Richard Marquand

From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!

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"I like the way George has made the three movies that he's actually directed. He's a very deceptively simple stylist. His movies have a look of ease about them, and I now can say with truth it's very difficult to be that simple. It's surprisingly complex, but looks easy. That's part of what makes Star Wars so available to children, and I wanted to go back to that sort of presentation in Jedi rather than the highly sophisticated, sexy way in which Kirschner made Empire, which I enjoyed—I thought it looked like an incredible, glossy, glorious sort of machine—but I prefer the other way."

―Richard Marquand, on directing style^[1]

Richard Marquand was the director of Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi. He is also known for his other works, including the World War II thriller Eye of the Needle, starring Donald Sutherland, and Jagged Edge. Marquand portrayed the AT-ST pilot Major Marquand in Return of the Jedi. He also voiced EV-9D9, Jabba's droid. His son is Jim Marquand.

Following the release of Return of the Jedi, Marquand expressed an interest in directing one of the prequel films.^[2]^[3] He died of a stroke on September 4, 1987, at the age of 49. His final film, Hearts of Fire, was released later that year, and included Julian Glover in a role.

Biography[]

From stage to space[]

"I think directing Return of the Jedi is rather like being a famous conductor. You are given this fabulous orchestra, full of the most brilliant musicians that you could want in the world. The guy who wrote the music is listening, he is available for any problems you have, to say, 'Well if you play the third bar a little faster…' You didn't compose the music. Some other guy did and he's in the next room."

―Richard Marquand, on directing Return of the Jedi with George Lucas as producer^[4]

Richard Marquand was a British actor and director with experience in Shakespearean and Jacobean theatre. After studying at the Cambridge,^[1] Marquand lived and travelled in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia where he learnt about the role of masks in drama; he was "amazed" when he first saw the Star Wars droid character C-3PO as the mask, though inanimate and expressionless, conveyed the sense of feeling the audience's emotions because the viewer transfers their own emotions within a properly set scene to C-3PO "like looking in a mirror." The original Star Wars film of 1977 was directed by creator George Lucas, and Marquand felt that C-3PO spoke too much in 1980's The Empire Strikes Back, directed by Irvin Kershner.^[5]

Marquand was completing production on the feature film Eye of the Needle (1981) when he was first invited to discuss the final part of George Lucas' original trilogy.^[1] Since Lucas had quit the Directors Guild of America over omitting film credits in Star Wars' opening titles and did not want to return to the stress of personally directing, Lucasfilm Vice President Howard G. Kazanjian searched for directors outside the Hollywood studio system, thereby excluding most established American directors, including Lucas' filmmaker friends such as Steven Spielberg.^[6] Lucas hired Irvin Kershner to direct The Empire Strikes Back and later invited David Lynch and David Cronenberg for the third part of the Star Wars trilogy, but Cronenberg declined and Lynch dropped the project after a day and urged Lucas to direct his own film.^[7] Lucas instead hired his second choice, Richard Marquand, with Howard Kazanjian serving as producer.^[6]

Marquand said that he took the myth of Star Wars seriously, much like the Arthurian legends and folklore of Robin Hood, believing that a director of any movie cannot be cynical—especially for Star Wars, which was "about innocence." The director particularly appreciated Lucas' visual style, as demonstrated in his theatrical films THX 1138 (1971), American Graffiti (1973), and Star Wars, which Marquand described as "deceptively simple." He felt that they have "a look of ease about them" that makes them accessible to children and appeals to him as a director moreso than Kershner's "highly sophisticated" and "sexy" style in Empire, even though he found it incredible.^[1] Marquand credited Lucas as the driving force for Return of the Jedi, though he also felt secure in his role as the director, likening himself to an orchestra conductor for the works of a composer who is readily available or, from his past experience, a director of Shakespeare with humility for the written word and also capability to transform it into a fresh and meaningful work for modern audiences.^[5]

Pre-production[]

Marquand worked extensively on pre-production with Kazanjian, the art director, and production designer Norman Reynolds.^[8]

Lights, camera, action![]

Marquand appreciated film directors Bernardo Bertolucci and Steven Spielberg's use of camera movement, but he thought too many other directors added movements without purpose or even to attempt to compensate for other flaws in a scene, and he relied on static camera setups with a focus on staging and scene interpretation—"I like it when the camera doesn't move. I try to keep it as simple as possible." Like Lucas, Marquand had a background in documentary filmmaking and focused on people's behaviour and the "rough stuff of life, not the well-honed performances." He believed that filmmaking requires sincerity—in the case of Return of the Jedi a sense of character realism together with belief in the myth—in contrast to Mike Hodges' 1980 Flash Gordon film. Marquand found that disappointing due to its tongue-in-cheek tone, which he believed could only work on screen with an explicitly camp style like Monty Python.^[1]

Marquand thought that the need for C-3PO to have lines was much less in Jedi compared to Empire as the audience would be moreso a participant in his film. The only necessary lines for Threepio, in the director's mind, are for when Threepio himself is not feeling the same emotions as the audience or the protagonists around him: "There's a sequence, for instance, where all the heroes are together and they're worried because one of them is missing. I mean they're very worried, and Threepio at that point says, 'Don't worry Master Luke. We know what to do.' It gets an immediate laugh because he doesn't know what to do and he's totally panicked. It works as a counterbalance."^[5]

Robert Watts said that during production, "George came and he never left; Richard couldn't grasp it and George was concerned, so he never left." Kit West said that "George was on his shoulder the whole time." Norman Reynolds commented on Marquand: "He tried to make the best of it, really, and I think he did." Carrie Fisher complained about Marquand at length in interviews, reporting that the director didn't treat her or Mark Hamill well. She recounted one event where Marquand told her she was "fucking up" a shot, causing her to cry. Fisher remarked that Marquand was "great to Harrison." Harrison Ford recalled getting along well with Marquand, but according to Sean Barton, "Harrison didn't take to Richard at all." Mark Hamill said "I liked Richard very much, he was very personable" and that "I was surprised that Carrie had problems."^[4]

Post-production[]

Marquand and his editor Sean Barton created the first cut of Return of the Jedi after principal photography finished. The cut was not well-received by Lucas, prompting him to take over editing for subsequent cuts. Howard Roffman reports that "George knew it wasn't going to be good" even before the first cut was screened. Barton admitted "We didn't get it right for George," and Steve Starkey remarked that "Richard had interpreted George incorrectly or his instincts were moving in a different direction." However, Lucas acknowledged that "The first cut on a film is never wonderful."^[4]