hello this is bbc news. this is bbc news. the headlines: the headlines: the bodies of two climbers now it's time for a look the bodies of two climbers who went missing in pakistan who went missing in have been found. at the weather with alina jenkins. pakistan have been found — briton tom ballard and italian turbulent weather briton tom ballard and italian daniele nardi last made daniele nardi last made contact in the forecast. some of us have contact two weeks ago. two weeks ago. seem some the home secretary, sajid javid, in the forecast. some of us have seem some snow in the home secretary, sajid javid, is facing criticism after the death in the forecast. some of us have seem some snow in the form of showers. sunshine in between. the is facing criticism of the baby son of shamima begum — after the death of the baby son the british teenager whose showers. sunshine in between. the showers with north and north—westerly winds. they will fade of shamima begum — citizenship he revoked forjoining the british teenager whose citizenship he revoked forjoining the islamic state group. as the day wears on. the next the islamic state group. a man charged with murdering atla ntic as the day wears on. the next jodie chesney has been atlantic system comes into this a man charged with murdering remanded in custody. jodie chesney has been evening and overnight. through the remanded in custody. rest of the weekend it will stay the 17—year—old was stabbed to death in a park in east london last friday. windy, quite cold, especially across the 17—year—old was stabbed northern parts of england, summer to death in a park in east also this hour — rain, further snow and also spells london last friday. the brexit secretary accuses of sunshine. cloud and rain pushing the brexit secretary accuses michel barnier of trying michel barnier of trying "to rerun old arguments" — "to rerun old arguments". he's been urged to agree he's been urged to agree its way north and eastwards across to a "balanced solution" by stephen barclay. to a "balanced solution" much of england and wales. hill snow by stephen barclay, as talks increased activity at a missile site in north korea — continue between the uk and eu. in wales and also snow later in the satellite images of a facility increased activity at a missile near pyongyang suggest the country may be preparing to launch night in northern ireland in western site in north korea. a missile or a satellite. scotland. clear skies after this and a clear and cold night. cloud and now on bbc news —

the actor—director kenneth branagh rain soon more milder temperatures, is talking movies — well above freezing. the band of in the second part of a special interview for the programme's 20th birthday. rain clay is tomorrow morning hello from new york, i'm tom brook. in talking movies, a special edition eastwards. further west snow arrives to celebrate our 20th anniversary, into northern ireland, western scotla nd into northern ireland, western scotland and down into parts of a conversation with top british northern england. and we still have actor and director kenneth branagh on the changes that have taken place those strong winds as well. so very in the film industry during the time u nsettled those strong winds as well. so very unsettled start to the day across that talking movies many western parts of scotland. we has been on the air. could see a couple of centimetres over the tops of the hills it could be up to five or six centimetres. rain, sleet and snow in northern england. rain should clear away in the midlands, wales, central and southern england. then our snow kenneth branagh joined a special event in new york to mark sta rts southern england. then our snow starts to move its way eastwards and talking movies‘ two decades becomes a bit more showery in the on the air. the audience, a media crowd, afternoon but still very unsettled including former members windy afternoon with the best of the of the production team, sunshine across central and southern got to sample excerpts of the show parts of england and into wales. going right back to 1999. here we could see temperatures up to hello from new york, i'm tom brook. ten or ii celsius butjust four or in today's programme,

tim robbins‘ new political comedy cradle will rock. five further north, and on the strength of the wind and it will be now let's move on to the digital a bitterly cold day. as we go into revolution and the impact it's having on the film industry. monday at high pressure builds from the writer's strike has dominated the news. the south—west. for a time things members of the writer's guild settle down with spells of sunshine of america downed talks. but still strong wind as we go of america downed ——tools. through monday. those winds hello and welcome to austin strengthen further overnight into in texas, i'm tom brook. during its existence, tuesday and then we will see a talking movies has covered many key particularly stormy spell of developments in cinema, weather. goodbye. from the changing status of movie stars to the rise of the streaming services to demands for gender equality in the industry. over the years, big names have given their views. why shouldn't women get paid? we're not in the stone ages any more. we've burned all the bras, we've gone through that, it's equality. a person does equal amount of work and does itjust as well, then absolutely. i've covered the movie industry very much from the outside, but how does somebody influential, a key figure working on the inside of the industry, view the changes of recent years. well, let's have a very big round of applause

