7/29/2019 Ross Healy Magazine Layout Final

1/4

Dreams o a Lie is a compelling new

eature documentary which examines the

tragic tale o Joyce Vincent, a lady o 38

who died alone in her North London at

in 2003 and lay there or three years beore

being discovered. We met up with director

Carol Morley [pictured] recently to discuss

the process o piecing together Joyces lie,

what attracted her to the story, and her

own lmic inuences. >>

DREAMS OF A LIFE| The British

flmmaker reveals what drew herto the enthralling and tragic storyo Joyce Vincent.

dialoguewords r o m t h e s o u r c e

7/29/2019 Ross Healy Magazine Layout Final

2/4

When did the title o the lm come to

you?

Morley: Te title came immediately. I

didnt know anything about Joyce, and

what was in the newspapers was so

anonymous [Morley rst heard about

Joyce when she picked up a copy o the

Sun on the London Underground] that

I knew anything I did would reect a

dream o somebody elses lie. As the

lm and research progressed, dreams

also stood or her aspirations and her

hope or a lie. We have Te Tings

Tat Dreams Are Made O by Human

League on the soundtrack, a tunnel with

the word dreams scrawled on it, theres

other songs that mention dreams. I think

somehow theres a dreamlike quality to a

lie thats gone, and it elt like what I was

trying to summon up.

Tematically it has a lot on common

with your earlier lm Te Alcohol Years,

in which you yoursel were the subject.

Other than the hard work and time you

put into it, how much o your inner lie

did you put into this project?Weirdly, and Im not sure i they meant

it as a compliment, someone emailed

me and said, How long did it take you

to nd another lm to make about an

absent person? And I thought, Oh my

God! Tats not what I set out to do! But

I must be attracted to this idea o absence

and I think with Joyce, I never could have

made the lm i it was about a man who

had died in ront o that V. Tere was

some connection in this lm being about

what it is to be a woman in todays world.

When someone says in the lm its bad

enough being 40, yet being 40 and alone,

its those anxieties that women have I

ound interesting. With Joyce - and with-

out me wanting to sound like a nutter

- it elt like I was chosen to do the lm.

When I met the amily, I ound that they

never called her Joyce, they called her

Carol. We were the same age. I wanted

to be a singer, like Joyce. Her mum died

when she was 11 and my dad died when

I was 11. I really understood the idea o

how losing a parent early on in lie can

destabilise you. I didnt want to impose

my lie on Joyce but I didnt want to justmake a lm like look at that person over

there! I wanted to make the connection

to a real, breathing person.

Had you seen Zawe Ashton in anything

else beore?

No, but the casting agent said her name

and I looked up St. rinians and I said

Oh, I dunno!, so it wasnt rom what

shed been in, it was how she was at the

audition. She did two auditions, she got

recalled because I wanted to be absolutely

sure. We did workshop

things together. Wed play music and

shed look at photographs, but she never

saw any o the interviews. I never wanted

her to come to the role through the

people, I wanted to come to the role rom

the inside, not rom something external.Te only time she saw the interviews was

on the V; I did put those on the V or

real, its not added on over the top. When

they popped up in the bedsit, thats when

we lmed them.

Joyce died beore the ull social media

age fourished. Did you get a sense rom

the interviewees that she might have

been saved i her situation had happened

ve years on? >>

Its weird, though, be-cause people have 300plus Facebook riendsand you wonder iyoud notice i one oyour riends droppedo the list.

7/29/2019 Ross Healy Magazine Layout Final

3/4

Its not in the lm, but there were two col-

leagues who said that they thought Joyce

would have been on Facebook because

she was so sociable. Its weird, though,

because people have 300 plus Facebook

riends and you wonder i youd notice

i one o your riends dropped o the

list. I you have a closer riend, you dont

normally just do Facebook, youd use the

phone, contact them properly. I dont

think it necessarily would have [saved

her]. Although the people rom work

said that Joyce told them she was going to

New York and wouldve expected to see

that on their Facebook page, the thing is

that i someone goes abroad you get the

eelingtheyre just too busy. Actually, Ithink it [Joyces situation] is more likely

to happen now. In the days when you

had milk delivered and there was 18 milk

bottles built up outside the at, people

would notice. I think its more likely to

happen because the communication is

less physical.

And how did you get your head around

the three years undiscovered thing?

It is incredible. Its a long time. Te lmtook ve years to make, and when I was

at the three-year point - which was a long

time, a lot o things had happened I

thought God, that is such a long time

in peoples lives or that to pass. For me

it eels like a sign that the lm needed

to be made. Its so extreme. When the

story unolds and Joyce is the opposite to

how youd expect its important because

you realise, Oh my God, i someone like

her can go unnoticed, then what else are

we missing? It makes you take a look

around you.

Te situation has an almost horror lm-

esque quality...

It does, because you know that she

decomposed, became skeletal. I did a lot

o research at the British Library to nd

out what would have happened to her

body which is horrible, but its more an

internal horror. I didnt want to show it

as such, only the things happening at the

at [with the police and cleaners who

arrive]. But afer three months there

wouldnt have been a smell anymore;

it wouldnt have gone on orever. It

doesnt get worse and worse. It just

goes away.

Te lm eels very restrained. It

doesnt take the route o refecting

the style o the tabloids that the story

appeared in in the rst place. How did

you approach it to make sure you were

being tasteul?

I spoke to a coroner and did research. I

knew there wouldnt be loads o ies. I

wanted to be accurate. Tere wouldnt

have been what you see in CSI. I knew

I didnt want to ocus on that side o it.

Its why I ound the story interesting;

concentrating not on how she died but

on how she lived. While you do need

to present the story, you need to do it

in a way thats not exploitative or just

tawdry.

