Over a hearty breakfast, veteran British director John Schlesinger waxed enthusiastic about Prague ("I love the place...it's a beautiful city"), talked about the way the famous torture scene in Marathon Man coloured his subsequent relations with dentists ("they can't anaesthetise my bottom jaw - I wonder if it's deliberate") and outlined his future plans.

He told Moving Pictures that he hopes shortly to begin work on a US$7 million screen adaptation of Larry Kramer's award-winning AIDS drama, The Normal Heart, originally mooted as a Barbra Streisand vehicle. Annette Bening and Richard Dreyfuss are both slated to appear, with the go ahead expected next week from a major US independent.

Schlesinger approaches the project with some wariness, "I am heading into a great stream of controversy." Mindful of what happened to Philadelphia, he is determined that this won't be a studio picture. "They would emasculate it too much. We will make no concessions whatsoever - except to good taste."

Geoffrey Macnab

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