A STUDY GUIDE by fiona edwards
http://www.metromagazine.com.au
ISBN-13-978-1-74295-011-2 http://www.theeducationshop.com.au Skin (Anthony Fabian, 2009) is one of the most moving stories to emerge from apartheid South Africa. Sandra Laing is a black child born in the 1950s to white Afrikaners who are unaware of their black ancestry. Her parents are rural shopkeepers serving the local black community, and lovingly bring her up as their ‘white’ little girl. But at the age her husband’s rage and her daughter’s predicament. of ten, Sandra is driven out of white society. Sandra elopes with Petrus to Skin is the story of Sandra’s thirty-year journey from Swaziland. Abraham alerts the police, rejection to acceptance and from betrayal to reconciliation, has them arrested and Sandra is as she struggles to define her place in a changing world imprisoned for three months. Sandra and ultimately triumphs against all odds. is told by the local magistrate to go home, but she refuses as she is pregnant with her first child.
THE STORY Sandra’s parents are shocked, and Having made the choice to be with Abraham fights through the courts Petrus, Sandra begins a life in a black iving in a country ruled by a (and the media) in an attempt to have township that has no running water legal system that segregated its the classification reversed. and no sanitation and which offers few Lpopulation based on the colour opportunities to make a living. She of their skin, ten-year-old Sandra The Population Registration Act of and Petrus have two children; in order stands out as being distinctly African 1950, which required that each inhab- to keep them, Sandra has herself looking. Her parents, Abraham (Sam itant of South Africa be classified and reclassified as ‘black’. While she feels Neill) and Sannie (Alice Krige), are registered in accordance with their more at home in the black town- white Afrikaners unaware of their black racial characteristics, was amended ship community, Sandra desperately ancestry. They are shopkeepers in a so that a person’s colour was deter- misses her parents and yearns for a remote area of the Eastern Transvaal mined on parentage, not on skin col- reunion. and, despite Sandra’s mixed-race ap- our alone; after this, Sandra becomes pearance, have brought her up as their officially ‘white’ again. Sandra, Petrus and their family are ‘white’ little girl. forcibly relocated and any chance But by the time she is seventeen, of ever reuniting with her parents Sandra is sent to a whites-only Sandra realises she is never going appears remote. Sandra and Petrus’ boarding school in the neighbouring to be accepted by the white com- relationship soon disintegrates and town of Piet Retief, where her (white) munity. She falls in love with Petrus Sandra is forced to flee with her brother Leon (Hannes Brummer) (Tony Kgoroge), a black man and children to Johannesburg, where she SCREEN EDUCATION is also studying, but parents and local vegetable seller, and they begin goes to the home of a relative. While teachers complain that she doesn’t an illicit love affair. When he learns of she speaks to her mother by phone, belong. She is examined by state the relationship, Abraham threatens her mother does not disclose her officials, reclassified as ‘coloured’ and to shoot Petrus and disown Sandra. location nor initiate any reconciliation. promptly expelled from the school. Meanwhile, Sannie is torn between 2 Upon the death of her father, Sandra receives some money from his estate and uses the authorities to track down her mother, who by this time is living dramatise the life of an important straight dramatic films? in a nursing home following a stroke. historical person (or group) from the • Did the movie stay true to real A tearful and emotional reunion occurs past or present. Sometimes, historical events? and this is the catalyst for Sandra to biopics stretch the truth and tell a • Did the movie seem to embellish come to terms with her life and who life story with varying degrees of the truth – if so how could the she is. accuracy. audience tell? • What kind of research was under- Skin is a story of family, forgiveness Big-screen biopics cross many genre taken? Did the filmmaker under- and the triumph of the human spirit. types, as the films might variously be take primary research (eyewitness about an outlaw; a criminal; a com- accounts, interviews and original CURRICULUM LINKS poser; a religious figure or leader of a documents) or secondary research movement; a military hero; an enter- (summary, collation and/or synthe- Skin would be enjoyed by middle and tainer; an artist; an inventor, scientist sis of existing research)? senior secondary students of English, or doctor; a politician or president; a • What kind of restrictions does a History, Family Studies, Psychology, sports hero or celebrity; or an adven- biopic place on a filmmaker? SOSE/HSIE, Sociology, Values turer. Education and related subjects, and BEFORE VIEWING Media and Film Studies (particularly In many cases, these films put an Film as Text, Cinema Studies and emphasis on the larger events (wars, Sandra Laing’s story is set against Screenwriting). political or social conditions) surround- the backdrop of a racially segregated ing the person’s entire life as they rise South Africa. GENRE to fame and glory. Some begin with the person’s childhood, but others Before seeing the