Puttnam Power

SPOTLIGHT

Why not? British producer David Puttnam is counting on his third Best Picture nomination in six years, for The Killing Fields, Roland Joffe's searing film about the exploits of two New York Times staffers during the Khmer Rouge siege of Cambodia. "I think we've got a real good chance," shouts Puttnam, forty-four, on a crackling connection from Bogota, Colombia, where he is scouting locations for his next film. Known as the shrewd moneyman behind twenty-odd low-budget, high-quality productions, Puttnam has been Hollywood's dreaded dark horse ever since Chariots of Fire trotted off with Best Picture of 1981. "Having been there and won and having been there and lost, 1 know which one I prefer!" he says. The Killing Fields was "by two and a half times" Puttnam's most expensive film to date. "The budget was 10.15 million pounds," he explains. "When we started, it was 14.5 [million dollars]; if you did it today it would be about 12. So you can pick your spot." Two upcoming projects, also with Joffe for Warner Bros., are The Mission, about Jesuits in South America circa 1760, and a screen adaptation of Nadine Gordimer's July's People. He often takes risks on first-time directors (e.g., Hugh Hudson for Chariots), which makes him the power link between these novices and the studios. But he denies he's power-mad: "I have no interest in dominating a picture," he insists, "but I have every interest in being a real partner." Just one last thing—why is his company called Enigma Productions? "When I left school—I was only sixteen—they scrawled across my school report, 'This boy is a total enigma.' "

Cyndi Stivers