for sir kenneth branagh. applause. thank you very much. a passenger has died. he was murdered. i will speak to you all in time. forthe moment, i must recommend that you remain in your compartment with a doors locked. i feel like a prisoner here. it is for your own safety. if there was a murder, then there was a murderer. the murderer is with us. kenneth branagh has starred in some 37 feature films. he has brought his star present to pictures ranging from murder on the orient express to dunkirk to hamlet. most recently, he played william shakespeare in his later years in the film all is true. i wanted to ask you... the best way to get started as a writer is to start writing. i don't have a favourite play. i admire all my fellow dramatists equally and i think women should be

allowed for the female roles as is the practise on the continent, now please do excuse me. a things that has changed over the last 20 years is that movie stars nowadays aren't as important as they used to be. in 1999, you could have tom cruise orjulia roberts opening in a film, even if it was pretty bad, and they would still open with a very, strong box office. that doesn't seem to happen. stars seem to be less powerful. would you agree with that assessment? yeah, i think that... when i came to the business, i was told that there were only six or seven movie stars in the world any one time. by that studio's meant there were only six or seven people whose very presence in a movie could open the movie. their presence guaranteed that the opening weekend would be a spectacular triumph. and we don't have that in the same way. i know from knowing some of those people that that was sometimes for them, for what it's worth, an incredible pressure.

i think that sometimes it's not necessarily good for the artists themselves to carry that kind of pressure. it can be a distorting thing. notice anything unusual about me this morning? i wish i could. look. well, look! why, though, don't we have people like stars like elizabeth taylor any more? do we have actors or in that case women who are a combination of incredibly talented and incredibly beautiful and glamourous and interesting, i think we have those for sure. but she was larger—than—life in a way, wasn't she? yeah, but she also came out of a studio system where when she arrived at the centre of her most sort of glamourous

omnipotent period, it came from a whole history. so this was a child actress in hollywood with a hollywood machine that fed an image of her that wasn't necessarily correct. some of her glamourous movie starness was about that sort of dichotomy between what we thought we knew about her and what she appeared to be as an adult, and for all those great child stars it can be sort of a kind of tension or traditions between what happened in later life and makes it very compelling. but i think that we have... the idea of a movie star is kind of an odd one. i think there is quite a small group of people where the single and remarkable gift is their compelling capacity to hold the screen in whatever way. and to be followed for sometimes a quite particular set of qualities that's distinct from movie stars who are actors. i think we've got many more movie stars who are actors or actors who are movie stars.

where would you put maybe lady gaga and bradley cooper into that equation? do you think they are potent movie stars? i would say that, first of all, i thought that was a terrific movie. i thought bradley cooper did a greatjob and i thought she did a greatjob. and sam elliott, indeed all of it was exceptional, i thought. she's a great star and maybe she will become a great movie star. and she's a great star in that movie. and he's a movie star and a great actor. so i think there's a fudgy blur, but neither is just one thing. good answer. thank you.

one of the most star—studded events in the world is the annual oscars ceremony. when talking movies started out, the academy awards was more of a must—see event in the us. nowadays, it's a challenge to reach audiences, particularly young people. is the oscar's becoming irrelevant? what do you think? i think it's becoming marginalised. why is that? because there's so much competition in terms what people can watch, and also think i'm answering my own question. you're very good at it. you know more than i do. let me put it back on you, if i can very delicately. do you agree that something is going on, that it is becoming less of a vibrant part of the culture perhaps? well, i would agree with you that the many different ways in which people consume entertainment means that the focus of that event as a single sort of gathering moment at which some

sort of a summation of the year's cinema is reached has been divided and diversified by any number of other awards ceremonies, the distinction between different kinds of movies, a sense that one ceremony is pushed fully and comprehensively address the issue of appreciation of that year's work in cinema or on screen. so i think that's maybe the most obvious thing. and then there is a subjective answer to whether the format of a sort of grand event like that is something that works in quite the same way. so maybe it's unrealistic to expect that it could command an audience. the world is different, isn't it? i think expectations of it have to be recalibrated in those terms.