movie, it is impor- This is a feature film that is based on a concentrate on adult achievements. tant to spend some time discussing true story and which can be classified the politics and history of South Africa. as a biopic – a subgenre of the larger Biopics have existed since the earliest drama and epic film genres. Although days of silent cinema; examples are Apartheid was a system of legal racial the biopic reached the peak of its pop- French filmmaker Georges Méliès’ segregation enforced by the National ularity in the 1930s, it has remained a feature-length epic Jeanne D’Arc Party government of South Africa key genre to this day. (1900), Joan the Woman (Cecil B. between 1948 and 1993, under which DeMille, 1916) and the religious epic the rights of the majority ‘non-white’ It is important to remember that while Judith of Bethulia (D.W. Griffith, 1914). inhabitants of South Africa were the essence of the film is true, other curtailed and minority rule by white elements have been added to ensure STUDENT ACTIVITY people was maintained. SCREEN EDUCATION that the film works dramatically. Discuss the biopics that you have While racial segregation in South Af- ‘Biopic’ is a term derived from the seen. rica began in colonial times, apartheid combination of the words ‘biography’ as an official policy was introduced and ‘picture’. These films depict and • How different are they from following the general election of 1948. 3 STUDENT ACTIVITY
The South African rebel tours were a series of seven cricket tours staged between 1982 and 1990. They were known as the rebel tours because South Africa was banned from inter- national cricket due to the apartheid With the enactment of apartheid books’ containing fingerprints, a photo regime. As such, the tours were laws, racial discrimination became and information on access to non- organised and conducted despite institutionalised. Marriage between black areas. the express disapproval of national non-whites and whites was prohibited, cricket boards and governments, the whites and non-white neighbourhoods From 1958, black people were International Cricket Conference [now were segregated, and many jobs were deprived of their citizenship, legally the International Cricket Council] and classified ‘white only’. In 1950, the becoming citizens of one of ten trib- international organisations including Population Registration Act required ally based self-governing homelands the United Nations. that all South Africans be racially called bantustans, four of which classified into one of three categories: became nominally independent states. The tours were the subject of white, black (African) or coloured (of As well as employment, the govern- enormous contemporaneous mixed decent). The coloured category ment segregated education, medical controversy and remain a sensitive also included major subgroups of In- care and a range of amenities such topic throughout the cricket- dians and Asians. Classifications were as parks and beaches, seats, toilets, playing world. based on appearance, social accept- waiting rooms and water fountains. ance and descent. A white person was Government services provided to Australian rebel cricket tours went to defined as ‘in appearance obviously black people were vastly inferior to South Africa in 1985–86 and 1986–87. a white person or generally accepted those for white people. as a white person’. A person could • Research media articles about the not be considered white if one of his • Many countries opposed rebel tours. or her parents were non white. The apartheid in South Africa. How • What was public opinion? determination that a person was ‘obvi- was this demonstrated? • How were the cricketers viewed ously white’ would take into account • What is the rationale behind in Australia and received in South ‘his habits, education, and speech and boycotts? Africa? deportment and demeanor’. A black • What did Australians do to show • You are a journalist writing for person would be of or accepted as a their disgust at the regime? the sports page of a metropolitan SCREEN EDUCATION member of an African tribe or race, • Sport and politics. Discuss the newspaper. Write a 400-word while a coloured person was neither involvement of sport in bringing opinion piece on the rebel tours. black nor white. Non-compliance with down apartheid in South Africa. the race laws was dealt with harshly. All blacks were required to carry ‘pass 4 terviewee, providing some background information about him or her and his/ IMPORTANT FIGURES IN personality interviewed her involvement in the apartheid issue, SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY • name and background of the and then asking him/her questions to television interviewer which he or she responds in role. The struggle to abolish apartheid in- • topics and/or questions raised volved a number of significant figures during the interview If possible, videotape the interviews so including: • information learned from watching that students have the opportunity to the interview review them later. »» Nelson Mandela • responses and reactions to the »» Steve Biko interview STUDENT ACTIVITY »» Winnie Madikizela-Mandela • effectiveness of the interview. »» F.W. de Klerk Prepare a brief biographical report on »» Pik Botha Have students bring their journals to the individual you researched for the class and present their