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Steve Jacobs on Adapting Disgrace |
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Steve Jacob’s film adaptation of Disgrace is likely to divide opinions as much as J.M. Coetzee’s novel did upon publication in 1999, when it won the Booker Prize and was derided by the ANC as racist. Already the film has won the FIPRESCI Critics Prize at Toronto, been uniformly acclaimed overseas, and been slagged off in South Africa, to the point where someone at the cast screening asked how DO Productions could have agreed to service something that does South Africa such a disservice. Certainly, despite its magnificent backdrop, Disgrace doesn’t paint a pretty picture of post Apartheid South Africa, but Steve is quick to point out that his film was never meant as an indictment of the country. “I hope the film is embraced as a piece of art. It’s not an exposé of South African society; it was never meant to be. It’s not meant to represent South Africa; it’s meant to represent a great book.” To call the book or the film racist is probably missing the point; it’s more accurate to say that Coetzee looks down on humans in general. While the story is about many things, people’s emotional reactions are normally caused by its depiction of white unease in the new South Africa. In a role originally meant for Raplh Fiennes. John Malkovich plays David Lurie, a white professor of poetry who leaves his university in disgrace after an affair with a student. South Africa’s Jessica Haines matches his performance as his daughter Lucy. She lives alone on a farm in the Eastern Cape, having negotiated an uneasy agreement with Petrus (Eriq Ebouaney, with a distracting accent), a black worker who she’s sold part of her land to in return for his help and protection. When she’s raped by a group of boys, she refuses to leave, even when she later realises that one of the boys is Petrus’ relative, and even when this boy comes to live on her property and continues to spy on her. After being raped, she tells her father that he shouldn’t be surprised; this is the price of living in South Africa. Later, she suggests that, since the whites had inflicted so much pain, perhaps her suffering is just a way of equalling the score. It’s as though, in 1999, Coetzee couldn’t picture a win-win scenario for black and white relations; if in the past the whites had won, now the victory of the blacks would mean that white’s must lose. Looking back, it all seems overly pessimistic, but it certainly captured the mood of the portion of the white population who, like Coetzee, emigrated in the years that followed. It’s a strange story for an Australian scriptwriter and director to choose to adapt. “Anna Maria Monticelli, the screenwriter, had read the novel and said it was potentially a very interesting film,” Steve explains. “I read it and agreed with her. It had universal themes, and I really appreciated the realism and the complexity of the characters. It was incredibly insightful, not at all your predicable movie arc.” In a very faithful adaptation, approved by Coetzee, Steve has tried to maintain the novel’s objective tone. “The book was not judgmental and I wanted to instil some of that into the film. We didn’t want to condescend to the audience. It’s very easy to get a cheap thrill, but it makes your audience cynical, whereas we wanted to keep them guessing. I was still manipulating the audience, but I was just not letting them off the leash. For example, some of the scenes were done in one wide shot, whereas normally you’d give the audience an out by cutting in." "By staying wider, you’re asking them to imagine what’s happening. The toilet scene where David gets burnt is an example. Their imagination is much stronger than anything I can shoot.” Despite his film’s negative portrayal of South Africa, Steve says his time here was nothing like his storyline. “I actually had a really good experience in South Africa. I found that the crews were terrific, the people were delightful, and the landscape was magnificent. All the toys are there and the people who can make them work.” He singled out the South African members of the cast and production designer Mike Berg. “He did a superb job, and a marvellous design on the farm.” Steve was, however, disappointed that the film failed to qualify for the Department of Trade and Industry (dti) rebate. “The only downside was the bureaucracy,” he says. “We didn’t have to go to South Africa; I could have shot the film in Australia. The landscape’s similar and I could have found something close to the Cedarberg, but we wanted to go the extra mile and make everything as authentic as possible. We structured the 15% rebate of our South African spend into our financial plan, but when we arrived we discovered that the dti’s guidelines meant that because we were below the spend threshold we had to bundle with another film, which involved a lot of weirdness with common copyright. Even the dti admitted it was unworkable. We started working in 2007, and we were one of the motivations for the new guidelines they issued in early 2008, where we would have fallen within the new threshold, but they decided that it was non-retrospective. It was all quite bizarre.” As a result, “This is an Australian government funded film. I feel very bad for the Australian tax payers, who put out because the novel is a great masterpiece and it was a very unusual opportunity for Australians to get such unique property.” He says he was also concerned by all the strings attached in raising South African financing. “We originally wanted to get South African money into the film, because it is an iconic book and a South African story. We spent years trying to make that that happen but every time there was interest, there was always a clause involved, giving away some sort of creative control.” Given the controversial subject matter and the ANC’s stated dislike of the novel, you can hardly blame Steve for being cautious about giving government-funded organisations any say over the creative product. Coetzee would hardly have signed off on a nonracial Disgrace with a happy ending. “In Australia, the government doesn’t have control over the creative elements of the film,” Steve says. “Film industries like ours and yours need government support, so when there’s interference or unethical behaviour from government, it’s a problem.” At the time I spoke to Steve, Disgrace was still screening in Australia, where it’s received great reviews, and was scheduled for a US release in October. Disgrace opened top of the Cinema Nouveau box office, taking in R104 388 on opening weekend. Watch the trailer here. Kevin Kriedemann | |||
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