CASE STUDY: COUP 53
of documents and realising that this was the reason why he was who he was. The expression on his face was wonderful.” Amirani was initially in awe of
Murch. “One of the Gods of cinema, working with me in the cutting room,” he says. The relationship took a while to find an even keel. While Amirani was a respected documentary film-maker, this was his first feature: “I was making the most important documentary of my life, about my country’s most pivotal moment in its history.” Having Murch as collaborator was of huge significance. “In the beginning I was very deferential,” says Amirani. “I was always tip-toeing and felt out of my depth on so many levels.” After a few months, they had a
heart-to-heart, Murch saying that they needed to be a unit, on the same level. “From that moment I switched, we became a fusion of complementary experience,” says Amirani. The film is constructed from more
than 500 hours of footage (double the hours of Apocalypse Now). It includes 60 original interviews, huge amounts of archive, animation that recreates moments of conflict and footage of Amirani’s own story, as he discovered evidence.
END OF EMPIRE The heart of the story emerged a couple of years into production, from a transcript in the production archive of Granada TV’s landmark history series on the end of British imperial rule in various states, End of Empire, transmitted in 1985. While there was a paper transcript, apparently from an interview with former MI6 agent Norman Darbyshire in 1983, no filmed footage of Darbyshire existed. Instead, actor Ralph Fiennes took the role of Darbyshire in Coup 53, speaking the words of the transcript in a scene shot in the Savoy Hotel, the original location for other interviews in the same film. “The testimony gave us the spine
of the show,” says Murch. It’s also the reason why the film became so controversial, with the End of Empire team stating that there was never any such interview filmed and that the paper interview itself was from an off-the record audio-only research interview.
RECONSTRUCTING THE COUP The coup itself took place across
four days in August and there was no footage of the fighting. So animated sequences were created by filmmaker and artist Martyn Pick, who worked
“WE WERE AT THE
FRONTIER OF PREMIERE PRO, IMPROVING AND
ENHANCING. IT HANDLED OUR EXTRAORDINARY AMOUNT OF MATERIAL WELL”
TAGHI AMIRANI DIRECTOR
with specially shot footage, using a painterly technique to give an animated impression of the coup as it unfolded. The original footage throughout
the film was shot using a Canon C300, alongside Filmic Pro material, captured on Amirani’s iPhone. Amirani “fell in love with Filmic
Pro, it was the best $14 that I spent.” Much of his actuality footage was taken on the iPhone as he was gathering evidence, “documenting things as they were happening. We didn’t have time to call a crew.” 30 per cent of Coup 53 was shot on the iPhone with the footage integrating directly into
Frame.io. “It was so versatile, geared to professional film makers, with controls for aperture, volume, white balance.” Murch set about making sense
Director Taghi Amirani with Ralph Fiennes, who took the role of Darbyshire 116
televisual.com Summer 2023
of the huge amount of material by breaking it into four categories: expert voices, Iranian testimony, historical archive and the film’s own investigation. Working with a wall chart and using colour-coded cards, he arranged it in time-lines. “I made a timeline of nothing but historical experts and found I could have them toss the ball to each other – a
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112
