I met director Amma Asante at the Toronto International Film Festival where her film, Belle, was showing. It’s a prestigious place for a film to debut, even if it’s not coming out until the following year. Belle stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Dido Elizabeth Belle, the daughter of Captain Sir John Lindsay (Matthew Goode) and a slave in the 18th century. Belle lives with her great-uncle Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson) but still becomes aware that the aristocracy looks upon her differently. Mansfield is also Lord Chief Justice ruling on an insurance case in which a slave ship killed its slaves as if unloading cargo, a ruling which would be instrumental in England’s fight to end slavery. Speaking with Asante the day before her TIFF premiere, it was almost like the rest of the world is now, about to see Belle for the first time when it opens this weekend.
CraveOnline: What would you like people to know about Belle before seeing it?
Amma Asante: I would like people to know that it’s an important story in the sense of it’s based on a true story, it’s based on fact. It’s based on the idea of a young mixed race girl who genuinely comes from an aristocratic British family because she’s the daughter of a naval soldier and a slave, how she had an impact on the abolition of slavery in the U.K.
What I’ve tried to do in the film when I was crafting the script was to come to a place where we could entwine that story of the abolition of slavery, or a seminal step towards it, with this young girl finding her identity and coming to terms with being both half black and half white and being a woman of color who is also not any richer than most, well all black people of her time, but actually most white people of her time.
In a time when class and status and the woman’s place was so relevant and important and the love marriage was not – marriage was about status, it wasn’t about the one you love – her being in this privileged position is a really important thing for the world to know, that that history belongs to all of us. It’s an important piece of history I think. Race relations goes back a long, long way.
Well, 12 Years a Slave got me thinking, has slavery had its Schindler’s List in the cinema? There have been great films but has there been one as aesthetically and commercially successful as Schindler’s List was for The Holocaust?
Well, Amistad maybe. I was much younger when that came out. Schindler’s List really burns a memory into my head. I still think there’s room for that movie to be made. I’m saying this not having seen 12 Years a Slave yet but I think that there’s room for that film still to be told probably, that Schindler’s List kind of punch still to be told. This is what’s great about this period that we’re in now and all of these stories from history that do include a black experience is that we’re opening up the box of all these stories that are part of all of our history. In film we’re always looking for new stories, and now suddenly permission is being given, or we’re taking the steps to open up this box and find all these new stories to tell so I see no reason why there cannot be and will not be a film that is the Schindler’s List for slavery. It’s a good question.
Thank you. It’s not like they’re going to stop making movies about slavery once that happens. They still make great movies about The Holocaust like The Pianist and Life is Beautiful.
Two of my all time favorite films, especially The Pianist because it’s very, very different to Schindler’s List like you say. A film where the protagonist spends so much of the film almost being inactive in a way because he’s hiding, and yet completely compelling in a different way to Schindler’s List. You’re quite right. It doesn’t mean you stop. It just means that we’re acknowledging the variety of stories that are available to be told on that subject.
So how did you choose Belle?
Well, it was an incredible journey for me. The story originates for me from a painting, the real painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle next to her sister/cousin [Elizabeth Murray]. Actually her cousin but they were brought up as sisters, staring out from this painting as equals. This was incredible to me when I saw this postcard print of the painting because I live in Holland and I’d not long been to an art exhibition which was tracing the history of the black subject in European art from the 14th century onwards and showing them from background almost pet servant/slave character only there to show the wealth of the muse, of the main subject of the painting, right through to coming up front and being the main subject of the painting.
So I was very clear about how unusual this painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle was. She was not lower in the painting as most black people were depicted at that time. She was looking out at the painter which was unknown at the time. Normally the black subject is lower and looking at the white subject in order to draw your eye also to that white subject and they’re usually touching the white subject, so everything is drawn up and towards the white subject who then stares out very boldly and confidently at the painter. Here, Dido was a tiny bit higher than Elizabeth [Murray]. She was staring out at the painter very boldly and confidently and it’s Elizabeth, her white cousin, who’s touching her so your eye is drawn to her. So I knew that this was different.
What I love doing is stories that seem simple on the surface, but actually as you’re watching the film you realize there’s more and more complexities going on here. There’s a lot of parallels between the situation of the slave and the female experience at that time, being a woman and not being allowed to own your own money, not being allowed to work if you’re a woman of any wealth at all, being owned by your husband or your father basically. So there are parallels there and I wanted to draw all those layers into the story and that takes time.
With this, I could get really under the skin. I could go back to the research from scratch. Dido was such a London girl. She lived at Kenwood House which is an iconic estate in the center of London now where you go to jazz festivals, you sit out in the gardens on glorious days like this by the lake, but also it’s an English country house inside where our history exists, British history exists and this is where the painting was, where the painting hung until 1922. And then she moved to Belgrave Square which is a Square I lived in when we were shooting the film which is in the center of London. She got married around the corner and she really married the guy that we have in the movie and they had two sons together. Sadly she died at 42, she died very early but she was such a London girl and I’m a London girl.
It was kind of looking at this 18th century idea of who I could have been but would have been unlikely to have been. I’m an ex-actress and a lot of my friends are actors and actresses and of course they’re actors and actresses of color. What does every actress want to do at some point? A period drama with the beautiful sets, trussed up in beautiful corsets and all of those clothes, but where was the opportunity for us to do that? Where was the place where we could tell a story that included us? Then this story came along and I could somewhat be the person who shapes and crafts this story and tells it and offers a role to a great black actress, could work with some of the great British talent that’s out there.
