Jack Bond

Interview By Alex Miller
Photo By Ben Rayner Separation The Other Side of the Underneath Vibration Anti-Clock Anti-Clock A Clockwork Orange Vice: Why have the films you made with Jane Arden remained hidden for so long?
Jack Bond: So you hadn’t seen them since 1982?
Anti-Clock was actually never released in the UK at all. Why was that?
Separation was banned from the Cork Film Festival, Anti-Clock was rejected over here—did you feel like you were making controversial art-house films?
Somewhere in Anti-Clock’s unsettling mix of the past, madness, premonition, demon psychology and occult philosophy, you managed to make a film which predicted the visual language of surveillance society. Did you see that coming?
Warhol was a big fan. Did you know him?
Dali in New York That’s a big line-up.
In Dali in New York, Dali seems pretty intense.
During the filming of Dali in New York, he famously stormed off set when Jane Arber stood up to him.
Dali in New York So you never got to make the Warhol movie?
From left: Anti-Clock (1979), Separation (1967), and The Other Side of the Underneath (1972) You were in the army, right?
And you became a teacher?
After that, it was at the BBC that you got your first directing experience, right?
Points of View. Ha ha. Did they find you out?
So when did you actually start directing?
The Pity of War What are you working on at the moment?
Early One Morning It sounds like dangerous information.
Is it true that while making The Other Side of the Underneath, a bear and a bunch of mental patients escaped from the shoot?
Ha ha. What about the mental patients?
Repo Man Ha ha. Maybe she had a point.
Jane Arden and Jack Bond’s and are out now for the first time on DVD & Blu-ray from the BFI.