For the record, it is the story of a once-famous photographer, Harry Sterndale, now down on his luck who is played by the singer Chris Rea. Having lost his money through a dastardly investor (Bob Hoskins), he has also been discarded by his impossibly greedy, vulgar wife (Diana Rigg). Now, as the final straw, poor old Sterndale has been given only six weeks to live. Determined to bid farewell with an unexpected degree of flamboyance, he has decided to kill anybody who has ever crossed him.
The likeable Rea, as the likeable Sterndale, stumbling his way through the film is a study in embarrassment. As for the rest of the cast, which includes three former Avengers stars, Rigg, Joanna Lumley and Gareth Hunt, as well as Hoskins, John Cleese, Ben Kingsley and Felicity Kendall, they are busily acting over the top and seem to be having a good time - which apparently is a feature of Winner's productions. Kingsley, Academy Award winner for Gandhi, is certainly very funny as Renzo, a crazed French chef who settles complaining customers with abuse and threats, while Lumley is hilariously deadpan as a former hippie turned barmaid and criminal fixer who specialises in disconnected, diversionary New Age conversation.
Directed with Winner's customary abandon and disregard for nuance on any level, the film testifies to his flair for encouraging serious actors to make fools of themselves - Rigg's performance suggests she took the part as a dare. Winner describes the film as a cartoon, which is a pretty accurate observation.
Cinema has fascinated him since he was five years old. "I always knew that I wanted to make movies," he says. Disney made a strong impression and Bambi remains one of his all-time favourites. The others include The Third Man, Citizen Kane, Singin' in the Rain, The Godfather and Olivier's Henry V - "that's a stunning piece of direction, don't you think?". When Winner started out as a director, it was a very different world. "All the directors were over 40. They wore grey suits. They were gentlemen who all spoke posh." Winner must enjoy the fact he doesn't.
As a director, does he feel films making a clean sweep at the Oscars is a good thing for cinema? "What do you mean? Are you asking me if the best films get the awards? It depends on the year. Some years are stronger than others. I think the Academy of which I am a member, I vote for the Oscars, do get it right. Who won the best actor this year? Oh yes Benigni, the fella in Life is Beautiful." He briefly considers this. He liked that movie, is more wary of Bill Condon's Gods and Mon- sters which had three Oscar nominations and won the Best Adapted Screenplay category for Condon. "McKellan was good - but it's a small story. Could as easily have been a play."
When referring to his new film, and its theme of revenge killings, Winner has been quoted as saying the idea came to him when an affair had ended badly. "I thought I would like to kill her." He is serious? "Of course I am." The idea of getting even echoes the central thesis of Winner's Dirty Weekend. Based on Helen Zahavi's novel, Winner frankly admits "about 25 per cent of the critics liked it, 75 per cent hated it". The real theme of that film is the fact that men do hate women. Winner's initial reaction is to disagree. "No, it's about someone having had enough. That's all." But later he seems to agree that the film is about the almost generic resentment "some men" feel towards women. Released on video in a cut version, Winner points out it did have a general release and, no, he was not pleased by the cuts.
Winner is the only child of immigrant parents. "My mother was Polish, my father's family was Russian. His father, my grandfather, left there in the 1870s." Winner makes no mystery of his European background. "Jews didn't have such a good time in Russia." No, there's no nostalgia for the Old Country. He speaks neither Russian nor Polish and seems bemused at the question. "I was born in England and during the war years no-one went anywhere, Europe didn't mean much to me growing up in Hertfordshire." His father was a builder: "Well, to be accurate, he built houses, rebuilt the ones destroyed during the Blitz - he was the most patriotic man I ever met. He kept trying to join up but there was something wrong with him, I can't remember what. . . "
Winner's could easily be the typical wartime childhood story. But he has no intention of turning it into a spoken version of Terence Davies's Distant Voices, Still Lives. Just when it seems he is about to soften as he describes the experience of being evacuated, he says: "There was a problem about evacuation - the people in London remained alive. That's where the best action was." For a young boy it was exciting: "Watching the bombs, the night sky, the colour - it was very vivid. The war was a happy time. I'm not trying to be funny, I mean it. People were very positive. There was a great sense of unity. Britain did well." He corrects this. "The people did well, it brought the best out of them."
Born in 1935, he says he is an insecure person, "most directors are", but he has obviously come to terms with this problems, as his arrogance is famous. The British actor Oliver Reed who died recently and who appears in Parting Shots, once ventured in a characteristically challenging comment: "Do you know what I am? I am successful. Destroy me and you destroy the British film industry. Keep me going and I'm the biggest star you've got. I'm Mr England." It's a comment which might almost have been made by Winner.
