MH: In researching your career I came across a wonderful documentary that I had never heard of that you filmed for Channel 4 called The Last Aztec; would you consider working in film or television again?

DBC: I didn’t make that, I just voiced it – sort of led it round. I would love to direct a film. In fact I did once try but got so hammered by the process of trying to get money together to make the thing that I had to end up abandoning it.

My books are quite visual; all I’m doing is describing what I imagine I see. But television, no, and the documentary, no. This [The Last Aztec] was the one I tried to make myself or about the one I tried to make myself.

MH: Even though you might not have written or directed it your passion for the subject really came through. Hernan Cortes, Moctezuma, the Aztecs - is that sort of stuff the kind of subject you would consider mining for a novel?

I spent years trying to get together a story about that, I found this lost valley and all kinds of stuff and I was really excited and it was a movie I wanted to make. As for a novel, probably not but you never know. A lot has already been said about the Aztecs and the problem is it’s a very visual story and I think it lends itself naturally to being filmed. But as I say, never say never – you don’t want to embarrass yourself by having said you won’t do it and then down the line you end up doing it anyway.

MH: DBC thanks.

DBC: No problem. Now you’ll have to sift through all the mud and shit like we just talked about; find the good bits, set the gem, all that stuff.

February 2010

End

 
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