Rupert Murdoch and the world of British tabloid journalism were in the spotlight in Venice on Tuesday as Danny Boyle presented his new film Ink, which opens the 83rd Biennale Wednesday night.
The film, adapted from James Graham’s stage play, depicts Murdoch’s entry into the British newspaper scene, when he acquired the then-failing tabloid The Sun in 1969.
Hiring Larry Lamb as editor, the two combined far-right political reporting and populist rabble to turn the paper into a dark force in British media. Murdoch would take the lessons learned at The Sun and apply them to build his U.S. media empire with The New York Post and Fox News.
Guy Pearce plays Murdoch. Jack O’Connell (Sinners) plays Lamb. Claire Foy (The Crown, Women Talking) co-stars as Jules Davies, an amalgam of female executives who worked under Lamb at The Sun and a character new to the film adaptation.
Boyle said during a press conference that he was careful, as with the stage version not to “monsterize” Rupert Murdoch “because he represented at the time [a] breath of fresh air in what was a very rigid British society. It begins with something that’s fun and different, challenging a rigid order… It was important to us that the audience feels complicit.”
Foy said she found plunging into the world of ‘60s tabloid journalism “really intoxicating,” admitting to feeling “quite jealous” of Fleet Street reporters. “They had power at their fingertips. They knew what they wrote would be what people read and what people believed.”
Pearce revealed that Murdoch himself was pleased with the film’s casting. “I had some messaging with Elizabeth [Murdoch], his daughter, and she said ‘Dad’s very happy that you are playing him.’ But he hadn’t seen the film at that point.”
Graham said Murdoch had, however, caught the original play. “He came to see the play twice,” he recalled, though he didn’t give his opinion of the story. “He’s very good at not giving anything away which I think is one of his secrets.”
Though the film is set in the 1960s, Boyle said he wasn’t as interested in making a period piece, arguing that Ink was “about the modern world” showing many of the trends in the media that shape the current world.
As divisive as Rupert Murdoch and The Sun were, and are, Boyle argued, the father of modern tabloid journalism was, at his heart, “a print man” who he thinks must be “driven to despair” at the disappearance of the print industry, “the tactile world that we used to depend on to read the stories about us.”
Boyle ended the press conference with an extolment of the value of journalism that “speaks truth to power,” calling it “one of great uprights of any civilization.” He also acknowledged the great threats facing journalists, print or otherwise, in the age of AI.
“The danger with the tech giants, obviously [is that] they’ll be able to have an AI journalist who’s much more efficient, lot cheaper, etc. etc.,” the director said. “But will that AI journalist speak truth to that power that’s created it? That’s going to be very very tough.”
Ink is screening in competition in Venice. The film will release in select theaters in the U.S. on Dec. 11 before going out on Netflix on Jan. 8 in the U.S. and Latin America. Studiocanal is releasing the film theatrically across multiple territories, including the U.K., France, Germany, Poland, Australia and New Zealand, starting with the U.K. release on Jan. 8. Studiocanal is also handling worldwide sales, and is co-representing domestic with WME Independent.
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