responses and interview, explaining and evaluating his STUDENT ACTIVITY findings. or her role in the international struggle against apartheid in South Africa from Research one of the above person- STUDENT ACTIVITY the 1960s to the 1990s. alities and present their story to the class. (Encourage visual montages Prepare students to present a role- THE END OF APARTHEID and displays.) play interview between a television interviewer and a major figure who The factors that led to the end of STUDENT ACTIVITY participated in the struggle against apartheid were: apartheid. Share experiences watching interviews • Pressure from inside the country. with significant political figures seen Have them work in pairs, with one Members of the government be- on television. student assuming the role of the gan to have doubts about apart- interviewer and the other the subject. heid, and several parties opposed Discuss what information can be Students can choose one of the fol- to apartheid also began to grow in obtained through the television lowing subjects: South Africa from the 1970s. Wide- interview format and what factors spread opposition among both constitute a successful interview with • journalist Donald Woods black and white South Africans to a public figure. • author Pierre Berton apartheid policies helped to erode • ANC leader Nelson Mandela apartheid from within. Invite students to watch, for a week, a • Winnie Mandela • External pressure, especially from news program that includes interviews • former South African foreign Western nations, some of whom with public figures. Have them keep a minister Pik Botha had extensive civil rights legisla- journal of the interviews, recording the • former South African president tion. As the power of the Soviet following information: F.W. de Klerk Union began to decline, Western SCREEN EDUCATION • Archbishop Desmond Tutu nations felt that apartheid could • date, time and television channel no longer be tolerated, and they or network on which the interview Each interview should be approxi- began to actively speak out was broadcast mately five to ten minutes in length, against it. This period also marked • name and background of the with the interviewer introducing the in- moves toward democracy and 5 self-determination in other African Although in the present day Australia AFTER VIEWING nations, as the West no longer generally prides itself on being one of feared the influence of Commu- the most multicultural of the ‘Western- STUDENT ACTIVITY nism on nascent African govern- style’ democracies, its past contains a ments. Numerous international long period of government-endorsed At the beginning of the film Skin, politicians, diplomats and public racism that, among modern Western its title is revealed in letters cut out officials condemned the policy of democracies, was matched by few of a black background. The letters aparthied, and encouraged South and possibly exceeded only by the advance towards the viewer, grow- Africa to bring it to an end. apartheid regime of South Africa. ing larger and larger, and the opening • South Africa also experienced im- scene of the film – a 1994 election-day mense economic pressure to end STUDENT ACTIVITY celebration – is revealed through them apartheid. By the 1980s, banks in high angle. and investment firms withdrew • Research and discuss the White from South Africa, indicating that Australia Policy. This opening points to the fundamen- they would not invest in the coun- • Hold a class debate on the White tal role skin and skin colour will play in try until its institutionalised racism Australia Policy. the story of Sandra Laing. came to an end. Many churches • Discuss similarities and differences also applied pressure. between the White Australia Policy Tell your life story ‘through’ your skin. • Violent demonstrations from within and apartheid. and a mass organisation of angry • Creatively describe your skin – try South Africans. STUDENT ACTIVITY to be precise. Imagine your skin as • Appeals to apartheid laws started a map to your life and experiences to occur in 1990 and four years • How is apartheid and racial segre- and explore its marks, colours and later, South Africa had a democrat- gation shown in the film Skin? calluses. ic election and the last legal traces • List the ways in which blacks and • What clues might your skin reveal of apartheid were eliminated. whites are shown to be segregated about your interests and enthusi- in the movie. asms, your sporting activities or STUDENT ACTIVITY • What observations do you make mishaps, for example? What scars, about racial segregation in the film if any, does your skin carry and of Design a WebQuest on the history and Skin? what stories do they remind you? politics of South Africa. • What about tattoos? What other STUDENT ACTIVITY forms of ‘decoration’, if any, does See samples: your skin carry, or do you wish it - http://www.zunal.com/webquest. Read the history of the project as told carried? php?w=69098 by Anthony Fabian. (pages 7-8) - http://www.zunal.com/process. STUDENT ACTIVITY php?w=8488 STUDENT ACTIVITY Mise en scène is a French term and PUTTING IT ALL IN Discuss: originates in the theatre. It means, CONTEXT literally, ‘put in the scene’. • What were the filmmaker’s motiva- Australia prides itself on being racially tions for making the film? In film it has a broader meaning, and