Bean there, done that!

Mr Bean, who began life on British television screens in 1990, has become a worldwide star thanks to Rowan Atkinson’s unique ability to marry endearing physical comedy and slapstick with a lovable personality.

The series sold around the globe, which propelled co-writers Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis to create a feature film, Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie, which saw the star embroiled in the art world in Los Angeles. 
Following the huge international success of the first Bean film — over $260 million worldwide on its release in 1997 — it was only a matter of time before the film’s creators decided to give the character a second big screen outing.  However, this time the filmmakers were very keen that they would not retread the same path, both stylistically and narratively.
“We always felt that there was another movie to be made with Mr Bean, but it would be a very different film from the first one,” explains Rowan Atkinson, the award-winning actor and writer who co-created the comedy character with Richard Curtis.  “We did the first movie 10 years ago and if we were going to make a sequel it would have been logical to make it eight or nine years ago rather than now, but it just took time to get round to thinking about it.”
Atkinson was also intrigued by the chance to explore a different style of filmmaking that a new film would offer. “I always believed that there was a European style movie to be made with Mr Bean,” he says.  “The first movie was more American in style.  It had the story, format and tone of an American family comedy.  I was always interested in the idea of Bean being the pro-active element, being the element driving the story, rather than him being a reactive element, a sort of satellite figure who was in the background while the story was being driven by other characters, which was the shape of the first film.”
Tim Bevan, producer and co-chairman of Working Title Films explains how the creative elements came together: “Once we had finished Johnny English I suggested to Rowan that we develop two films one of which would be a sequel
to Mr Bean.” Both he and Richard Curtis felt that to make another movie about the same character you would want to aspire to a different level of creative ambition and you would want to make it as pure and as cinematic as possible.  “There’s a real simplicity about the character of Bean,” continues Bevan, “someone then had the genius idea of involving Simon McBurney who co-founded Theatre de Complicite. 
Working with a character who expresses himself through action rather than the spoken word was also a strong incentive. “I absolutely love silent comedy in all its myriad forms,” says McBurney, who has always wanted to make an homage to silent film comedy.  “One of the first things I did with Rowan was to sit down and watch films by Buster Keaton, Charlie Chapin, Harold Lloyd and Carl Valentine. We also watched bits of Jacques Tati and I thought it would be thrilling to try and make a film in which Bean hardly says a thing.  He is the most wonderful character when he’s doing something, rather than saying something.”
Co-producer Caroline Hewitt testifies to the ease with which Rowan slips into character: “Rowan’s focus and concentration are extraordinary.  During filming I got to know Rowan and to watch him transform into Mr Bean was almost a shock. It’s a complete personality take-over.  It’s not like with other actors who explore their characters. Rowan knows exactly who Bean is, he can say with complete authority, ‘I would not, as Bean, do this’, he is completely embedded with the character. It’s fascinating to watch.”
The film is set almost entirely in France, but the filmmakers were keen to portray a France that would subvert Bean’s — and perhaps the audience’s — preconceptions of the country.
Setting the film in Cannes was just one way that McBurney wanted to make Mr Bean’s Holiday an homage to the art of filmmaking. Throughout the film Bean has a video camera and part of the narrative of the film is told through the images that Bean takes on the video camera.
“The great silent comedians always played with the idea of cinema,” says McBurney. “Nowadays, when somebody goes on holiday they always take a videocamera.  It gave us the perfect means to play with the frame. When Bean has a video camera in his hand it becomes very interesting because you can see what he is looking at and that becomes a window into what he’s thinking and feeling. And it pays off by ending up at a film festival. And so inevitably film and the film collide. It provided us with an amusing and clever way of playing with the idea of what is real and what is not real.”
“I hope that the film is as true, if not more true to the character and what people have enjoyed about the character, than anything we’ve done before,” concludes Atkinson.