One o the most interesting things

about the lm is the almost Ra-

shomon-esque way that the men in herlie give directly contradictory views

on Joyce. She remains elusive. Would

you describe it as a eminist lm and

did you develop a distaste or any o

the men?

I didnt at all. What I elt was antas-

tic about them was that they were

prepared to actually talk and I know

that John whos in the lm [and talks

about sex a lot] said aferwards Im a

complete pillock! Rather than being

conscious o how they spoke, they

brought themselves and their attitudes

to it, and I respected that because it

would have been easy to have not done

so. Tey are very honest, and I was

thankul because they gave an indica-

tion into the male psyche and also an

insight into how Joyce was around

men and how they perceived her. Its

a lm about Joyce but also not a lm

about Joyce. Its about how Joyce was

constructed by a lot o people. She >>

First Sight: Zawe Ashton

Shes been busy lling her CV with other activi-ties: acting on stage; writing plays and a script orthe BBC; developing a V drama with Idris Elba;starring as Vod in Channel 4s Fresh Meat. Oh,and as a teenager she was a champion slam poet.Te reason lm people are taking notice is that

she appears in Carol Morleys brilliant Dreams oa Lie (pictured, in cinemas on 16 December).

Tis actress, writer and ex-slam poet has thecharisma to go rom a comedy turn on V to thelead in a compelling drama documentary Share61.

Who is She?A 27-year-old rom Stoke Newington, London,who learned the lessons o the acting trade early.At ve-and-a-hal, she lied about her age to getinto drama classes, pretending to be six.

Why are we just hearing about her?

7/29/2019 Ross Healy Magazine Layout Final

4/4

did seem to have more male associates

than emale, so its going to tell that story.

I think it is a eminist lm in that its

engaging with ideas o what it means to

be a contemporary woman. But I wanted

to explore, so once you start to say Tis

lm will do this, you shut everything

down. I was very open with the people. I

didnt want them to hold back, otherwise

that does a discourtesy to Joyce, and to

themselves in a way.

Music is everywhere in the lm, can you

tell us a bit more about the music and

the decisions you made around it?

Te soundtrack [but not the Barry Ad-

amson score] came rst. Once I started

to get to know Joyce a bit I began to put

together some o the music she liked.

I knew she liked soul, and I knew she

liked Kate Bush which we couldnt clear

the rights to, which may have been ortu-

nate! And then I started to look at songs

rom the time she was born, and every-

thing became connected to her. She had

sung Midnight rain to Georgia when

she was 16 and really liked that song,

thats the one Ive got her singing as a kid[in the lm]. Tere was one song that

didnt make it in: Missing Tat Girl by

ony Orlando and Dawn, and the back-

ing singer is called Joyce Vincent. Te

music came rst and the connection was

very strong. Because she had wanted to

be a singer it was important that the lm

was led by the music; its a very musical

lm.

Teres a very evocative eel or the music

and the studios o the 80s and 90s

Te location person ound the record-

ing studio used in the lm, and it was

actually behind the at where she died

in Wood Green. But all the sta were

rom the 80s, like theyd never lef. Tey

had the computer stu but they still had

the same mixing desk and they had all

the microphones, it was brilliant! I guess

people dont change as much as they do

now but it was all original gear.

Which documentaries and documen-

tarians have infuenced your work?I studied Fine Art and Film at St Mar-

tins so I like experimental lm, and

when I rst discovered what docu-

mentary could do it was through Errol

Morris Te Tin Blue Line and the

Maysles Brothers Grey Gardens. Ones

very constructive, ones observational;

cinma vrit. Also, one o my heroes

is Agnes Varda. With this lm [DoaL]

I was interested in Vagabond, which

was a ction lm rom the mid 80s. It

starts with a womans death, and goes

through interviews with people on the

street and theyre talking about her,

and its almost a bit like An Inspector

Calls; you wonder i they are all de-

scribing the same woman! And you see

the last ew days o this womans lie.

Its a brilliant lm. Also Cleo rom 5 to

7, that woman is a singer so those that

were on my mind. I also included an

homage to Maya Derens Meshes o the

Afernoon, when the little girl looks

at the window; I love that idea that i

youre a lm bu, you can spot little

reerences in there.

Whats next or you?

Id like to adapt a book, but I cant say

any more than that or now because

o rights. Also, I did a short lm a ew

years ago about mass hysteria and I

ound an article rom a 1970s medical

magazine and it was the case histories

and conessions o two girls and it was

a case o mass hysteria that had hap-

pened in a North London comprehen-

sive school or girls and the insight into

it and the background is ascinating. I

dont know what orm itll take, maybe

a eature, but I have been trying to nd

the girls, or women as theyll be now.

Even i I didnt I might still make it.

Teres lots o interesting themes in it,

and Ive already started to think about

the music too, what music they might

have been listening to. Tat comes

rom Joyce, its a good way into a lm.

And Ashton writes

Yes, she started at drama school, disappointed with

how ew roles exist or black and mixed-race wom-en. Annoyance leads the creativity. Right now, sheswriter in residence at Clean Break theatre company& working with women in prison and ex-oenders.

Whats next: more acting or writing?

Both. Acting is a job I love, that Im committedto. My rst love. Writing is the mistress in thisscenario. Or whatever the male version is o myman on the side.

Drama-documentary. It reconstructs the lie othirtysomething Joyce Vincent, who died alonein her London bedsit; her body was ound threeyears later, V still on. When her riends and ex-boyriends didnt hear rom her, most assumedshe was o being abulous somewhere. Ashtonplays Joyce subtly, ickering between vulnerabil-ity and being the lie and soul o the party.

Isnt that a documentary?