everybody says a billion people watch it, don't think? watch it, don't ——they? that's the figure but eventually maybe they do. kenneth branagh has notjust been an actor for four decades. he's also worked as a director and producer, so he knows the film business really well. he directs small arthouse films like all is true, but also big blockbusters like thor and cinderella. he understands many of the challenges now facing the industry. i'd like to ask you about some of the changes that have taken place in the film industry during the time that talking movies has been on the air. it began in 1999. at that time, the film industry, particuarly in hollywood, was run by white males. you're white and male. has that brought you... you spotted it! has that brought you privileges and benefits? well, inevitably, the history of our times tells us that things

are changing and they need to change more. and i think that it's been a very dynamic 20 years. you started making these programmes just after the beginnings of the digital revolution and the massive social, the world's social change that the internet brought about. yeah, it's been a period in which you can feel the seismic shifts, and i think they are happening right now. and do you find that when you're beginning work on a project as a director, involved perhaps with the casting, that you are mindful of the need to create opportunities that match up with gender balance and getting non—white faces on the screen? i mean, i would like to think that is something i have been doing throughout my career, where there was a more intuitive response to that.

but, yes, but i would say and always as a matter of course and always imperfectly, no question. but i think that's been part of... whether it was with our theatre company 30 odd years ago, that very same company that were there all the way up to henry v were all paid the same money, it was 50—50 gender split, equality of pay, equality of opportunity is something that i believe and have tried to foster and have done so imperfectly. remote driving system activated. i've observed myself there are pressures to increase diversity on screen, especially recently. but change is only incremental. let's go! do you think that we can learn by way of example? for example, there was black panther, a humongous movie that came out that really gave african—american actors

very high profile roles on the back of a megahit. and that certainly is a very potent display of diversity. do you think that has a knock—on effect on the industry? i'm sure, there are these crude equations always in the commercial industry with what makes money. and in the case of that particular picture, it also coincided with very fine work from everybody. so that for me is the most potent example of how influential that can be, simply to have that showcases excellent direction and terrific acting in a terrific entertainment. and what about other groups, older people, elderly people, getting them involved in stories and seeing their lives actually displayed on a cinema screen? well, i think it's been happening and it will happen. as a man who is sort of seeing 60 years old two years down the line, for me, the idea of that is just silly.

you are all going to find it, whether you're south of 60 or north of 60, it's other ages that start to tickle your fancy. but i think that when my parents would get older, there was this kind of paradigm at least in my privileged bit of our western culture, there was my dad winding down from business, from 50 onwards and certainly from 55. and there was kind of a slightly movie—supported cliche that societally—supported cliche of time to put the slippers on, walk the dog and stuff, doing less things. now that's really been exploded and i talk to people for whom that is just the start of heading that way, doing the things that they might otherwise have done. so it won'tjust be a bit of a cliche if cinema is going to be for old people having sex and people have sex after a certain age. i think we can confirm that that's the case.

but they do more things than have sex. and so there will be plenty of stories, certainly many stories north of 60 of all those adventures. you can break our hearts, but you cannot break our spirits! the #metoo movement has brought about reckoning in the film industry and beyond. do you think that that reckoning was waiting to happen and that harvey weinstein was merely a catalyst? it's an interesting question. that there have been, as in other industries, these appalling incidents or even perhaps insidious waves of behaviour. i think the history of movies, you know, literature about movies, books about movies

and the old studio systems or starlet systems or the fortunes of notjust actors but other participants definitely lets us understand that we now see numerous ways of behaving that simply were unacceptable. and i think as a society, we took a long time to get to think that there could be another way of talking about it, of listening to voices and maybe that needed to be heard and maybe whether it was him or something else, something else... human development does not go in a kind of steady curve. it usually hits something, some profound event occurs and then some breakthrough into another area of knowledge happens. so i think that in that sense, a moment, an incident, a person would inevitably be the tip of an iceberg that was due to break the surface.

