Ever after he was said to have promised himself that he would one day make a parachute jump that was not an

Ever after, he was said to have promised himself that he would one day make a parachute jump that was not an emergency.Fun or not, nothing was left to chance yesterday. Eight hours of training and a thorough medical check preceded the jump. And although a civilian plane was used, the two Golden Knights held the former president on a harness until his parachute opened at 4,500 feet. An emergency medical team stood by on the ground, just in case.With his successful jump yesterday, Bush neatly turned the tables on his youthful vanquisher of the 1992 presidential election. Bill Clinton has now graduated to crutches, since turning up in a wheelchair for the Helsinki summit with Boris Yeltsin after damaging his knee in the singularly unadventurous act of falling downstairs.Before the jump, a spokeswoman for the regional branch of the US Parachute Association said - in words that will provide consolation to any aspiring septuagenarian skydiver: "He's in good health, fit and perfectly capable of doing it." As, indeed, he proved.Mary Dejevsky, Washington. Rob Brown Media Editor With The English Patient pulling off an unprecedented Oscar triumph, yesterday should have been a day of wild celebration for everyone associated with movie-making on this sceptred isle, but the director of the British Film Institute, Wilf Stevenson, had no difficulty containing himself.Naturally, Mr Stevenson warmly welcomes the fact that a British film has scooped nine Academy Awards, but he remains disturbed by the fact that Britain is making more and more movies which no one in this country will ever see."It's a celluloid mountain!" he declared gloomily, pointing to statistic which shows that half the films made in the UK do not receive any sort of domestic cinema release, being cast aside by the American giants which dominate distribution in Britain."Its ridiculous and obviously a market failure to have great films which no one sees," sighs Mr Stevenson.

who warns that a glut in British films is now a real danger.Aided by the National Lottery, British film-makers are enjoying something of a boom: investment in UK productions has increased by 60 per cent from pounds 394m in 1995 to pounds 655m in 1996.Last year there were 121 features made by British companies or by foreign companies using UK crews, facilities and locations, a sharp increase on the 73 movies made here in 1995.But the picture becomes a lot bleaker when we zoom in and look at the proportion of these films which actually gets released. In 1994 - the last year for which figures are available - less than one third of British films (31 per cent) were put on wide release; that is, shown on 30 or more screens throughout the country.Another 22 per cent had only limited release, which means they were shown only in art-house cinemas or on a limited basis in the West End of London. Even more disturbing, almost half (46.4 per cent) were unreleased within a year of completion.Wilf Stevenson explained: "People tend to talk about the film industry as a production industry It is a distribution industry and always has been But in Britain we don't have a distribution industry. What we have is a cottage industry struggling to turn itself somehow into a world force again."The only sign of hope on the horizon is that a number of consortia bidding for the lottery franchises, designed to create mini studios in this country, are proposing to combine production and distribution. The franchises are due to be awarded in mid-May.Whatever the outcome, the British Film Institute (BFI) must recognise, in the words of its director, that "concentration on film production to the exclusion of distribution is foolhardy".If they want their films to get wider distribution, British film-makers will also have to give them wider appeal.The BFI has frequently drawn attention to the growing tendency for British films to be aimed at an older, minority audience.This contrasts markedly with the vast bulk of Hollywood product, which is pitched at teenagers and young adults, who are the most frequent cinema goers.The only British film to have seriously bucked this trend was Four Weddings and a Funeral, which topped the British box office in 1994, grossing a whopping pounds 27m.Indeed, this was one of just two UK films to recoup its production costs entirely from UK box-office sales.

