A graceful force for freedomJuly 24, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/film/a-graceful-force-for-freedom/2007/07/23/1185043026157.html
Michael Apted turned Amazing Grace into a story of activism allied with faith, writes Philippa Hawker.
WHEN director Michael Apted went looking for a political subject for a movie, it took him far longer than he expected to find it. Apted — an Englishman now living in Los Angeles, whose CV includes the Seven Up documentary series, Bond film Die Another Day, Gorillas in the Mist and Coalminer's Daughter — says, on the phone from the US, that he had almost given up on the idea when a movie that he had already turned down became the project that he had been looking for.
He had been approached to do a film about the 19th-century reformer William Wilberforce, who for years conducted a dogged parliamentary campaign against the slave trade. It came from production company Walden Media, known for its interest in family-friendly fare. The project had been around for some time: Australian director Bruce Beresford makes several references to his interest in the film in his new memoir, regretting that other commitments meant he could not take it on.
The script that Apted read emphasised Wilberforce's strong religious faith, and was constructed as a traditional biopic.
It wasn't the subject matter but the form that failed to capture Apted's imagination. But the idea of doing a different kind of film on the same topic made sense: something more dynamic, with more emphasis on the intensity of the political campaign.
That's how Amazing Grace, a story of activism, came into being. He pitched the producers a different approach, and they agreed: he swiftly found scriptwriter Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things), who loved the period and the idea. Walden was on board the next day.
The change of emphasis "made them nervous", Apted admits, "and it was an — I won't say a struggle — an ongoing debate through the making of the film. I reassured them that I didn't want to diminish or demean his spirituality, because it was a very resonant part of his character and his story. On the other hand, I wanted the film to find a bigger audience than a faith-based audience."
He wanted young actors to play Wilberforce and his wife: his central character, was, after all, only 21 when he became an MP.
Ioan Gruffudd (Hornblower, The Fantastic Four) was cast as Wilberforce, and Romola Garai (Mary Bryant, I Capture the Castle) as his wife, Barbara. And, he adds, he had no trouble finding a host of leading British actors to take supporting roles. "They liked the script and the idea of the film."
Albert Finney said yes at once to the small but intense role of Wilberforce's mentor, John Newton, slave-ship captain turned Anglican priest, who wrote the song that gave the film its name. "I've been trying my whole working life to find something for him to be in," Apted says.
Michael Gambon, who was working at the time on Robert De Niro's directorial debut, The Good Shepherd, which was running over schedule, "really had to put himself out for this, he fought to be in the film".
He brings a sardonic wit to the part of Charles James Fox, the wily political operator whose support was crucial to Wilberforce's parliamentary tactics.
Apted confesses that he hadn't thought of Rufus Sewell, often cast in swaggering or villainous roles, as Thomas Clarkson, one of the most important campaigners against the slave trade. "I had the more conventional view of Rufus, but he really went after it, and I thought he was great. No disrespect to Steven or me, but I thought he made something out of nothing." (His is a fleeting role.).
And as Tarleton, one of the most prominent defenders of the slave trade, Apted cast Ciaran Hinds, an actor whose authority helps convey what lay behind his character's stand. Apted told Hinds, "from your point of view, everything you say is not true but terrifyingly true".
There was a climate of fear, he says, "fear of the French Revolution, fear of what might happen when the people became involved in an issue", fear that the popular support that the abolitionists were seeking "could lead to a bloody revolution and a guillotine in Hyde Park".
There are, he notes, many contemporary resonances to the film, many current echoes to be found in the 19th-century debate that took place. He wanted to present the context of it, to highlight "the fog, the moral confusion, the dilemmas" and also to show that activism needs to have political savvy.
"Because, for all the moral outrage against slavery, nothing could be done until someone had the spirit and will and guts to turn the campaign into an act of parliament. Activism has to end up as a political manoeuvre, and that was the great gift Wilberforce brought to the table."
But it's important, he says, "in the afterburn of the film, that the audience recognises that slavery hasn't ended with Wilberforce's campaign. It wasn't solved then and there, and it's not over now. Every generation has to deal, in its own way, with slavery."
Amazing Grace opens Thursday. Cinema Nova previews the film today at 6.45 pm followed by a discussion on modern-day slavery with Julian Burnside QC, Mardy Bromberg SC and Kerryn Clarke.
www.cinemanova.com.au