By Crispian Balmer
ROME, Sept 2 (Reuters) – British director Danny Boyle’s new movie “Ink”, unveiled on Wednesday, examines how Rupert Murdoch’s assault on Britain’s media establishment was first embraced as a breath of fresh air before turning into a much darker story.
“Ink” opens the 83rd Venice Film Festival, giving Boyle a high-profile launch for a project he joked many people initially thought was about tattoos rather than the newspaper industry.
The film, adapted from James Graham’s stage play, charts Murdoch’s acquisition of “The Sun” in 1969 and the transformation of Britain’s once-staid newspaper industry.
“It was important to us that the audience felt complicit,” Boyle told reporters. “We were all complicit in this journey to begin with. Then the journey is taking you into a darkness.”
RESHAPING THE OLD ORDER
Boyle, whose credits include Oscar winner “Slumdog Millionaire” and zombie thriller “28 Days Later”, said Murdoch, then a young Australian newspaper proprietor battling Britain’s old media order, injected energy into a rigid society.
“It didn’t monsterise Rupert Murdoch, which of course a lot of people do now,” Boyle told reporters.
It shows Murdoch squaring up to the English establishment and to trades unions, while suggesting he disapproved of his paper’s excesses, including publishing daily photographs of topless models.
However, Boyle said he was drawn to the story not primarily by Murdoch, played by Guy Pearce, but rather by Larry Lamb, the hard-driving editor recruited to remake The Sun, who is portrayed by Jack O’Connell.
The film seeks to capture the excitement of a period when Fleet Street’s dominance appeared ripe for disruption, before showing how that upheaval ultimately led to the rise of a global empire that wielded outsize political influence.
Although set more than half a century ago, Boyle said he wanted the film to feel contemporary, reflecting modern concerns about media power, information and truth.
“Journalism is one of the great uprights of any civilisation,” he said, adding that advances in artificial intelligence could threaten its traditional role as a watchdog.
“The danger is, with the tech giants and their AI, that they will be able to replace journalism,” he said. “Will that AI journalist speak truth to the power that’s created it? That’s going to be very, very tough.”
The director also reflected on Murdoch’s legacy as a newspaper proprietor at a time when print journalism is in retreat.
“Ink was in his blood. He was a journalist. He was a print man. He loved print,” Boyle said. “I’m sure it drives him to despair, the disappearance of the print industry.”
The writer Graham said Murdoch had seen his play in London and then New York, suggesting he had liked the piece.
He has yet to see the film, but Pearce said he had received an unexpected endorsement from within the Murdoch family.
“I had some messaging with Elisabeth, his daughter,” Pearce said. “And she did say to me, ‘Dad’s very happy that you’re playing him’.”
The Venice Film Festival runs from Wednesday until September 12, with 21 movies vying for the prestigious Golden Lion award.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; editing by Barbara Lewis)
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