Colin Firth Career Timeline

GENRE: drama/satire

DIRECTOR: Otakar Votocek

SCREENPLAY: Otakar Votocek and Herman Koch

PRODUCERS: Laurence Geels and Dick Maas

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Dick Schillemans

ART DIRECTION: Peter Jansen

PRINCIPAL CAST: Colin Firth [Brian Smith], Peter O'Toole [Cesar Valentin], Marie Trintignant et al

ABOUT THE FILM: Wings of Fame is not an easy film to describe in a few words. Time Out tried: 'Positively weird' could also apply to another new project, Wings of Fame. Something like 'After-Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous'. it is set on an isle of purgatory where your continuing fame amongst the living determines the standard of your accommodation... Firth describes it as 'very strange and very funny'. It was directed by a Czech nuclear physicist, and also involves Peter O'Toole, Busby's Babes, Einstein and Lassie! [Time Out 1989].

From an interview in The Seattle Times Oct. 1989:
He's just finished another picture, Wings of Fame, in which he plays the assassin of a movie star played by Peter O'Toole. Most of the picture takes place in the afterlife, at a posh hotel that houses only celebrities who are still famous. Firth ends up there only because he's famous for killing a movie star. "I begged them to put me in that movie,'' he said. "I'd never seen a script like it. There are no real effects, no Beetlejuice makeup, and it's much murkier and less obvious than that picture. But I think it's quite extraordinary."

Some comments from my director friend Lisa: Wings of Fame has to be an intentional comedy - it's the only way I can read it and not think Colin was out of his mind to make it. It is a parody of all the worst excesses of 1960s trendy movie making - down to all the ghastly 'art shots' up people's nostrils and across acres of howling wilderness (notice how the wind is always whistling through the hotel foyer?) - with a bit of Bergman death on the beach thrown in. Everyone (except 'normal' Brian) is just that little bit too far over the top. And how can you not enjoy the utter silliness of the anarchists, and the scene where the hotel manager calmly tosses away the molotov cocktail? And the scene where Brian gets hit on the head with a falling light is hilarious - completely fake.