CHICAGOLAWBULLETIN.COM FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 2017 ® Volume 163, No. 78 Serving Chicago’s legal community for 162 years gambled away all the money. … And Western Europe looked Adventurous ‘Lost down on South America, and in South America you had the rub - ber barons using slaveholders, and slaveholders looking down City’ reflects on REBECCA on slaves and indigenous people of different regions warring L. F ORD against each other, so … the striv - ing comes form a place of inade - legacy, life’s purpose quacy, having to fill a hole, having Rebecca L. Ford is counsel at Scharf to rectify a lack within. And I felt Banks Marmor LLC, and concentrates that that lack in his case came her practice on complex litigation, really from a level of disgrace In Q&A, director says he wanted to share compliance, board governance and that he had to make up for it in specialized employment issues. She is some way. … story in jungle without romanticizing it the former executive vice president for What I saw that’s interesting litigation and intellectual property at was the idea that class had a MGM. She can be reached at [email protected]. very powerful impact on the way achu Picchu was Holland), Fawcett time and again he lived his life and in some ways discovered by the braved the perils of the Amazon that striving was the source of outside world in — poison arrows, piranhas, about Rousseau for us was … we both his greatness and his folly. 1911. Ernest Shack - deadly insects and cannibalism wanted to approach Amazonia And that’s a very complex idea leton launched his — to verify his archeological the way a Western European that I think in some way doesn’t MImperial Trans-Antarctic expedi - find. His suffragette wife Nina would approach it but also with - get old, doesn’t date. tion in 1914. King Tut was ex - (Sienna Miller), conducted re - out condescension, with a certain Ford: There were so many sto - humed in 1923. search for him and longed, futile - love for it but without an exoti - ries you could have told about It was during this extraordi - ly, to join an exploration. cizing of it … we tried to ap - Fawcett. How did you make the nary period of geographical ex - More than a historic biopic, proach the jungle as not a choice to tell this story this way? ploration and archeological “The Lost City of Z,” based on romanticized, exoticized “other,” Gray: Here’s the thing. To me discovery that Percy Fawcett the 2009 book of the same name but just as an “other,” because what mattered was how do you (Charlie Hunnam), the hero of by David Grann, is a reflection on that’s how [Fawcett] would have make this personal, as egomani - director James Gray’s painterly legacy and life’s purpose. perceived it. acal as this sounds, how do you and poetic atmospheric dream - Fawcett’s willingness to re - Ford: Will you talk about what make it about you. … I tried to scape, “The Lost City of Z,” spect and learn from the indige - Fawcett’s experience as someone communicate what was person - was both maligned and ac - nous tribes is contrasted with who is striving means for audi - al to me, and what was personal claimed as one of England’s the Royal Geographical Society ences? to me was his relationship with bravest explorers. establishment’s refusal to consid - Gray: You know, we have such his son. What was personal to A land surveyor, intelligence er that Amazonian “savages” a bad tendency as a species to me was the nature of his obses - officer and unlicked cub, Fawcett could have once lived in an ad - force upon each other a ranking. sion. … was the son of a disgraced vanced society characterized by The upper classes looked down I just gravitated toward what British aristocrat (“unfortunate artistic, mechanical or architec - on Fawcett because his father was personal to me and what in his choice of ancestors” de - tural sophistication. was really kind of a loser and had was personal to me ultimately murs one celebrant at a ball for In a interview I had with was the father-son story. the Archduke Ferdinand, as the director James Gray, we “ ... we wanted to approach To me that was what was doors to the room where it hap - discussed the appeal of emotional, and the initial pens are quietly closed to ex - Fawcett’s story and the Amazonia the way a Western rejection of that relation - clude Fawcett) he was uniquely choices he made while ship, and the acceptance primed physically and psycholog - telling it in this film. Below European would approach it but of that relationship as the ically to seek redemption in the are edited excerpts from also without condescension ... ” story progressed. … South American jungle. that discussion. The best advice I ever Sent to South America by the Rebecca Ford: You have said destroyed the family fortune and got in my life, if I may drop a Royal Geographical Society to that you communicated with ruined the family name. [The fa - name, was from Francis [Ford] survey and map the Brazilian- your cinematographer Darius ther] was in rarified social cir - Coppola. He said “make it per - Bolivian boundary as border Khondji about the look of the cles, he was equerry to Prince sonal to you because there is wars began to interfere with im - film using paintings. Which Edward, later Edward VII, and only one of you,” which I think is perial designs on the rubber ones? drank himself into the grave, really beautiful. trade, Fawcett found evidence of James Gray: That’s a good an ancient civilization, long re - question. We looked at Henri claimed by the green desert of Rousseau for the jungle and we BONUS FEATURE the Amazon rain forest. looked at Claude Lorrain for the For a video excerpt of Rebecca Ford’s interview with director James Accompanied by his capable U.K. portions. … We looked at Gray on balancing truth and spectacle in the making of “The Lost and loyal aide-de-camp, Henry Turner. We looked at Gainsbor - City of Z,” visit chicagolawbulletin.com or Ford’s YouTube channel Costin (a superb Robert Pattin - ough. I would say those are the at youtube.com/rlf773. son), and later his son Jack (Tom key guys. The important thing Copyright © 2017 Law Bulletin Media. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from Law Bulletin Media..