Blackeyes (TV series)

Blackeyes is a BBC television miniseries first broadcast in 1989, written and directed by Dennis Potter based on his own novel of the same name.

Broadcast as four 50-minute episodes, first screened weekly from 29 November 1989 to 20 December 1989 on Britain's BBC2 channel,Blackeyes starred Gina Bellman as the title character, an attractive model, with Michael Gough in a key role as her uncle. It was described in the press TV listings as "a quirky, dark and sexually charged drama". Potter described the series' theme as the objectification of "young and attractive women as consumer goods in a way that brutalizes both sexes".

Following the successes of The Singing Detective and Christabel, the BBC awarded a budget of £2.4 million to the production of Blackeyes. It was shot on 35mm film and took 18 months to complete.

Despite illness, Potter opted to direct the entire series himself, the first and only time he ever did this for TV. He had considered both Jon Amiel and Nicolas Roeg for the job, both of whom he had recently collaborated with. Later he considered the decision to direct to have been a mistake.

In 2007 an article in The Guardian written by Jon Wilde revealed that the journalist had been the inspiration for the character of Mark Wilsher, "an insufferably smug hack" in episode 2 of the series.

In advance of its initial broadcast the series was eagerly anticipated, six months before screening it was promoted on the cover of The Listener with an image of Gina Bellman in role as the title character and the caption "Potter's Dream - Beyond The Singing Detective". James Saynor, the magazine's sub-editor at the time, wrote inside of Potter's ambitious desire to subvert the norms of film grammar in the series following an on-set interview with the fledgling director.

In the lead-up to broadcast Potter promoted the series by appearing on TV chat-show Saturday Matters with Sue Lawley and was interviewed in newspapers such as New Statesman and The Observer. Each time he made reference to "falling in love with Blackeyes", making clear how personal this project was to him.

...
Wikipedia