harmonious and having an integrated • What were the hurdles? refers to almost everything that goes society. But was this always the case? • Why do you think that Fabian into the composition of the shot, in- chose to make a feature film rather cluding the composition itself: framing, The White Australia Policy was a than a documentary? movement of the camera and charac- system of both official and unofficial • How did Sandra benefit from the ters, lighting, set design and general discrimination in Australian history, film? visual environment, even sound as it during which immigration policy and • How did the script develop? How helps elaborate the composition. citizenship requirements were heav- important was it to have South ily biased to favour white European Africans working on the script? • Discuss the mise en scène of this migrants, and more specifically Anglo- • What did the filmmaker find chal- film. Saxon migrants, over other races. lenging when making the film? • How does the filmmaker move SCREEN EDUCATION • Is the end of the film the end of the between time periods? Aboriginal Australians did not enjoy story? • How effective are the opening many of the same freedoms and rights • How is the film relevant to you? frames? as other Australians until the 1967 • Discuss the use of sepia in the referendum. opening frames, and the move to colour. 6 How it all began and begging so many questions. the Golden Bear-winning feature film, U-Carmen – I still felt the need to have I first heard the story of Sandra Laing Around this time, I also conceived substantial input from South Africans, in in July 2000 on BBC’s Radio 4. British the notion of selling the publication order to do the story justice. So Marga- journalist Peter White had gone to rights to Sandra’s story: people kept ret and I persuaded the UK Film Council South Africa to interview Sandra and asking me, ‘Is there a book?’ and I to fund a three-week period of casting her testimony left me stunned. For realised there probably should be. I and script development workshops – days afterwards, I had a lump in my was very lucky to have got the book using actors to improvise scenes based throat when I thought about her story commissioned from the first publisher on a draft of the script I’d prepared and realised it had the potential to I approached: Talk Miramax Books. before heading off to Johannesburg touch people around the world as a Miramax Films had just set up an – so that we could test every scene feature film. I also felt a tremendous imprint for books they thought might and create new material. Moonlighting sense of outrage that, after all she make interesting films, so it seemed Films arranged the entire workshop had been through, Sandra was still a natural port of call. The writer of the process on the ground, with their usual, living in abject poverty, while her white book, Judith Stone – an American steadfast efficiency. We auditioned over family had prospered. I felt compelled journalist based in New York, contrib- ninety actors, chose fifteen, and it was to make some kind of reparation, and uting editor to Oprah Magazine – was a tremendously exciting and creative thought a film might help provide her chosen to give an ‘outsider’s perspec- process – as well as wonderful to see with long-term financial security. tive’ on the story – which was primarily the material finally coming alive. The intended for an American readership, workshops were very emotional and Development unfamiliar with South African history. very cathartic – confirming the power of The job of the book and the film is very the story and emerging script. The first step was to secure Sandra’s different – one being factual, the other life rights. With the help of a couple dramatic – and Judith Stone proved a Packaging of journalists in South Africa – Karien very determined, hard working biog- van der Merwe and Karen Le Roux – I rapher, whose book, When She Was Casting director Susie Figgis has a managed to get Sandra’s neighbour’s White was finally published in April strong relationship with South Africa telephone number in Tsakane town- 2007, to excellent reviews. The other (her husband was born and brought ship, East Rand (Sandra herself did not happy outcome of the book’s publica- up there) and she agreed to help us have a phone). I explained what I hoped tion is that the contract I negotiated cast the stars, and eventually led us to to do, and asked whether she would gave Sandra a generous advance and Sophie Okonedo, who committed to consider assigning her life rights to me. enabled her to buy her first home, in playing the adult Sandra in July 2005. She would be paid option fees, and a peaceful suburb of Johannesburg. I Sophie had just been nominated for eventually a reasonable sum of money if also encouraged her to start her own an Oscar for Hotel Rwanda and it was the film were made. She agreed to meet business – a spaza shop in her con- quite a coup to have her attached to me. Six weeks after I had heard her verted garage – something sustain- Skin. Not long afterwards, I met with interview on the radio, I was on a plane able. (Running a shop is in her blood, Alice Krige – born in Uppington of to South Africa – a country I had never as her parents were shopkeepers.) So Afrikaner parents and brought up in visited before. My trip was brief and part of the dream was coming true: