| A Cock and Bull Story | |
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Film poster |
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| Directed by | Michael Winterbottom |
| Produced by | Andrew Eaton |
| Screenplay by | Frank Cottrell Boyce (as Martin Hardy) |
| Based on | The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne |
| Starring | Steve Coogan Rob Brydon |
| Music by | Michael Nyman Nino Rota |
| Cinematography | Marcel Zyskind |
| Editing by | Peter Christelis |
| Studio | BBC Films Baby Cow Productions EM Media East Midlands Media Initiative Revolution Films Scion Films |
| Distributed by | Redbus Film Distribution |
| Release date(s) | 20 January 2006 |
| Running time | 94 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $3,931,982 |
A Cock and Bull Story (marketed in Australia and the United States as Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story) is a 2006 British comedy film directed by Michael Winterbottom. It is a film-within-a-film, featuring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing themselves as egotistical actors during the making of a screen adaptation of Laurence Sterne's 18th century metafictional novel Tristram Shandy. Gillian Anderson and Keeley Hawes also play themselves in addition to their Tristram Shandy roles. Since the book is about a man attempting but failing to write his autobiography, the film takes the form of being about failing to make the film.
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A Cock and Bull Story depicts Steve Coogan playing himself as an arrogant actor with low self esteem and a complicated love life. Coogan is playing the eponymous role in an adaptation of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman being filmed at a stately home. He constantly spars with actor Rob Brydon, who is playing Uncle Toby, and believes his role to be of equal importance to Coogan's, calling himself the "co-lead".
The film incorporates several sequences from Tristram Shandy. Not all of these are actually part of the film-within-the-film. The latter are limited to the story of Tristram's conception, birth and christening; Uncle Toby's experiences at the Battle of Namur; and Tristram's sudden and accidental circumcision at the age of three. In addition to these, Uncle Toby's wooing of Widow Wadnam (Gillian Anderson) takes place in a sequence dreamed by Steve Coogan; and, after the cast and crew have viewed the "completed" film, ending with Walter Shandy fainting at the sight of his wife giving birth, the question "How does the book end?" is followed by the concluding scene of the novel, in which Yorick says "It is a story about a Cock and a Bull - and the best of its kind that ever I heard!" (Yorick is not in the actual film-within-the-film; in this scene he is played by Stephen Fry, who appears elsewhere in the film as Patrick, a scholarly talking-head.)
The film's soundtrack is notable for featuring numerous excerpts from Nino Rota's score for the Federico Fellini film 8½, itself a self-reflexive work about the making of a film. Other non-diegetic musical references are made to Amarcord, The Draughtsman's Contract, Smiles of a Summer Night, Fanny and Alexander and Barry Lyndon. Michael Nyman, composer of The Draughtsman's Contract provides a new arrangement of the Handel Sarabande featured in the latter film, while the pre-existing tracks of The Draughtsman's Contract (the original soundtrack recordings—the score has been rerecorded numerous times) serve as a temp track to film of the Sterne material.
The film was recorded at a number of locations in England:[1]
The film has received very positive reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 90% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 121 reviews.[2]
A Cock and Bull Story was released on both Region 1 and Region 2 DVD in July 2006.
The fictionalized versions of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon seen in the film reappear as the central characters in Michael Winterbottom's 2010 BBC series The Trip.[3]
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