Was there ever anyone other than Gugu Mbatha-Raw considered for Belle?
Gugu was involved as a consideration in this story right from my draft one, because Gugu has an innate grace that’s just fitting for the role. But this was also a role where the actress was going to have to carry the movie. Every other person in this movie is absolutely brilliant but they are in a supporting role to this girl who I wanted to make sure was up front and center of this story. So when you’re getting a film financed, you want to let the financiers know that you’re doing all you can to make sure that the best person is in this role, that you’ve looked at everybody. So knowing how great Gugu was, I didn’t want to be in a position of saying, “Well, we’ve only auditioned Gugu. We’ve only seen Gugu.” I wanted to be able to say, “We’ve auditioned everybody and she is the top.”
She makes you, no matter what color you are, you understand her experience and you feel for her experience. The one thing in a movie like this is creating a character who’s privileged when everybody else who looks like her isn’t, and of course she’s still striving for something in the story. She still needs something in the story but you don’t want her to seem brattish and seem like she’s already privileged but she just wants more when everybody else has so little. Actually you realize in the movie she’s not looking for more, she’s looking for equality. It’s a different story in that sense and I think she walks that find balance beautifully.
The relationship between her and Tom Wilkinson’s character on screen, my dad died during the making of this movie and I had to go out and film eight hours after my dad died in my arms. I had to go out and shoot with hundreds of extras and shoot the climax of the movie. For me the movie is a huge love story but it’s also a really important father/daughter story. I feel like I was able to shoot that day because I just put the emphasis on the father/daughter love that I knew I had been graced with, that I knew I was never going to see him again but that I could honor that love. I don’t want to cry, but I could honor that through this key moment between father and daughter in the court room at the finale at the end of the film.
When you stopped acting, did you focus on becoming a film director?
Directing came to me by accident I have to say. I had written A Way of Life and we were looking for a director, and it was kind of like the Gugu search. We had a wealth of directing talent in the U.K. and we were looking. Then suddenly the BFI who were the U.K. film council at the time just said, “Stop the search. We want you to direct this movie.” And I was like, “No, no, no. I love this movie. I’ve worked really hard on writing this movie. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written and I don’t want to ruin it, so I’m not directing this.”
They were like, “Wait, wait, wait. We’re going to pay for you to go to film school for a month and then we’re going to get you to shoot a pilot, just shoot some scenes for us and then we want you to shoot the movie.” I was like, “No, but can I do film school but not do the movie?” They were like, “No, if you take our money…” So I did it and essentially I was forced, but that film went on to win a British Academy Award for the writing and directing and lots of other awards around the world. I kind of thought, “Oh, maybe I can do this.”
What was one month of film school like?
Crazy. It certainly does not teach you the feeling of hauling a crew and a cast and a movie behind you, but what it did do was it kind of was a step by step process. I remember getting ready to shoot a couple of scenes from the film, just test scenes, and I remember getting through the first shot. So eight o’clock in the morning, I completed the first shot and I was so happy with myself. I was like wow, I’ve done the first shot. And then I realized all the crew, all the cast and everybody was just looking at me. I thought what are they all looking at? And then my AD said, “What next?” I’ve got to tell them what to do next.
It made sure that that moment didn’t happen on the real film. It made sure that on the real film, I was three steps ahead the whole time. If that moment had happened it would have zapped all my confidence. It got my taste whetted slightly and it gave me a 10% idea of what it was like to really get out there with a real crew and really have to lead, really have to be that leader, be decisive. Good communication, passion all day, no lull after lunch, no time to sag in the middle of the day. You had to be the one that’s firing them up the whole time, and now I love it. Now I just love it.
Have you thought about what you want to do next?
Well, I took the summer off because I didn’t have a chance to stop after my dad died. I needed to take some time with family and mum. I have a labor of love project which collapsed before Belle which was launched in Cannes in 2009, announced in Cannes, set in the 1940s in Germany. So I’m going to pursue that. Fox have very kindly given me, Belle is the first in a two picture deal. I certainly have the incentive. I’m reading a lot. Obviously I’d like to get this German project off the ground because it has been that labor of love.
What is it called?
It’s called Where Hands Touch. It’s also a beautiful, beautiful love story that’s set against the backdrop of The Holocaust, funny enough that you say that, but actually looking at the black experience.
I’ve never seen that.
Usually it’s about Aryans and non-Aryans, Aryans and Jews if you like, and this is about somebody who’s neither. She’s mixed race, she’s black, she’s German. Because that’s another period piece, at least 1940s, I’d like to do something modern so I’m reading a whole load of present day scripts. I’m working on a treatment for something myself which will turn into a screenplay which is modern day and looks at two generations of women, hoping that now that I’ve proved that I can work with a brilliant cast that I can attract more and be able to do something with a great cast again.
Now people keep coming up to me and saying, “Have you heard about the black Beethoven who existed in France in 17blah blah blah? Have you heard about So and So?” Suddenly everybody’s coming to me with these stories of people of color who existed in Britain or America who were doing extraordinary things doing the 17-1800s. I feel like with Belle I’ve kind of told that story but certainly my ears are open for modern day true stories as well as those period ones as well.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
