Film and television producer, director, comedian, scriptwriter, and inventor.
He was a very controversial figure, but when you look at his 62 feature length films and 34 patents, there is no denying that he was a genius of his own special type. He practically never got any film production grants from the Finnish Film Foundation, which used to operate a sort of a film industry financing monopoly and ultimately decide which of the bigger budget movies get green light for production and which ones are “cinematically too poor” to finance with tax money. Any connoisseur of camp culture will find his body of work a real tresure chest of viewing pleasure and innovation.
SpedeNET (in Finnish only)
SpedeNET kertoo lukijoilleen erään suomalaisen viihteen legendan tarinaa. Hän oli toki paljon muutakin kuin narua hyppivä hauska mies televisiossa. Niinkin merkittävän miehen kuin Pertti “Spede” Pasasen tittelin määrittely on äärimmäisen vaikeaa. Monitoimimieheksi kutsuttu Pertti muistetaan parhaiten suomalaisen elokuva- ja TV-viihteen uranuurtajana, mutta mies on toki tehnyt historiaa myös muilla saroilla.
Vanhemmat muistavat 1960-luvun radiohupailut ja vähän nuoremmille ovat jääneet mieleen Turhapuro-elokuvien mielikuvitukselliset keksinnöt. Pertin yksityinenkin elämä oli median suurennuslasin alla, mutta Spede piti huolen siitä että henkilökohtaiset asiat pysyivät salamavalojen ulkopuolella. Jokaiselle ikäpolvelle Pertti on kuitenkin osannut luoda jotain muisteltavaa, ja näistä muistoista SpedeNET on koottu.
I met him once while training his production people in non-linear video editor techniques. I got the impression that he is a brilliant businessman and that his characteristically goofy style is but skin deep. He was also a player in all senses of the word. He died of a heartstroke while playing golf in 2001.
An online editor told me that Spede would rarely take no for an answer. When the editor told Spede that you ‘just can’t make an edit like that’, Spede simply asked him to show the key to make that cut and pressed it while saying: “yes you can”. That’s an attitude that a lot of people should exercise a bit more often.
He was one of my many childhood idols. In a way,he still is. Respect.
Spede Pasanen in memoriam at the Finnish Film archive. (in Finnish only)
Posted by api in Blast from the past