07/02/2003 - Alan Parker presents a political thriller about David Gale and the conspiracy that lead the professor to his death in the electric chair

Alan Parker and his cast: the video

Two years after Angela’s Ashes, British director Alan Parker is back with a film about The Life of David Gale, the second film to be screened in competition at the 53rd Berlinale.
Parker, the head of the British Film Council for the last three years, has made his first political film: about the decline of a professor of philosophy from Austin, Texas, and his personal battle against the death penalty. Ironically, it is this very same commitment that will ultimately lead Gale straight to the electric chair.
A series of extenuating flashbacks in an alternating storyline remind us of Gale’s decline into the final phases of a political conspiracy that becomes a thriller of much vaster proportions, that also draws in the journalist to whom Gale gives his final interview.

The real protagonist of this film, however, is the association of activists lead by Gale and situated in Texas where “more people are put to death every year than are in China”.
“I prepared this film by talking with lots of activists’ groups about their opposition to the death penalty. Something is definitely starting to happen: last year, Illinois decided to abolish it. I know that this film will lead to many discussions in the United States, and controversies as well, that will certainly contribute to the cause.”
Asked about the current international situation and the approaching war between the United States and Iraq, Parker refused to be drawn, resorting instead to typically British humour when he stressed that he is not an American: “I did not vote for Bush, but for Blair, and I don’t understand the reasons for this war.”
The film, just like many of Parker’s earlier works, was produced by his own Dirty Hands Productions company.

(Translated from Italian)