and so it happened in that particular way, but maybe it was reallyjust a question of not very much more time. but in the wake of #metoo, there hasn't exactly been progress for a lot of women in the film industry. female directors, last year, there were fewer working on top movies than there were the year before. what can be done about that, do you think? well, that's maybe a false measurement. at least if the progress of women is only defined by whether some of them direct... it is one measure. it is one measure, but it is also a measure that plays to a high glitzy end of something. and so i don't know, what is a proper... what would you like? what would constitute in that instance some sort of sense of equality? i think the change will happen. i agree it has been slow, but not

necessarily in other parts... i think in the pyramid of all of this, i think there is much more change that is not as visible as that disappointing sign that has more and greater numbers of diverse voices and certainly many women's voices coming into other parts of that particular pyramid. and so i think it will change. have you thought about what was after all a seismic event, donald trump getting elected to the white house? would you like to make a movie about trump and what would it be? laughter. i think, possibly a miniseries or a long—running series. we had a theatre season two or three years ago in london, and one of the things that we planned for was a new play, a contemporary play about modern british politics. and it had an element that also looked at contemporary american politics.

it was written by a very sharp, intelligent writer, a compassionate writer with an expansive point of view. it would've been inclusive in the sense of not merely polemic as it were. and what we found was we just could not keep up. we couldn't keep up with what was happening day by day. i think you could make a movie about mr trump this week, and it might be a very different movie next week. it depends on what you would like. if you want a movie that sums up what is going on, maybe that needs to wait because it is all changing. if you want a different format that tries to slice and segment the amazing dimensions of this extraordinary political and social and economicjourney the world is going on with these leaders, then maybe that would be in a different form. let's move onto something very different, netflix, which is an entity that everybody knows, a streaming giant. it really has upended hollywood.

when talking movies went on the air, netflix had been not in operation forjust two years. you would get a dvd in a bright red envelope. it had not emerged to be what it is today. do you think it's basically a force for good in hollywood ? i remember thinking when the first notion, when it and other ideas like it appeared, that from your device, whatever it might be, that an entire library, all of what was available in the cinema would be available at the touch of a button. that when i looked around at shelves full of dvds and vhss and things at that time, it seemed to be an absolute miracle. well, it is a miracle. netflix is heralding a lot of change, but do you think there is something in the way sacred about the cinema auditorium of people gathering in the dark to watch a film that will always endure? personally, i do.

and that's the thing, although i've been doing this for a long time now, it's still my favourite hobby. i go to the pictures every weekend. i love it. i love it, i love the ritual of it. a packed auditorium or when you go see a friend's film on opening weekend and there's not anybody there. that can be a pretty chilly experience. it is most chilling when it is one of your films, i can tell you that. no, i love going to movies. and it's never a bust, never a chore. and it's never a ——busman‘s holiday, never a chore. and i prefer myself the concentration of it, i like it. i have done lots of theatre and i go to the theatre, my god, a bad night at the theatre is a terrible night. but i can sit through any bad movie. it's just for me, still somehow i switch back into that kid who was watching that tv in belfast in the early ‘60s and going to the great big cinema.

we used to go to royal avenue, it was the odeon on royal avenue, a massive theatre. and i recall watching chitty chitty bang bang, the film where this car and it will crash and it goes over the cliff in cinemascope and it starts to fly and i rememberjust leaning forward like that as a kid. then the intermission came up. the intermission, commercial, half—time at a movie. just the right time. went out, got ice cream, came back in and the whole family were there, the place was packed, it was just absolute magic. we have to stop. thank you so much for the interview. you were very generous with your comments. thank you, the audience. # chitty chitty bang bang. # chitty chitty bang bang, chitty chitty bang bang.

# we love you. # what we'll do. # near, far, in a motorcar and what a happy town it will be. # chitty chitty bang bang, thankful friend and friend. # chitty chitty bang bang, our thankful friend. a mixture of seasons today. we still have a few wintry showers around through the rest of the afternoon and that could go on through the night in scotland and northern england. some hill snow for wales and also for northern ireland and the western isles of scotland. much milder where we have

the cloud and the rain. that rain slowly pulling eastwards but meanwhile we have more snow arriving into parts of scotland, northern ireland, perhaps as far south as the north midlands. becoming showery in the afternoon. there will be sunshine away from these showers but it is another wintry day. this is an idea of the gusts tomorrow afternoon. so whilst the thermometers may say five to 10 celsius, add on the strength of the wind and it will feel much colder. that continues for the weekend. it is windy and will feel cold, some rain and snow but also some spells of sunshine.