It earned 13 times what it cost to make in this country alone. And it took $53m (pounds 33m) in the US, where the people who dominate world cinema were all too delighted to distribute it.. David Lister It is not just the success of The English Patient that is the talk of Hollywood today. The Oscars have given movie buffs a host of new heroes, stars who will now command multi-million dollar salaries although they were virtually unknown a year ago. Geoffrey Rush, the Australian actor who played the pianist David Helfgott in Shine, will now be wooed by the Hollywood studios previously unaware of his existence.And a new breed of actress could at last grace Hollywood movies following the triumph of Frances McDormand whose delightfully whimsical performance as the pregnant police chief in the comedy thriller Fargo won her best actress, beating off British opposition from Kristin Scott Thomas, Brenda Blethyn and Emily Watson.Leading British film producer David Parfitt commented yesterday that one outcome of this year's Oscars would be to make Hollywood studios more daring. Interesting actresses such as McDormand and Blethyn - far from the typical Beverly Hills glamourpusses - will make the studios choose less bland fare, he predicted.The principal award winners at the Oscars were: best film The English Patient; best director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient); best actor Geoffrey Rush (Shine); best actress Frances McDormand (Fargo); best supporting actor Cuba Gooding (Jerry Maguire); best supporting actress Juliette Binoche (The English Patient).There was British success for Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice for best original song for "You Must Love Me" in Evita, and for Rachel Portman for best original musical or comedy score for Emma - the first time a female composer had even been nominated.British producer Eric Abraham also set a precedent by winning an Oscar for best foreign language film with Kolya, a low-budget Czech film. The biggest British disappointment was Mike Leigh's Secrets And Lies which failed to win any award despite five nominations.Lauren Bacall failed to make best supporting actress category, but there were cheers for younger old favourite, Muhammad Ali. When We Were Kings, about his 1974 fight with George Foreman, won best documentary feature.Best original screenplay went to Ethan and Joel Coen for Fargo; screenplay adaptation to Billy Bob Thornton for Sling Blade; and visual effects to Independence Day..

A judge who controversially jailed two women jurors for failing to reach a verdict mounted an outspoken defence of his actions last night, saying juries must recognise their responsibilities if the criminal justice system is to be upheld. In what is believed to be the first decision of its kind in more than three centuries, Judge Anura Cooray split legal opinion after he sentenced Bonnie Schot, 20, and Carol Barclay, 32, to 30 days for contempt of court on Monday after they cited "personal reasons" for not participating in the jury's deliberations in a counterfeit currency trial at Knightsbridge Crown Court in central London. The pounds 100,000 17-day prosecution against five defendants, which was followed by a four-hour summing up, had to be abandoned and a new one ordered at an additional cost of pounds 150,000.Ms Schot, the jury foreman, who had been planning to study law, later said from Holloway jail in north London: "There wasn't enough evidence for me to reach a decision ... I just didn't understand it."As penal groups castigated what they said was an indefensible use of imprisonment, the 61-year-old judge became the latest judicial figure to resort to issuing a statement through the Lord Chancellor's Department, to defend his actions.The pair were freed on bail yesterday, pending an appeal. Asked outside prison what she thought of the judge, Ms Schot said: "He's a very spiteful and vindictive man."Paul Cavadino, chairman of the Penal Affairs Consortium, warned: "If jurors who genuinely do not understand the evidence in a complicated trial are pressured into bringing in a verdict, this is likely to produce unjust convictions or wrongful acquittals."This unreasonably harsh action can only discourage people from serving as jurors."It took "moral courage" for a juror to admit he or she did not understand the evidence rather than going along with the prevailing view in the jury room, he added.People with personal or other difficulties, as the judge made clear in this case, are allowed under the regulations to make these known to the court at the time the jury is selected.Judges generally look on such representations sympathetically in the interests of convening a jury that will stay the course.Leroy Redhead, the barrister who is representing the two women, said that Ms Barclay had told the court that she could not ethically judge anyone and find them guilty or not guilty, despite having sworn to reach a verdict according to the evidence at the start of the trial.The judge said in his statement that the jury "knew full well that they had ample means available to them to inform the court immediately if they were confronted with any difficulties".He added: "I was satisfied that [the women's] refusal to participate in the jury's deliberations constituted a clear contempt of court."However, not all commentators condemned Judge Cooray's action.