Port Elizabeth, who had made a career the goal simple: to gain Sandra’s trust Sandra was better off, much happier for herself in Hollywood. From the and hope that she might allow me to and more confident in herself. moment I met Alice, I felt I had come dramatise her story for the big screen. home: she fully embodied the role I met her family – her husband, her five Meanwhile work began on the and I knew there was no need to look children – and her mother, Sannie – screenplay which was developed over further. who was still alive then (I took Sandra several drafts written consecutively to see her, in a nursing home outside by Helena Kriel, Jessie Keyt, Helen In September 2006, the UK Film Pretoria; she hadn’t been for several Crawley and myself. In the meantime, Council agreed to fund a ‘pilot’ – three months because she couldn’t afford the I had been joined by Margaret short scenes from the film – which we transport). When I boarded the plane Matheson of Bard Entertainments and could then use as a promotional tool back to London, armed with the rights Genevieve Hofmeyr of Moonlighting to attract financiers, distributors and to bring her story to the widest possible Films in South Africa as co-producers. a sales agent. Pre-production lasted public, I knew this was the start of a three weeks and production two days very exciting adventure. What I could Although by then I had been to South – and Moonlighting pulled out all the SCREEN EDUCATION never have imagined was how long it Africa several times, had shot a one- stops to ensure we had maximum would take to develop the script – how hour documentary in Stellenbosch bang for our minimal bucks. The pilot, many writers and stages we would have about the Spier Music Festival (Town- which was post-produced in the UK, to go through to get it right – such a ship Opera) – which told the story of proved a very useful tool in attracting complex story, spanning so many years the company that eventually made more stars and finance to the project. 7 In November 2006, Margaret Mathe- coming from the big city. era high on the sticks, wrapped himself son approached the LA-based in a plastic sheet and, held down by international sales agent Robbie Little, What I didn’t know was that this area his assistant, captured the massive who had very successfully sold the (where we ended up basing ourselves lightning bolt that forked across the Oscar-winning film Tsotsi, to sell Skin. for the first five weeks of the shoot) has blood-red sky – a stunning bonus shot Robbie took the project to the Berlin a freakish micro-climate that attracts that made it into the film, before Sandra Film Festival and achieved an encour- the greatest number of electrical storms packs her belongings to leave Petrus. aging number of presales, including a in the world. (The amount of metal in the cornerstone sale to France’s UGC PH earth is a contributing factor; a few of Another massive challenge for the (Philippe Hellmann). All this arose from us were staying near a platinum mine, production was the sheer number the strength of the script and Sophie and our roads were paved with ore.) of people on screen: seventy-seven Okonedo’s commitment to the project. Thankfully, the first week of production speaking parts, babies of various ages The other stars – including Sam Neill we were spared the lightning and the (and colours), including a newborn, – had not yet come on board. The pre- rain. Then summer decided to make only twelve days old, and the hun- sales subsequently gave confidence to an early visit. The heavens opened and dreds – on one occasion nearly a investors such as the IDC and Aramid, it seemed as though they would never thousand – extras we had to call on an who eventually financed the film. stop. The Laing Compound became ad hoc basis. Somehow, the produc- mired in mud, many cars got stuck, and tion and assistant director team man- Production the cast and crew had to be rescued aged to bring, costume (and feed) all by the unit manager (the redoubtable these people – including some of the We started production in September Beatle van Graan) in his four-by-four finest actors South Africa has to offer – 2007 with the usual indie movie fears and I was beginning to fear we would to the set every day, so that we rarely of too little time, not enough money. never have enough dry hours to shoot had to recast a role. Our aim was to create a moving hu- our exteriors. (The film consists of equal man drama that would also have an numbers of interior and exterior sets.) The most daunting scene for me, as epic quality, as the story spans the You can make a lot of contingency a first-time feature director, was the turbulent final thirty years of apartheid. plans when making a movie – but once forced removal scene, which involved you have shot all your interiors, there is hundreds of extras, animals (goats, The first task was to find a location nothing you can do but pray to the god dogs and chickens) period bulldozers, that could serve as a unit base for the of thunder to give you a break. general mayhem and destruction, and majority of the shoot. We had over a collapsible set … But the skill of the fifty locations to cover in just forty-two It wasn’t all bad. Often, the weather cameraman, Dewald Aukema – who days – so keeping those sets within a would hold until just after our last shot suggested we use as