or giving people licence to behave in a certain way. And who is allowed to do whatever they want. And the only people who are allowed to do that are people with power and privilege. And Hyde essentially is someone who does whatever the fuck he wants. What is he? he's someone that has no restrictions and that just felt such a naturally thing to place in an upper-class person.

And I'll think I'll make this my last question. The book and the film feature a lot of men and is a very masculine story. And I was wondering as a female director how you approached that?

It was very intentionally that was it about men and masculinity. And it's something I find really interesting, the connection between that and power. I think as storytellers, you tell stories you are interested in and that you can understand and can do the research and they don't have to be about you. And I think that it was so clearly about power and masculinity. There were sort of questions along the way like 'But can we do something about the women in this?' But that's not what's interesting to me, what's interesting to me is this power and how connected it is to masculinity and of course that's something everybody can learn about, and of course as a woman I am very aware of.

by Oliver Spicer, August 2023.