much special FX relatively contained area was critical if – or not come until the end of the day. smoke as possible, to add to the confu- we were to have a fighting chance of At the end of our second week, there sion – and the efficiency of the highly shooting to schedule. was an electrical storm so violent, with experienced first AD, Mary Soan, who so many flashes of lightning practi- marshalled the extras – made it possi- Things began well: I was taken to cally licking our vehicles as we drove ble for us to film the entire sequence in Remhoogte – the Laing Compound, through in convoy, that I became just a day and a half. (It was scheduled as we renamed it – by the production convinced I’d be struck before reach- for one day, but naturally the heavens designer, Billy Keam, on the first day ing the hotel. For most of this journey, opened in the middle of the afternoon, of location scouting. North-east of I racked my brain, trying to assign and we had to complete the scene the Johannesburg, about fifteen minutes my successor – not that I would have following day.) from the Hartbeespoort Dam, which been able to communicate my choice, serves as a weekend retreat for town- had I fried to death in the car. (I was It now feels like something of a miracle ies, we travelled down a long, rutted later told that one of the safest places that, despite all the challenges posed road, leaving clouds of red dust in our to be in an electrical storm is a car. by the number of locations, the large wake. We reached the crest of a hill, True or false, it was reassuring.) cast and the crazy weather, we man- at the bottom of which sat a grove of aged to finish the film pretty much on pine and eucalyptus trees surrounding On another occasion, as we were at- time and on budget – and survived to a complex of single-storey buildings. tempting to finish a scene in a town- tell the tale. The hairs went up on the back of my ship, a dust and windstorm the like of neck: it looked exactly like the original which I’ve never seen began to kick Anthony Fabian SCREEN EDUCATION Laing farm, three hundred kilometres up. The crew began to wrap, but our away in Mpumalanga (then known second cameraman, George Loxton, http://www.filmeducation.org/skin/ as the Eastern Transvaal) – but this saw the sun setting magnificently over imgs/InterviewSummary.pdf location was infinitely more practical, the mountains and couldn’t bear to let it as our crew and equipment would be disappear unrecorded: he put the cam- 8 STUDENT ACTIVITY However, when filmmakers choose to explore the lives of living people, their Choose a character from history. approach to creating a truthful and en- gaging story becomes more complex You are a location scout for a film pro- and sometimes problematic. duction company that is making a film (or television mini-series) about the • How is this so? PRODUCTION VALUES: character. Outline where you would LOOK AND STYLE OF THE film the movie and why. This disclaimer is included in the FILM credits. There are a number of things to con- While authenticity of dialogue and sider when choosing a location. These Whilst this story is based on the life of performances are crucial to how we include: Sandra Laing, it has been dramatised respond to any film, it is the melding of in a number of ways and a number of the other elements – sometimes called • The cost of filming events and characters are entirely ficti- technical aspects or production values • Whether the government is tious. Accordingly, any resemblance – that really make a film convincing. sympathetic to the story (Thailand between them and actual characters They need to be authentic and appro- refused to give permission for Hol- or events is entirely coincidental. priate for us to be convinced that this lywood actress and director Jodie situation is ‘real’. Foster to film The King and I in the • Does this mean that the story is country so instead it was filmed in authentic or not? • Does this film seem real to you? Malaysia). • What is fact or fiction? Is it impor- • What makes it real? • Weather tant for the audience to be able to • Infrastructure. separate fact from fiction? Skin was filmed entirely on location in and around Johannesburg, South THE FILMMAKER SCRIPT AND DIRECTION Africa. Directors who make feature films, What makes a good script and how • How important was the setting to whether based on true stories, fiction, crucial is it to the strength of a film? the authenticity of the film? original stories or screenplays, are • Could you think of a different working with actors playing roles. • What are the main differences location that would have worked In this instance the filmmaker has between a script for a play to be SCREEN EDUCATION successfully? worked with biographical material to performed in a theatre, a script for • Describe several of the outdoor tell a story, and engaged actors to play a film or television program that locations. the part of the characters to recreate is adapted from a novel, and an a story. original screenplay?
9 • Is it important for filmmakers to PRINCIPAL CAST AND CREW OF SKIN playing a character that is still maintain some distance from their living. CAST subjects, or is a more engaged and • How important would it have been friendly relationship with subjects Sandra Laing Sophie Okonedo for Sophie to meet with Sandra? more likely to produce a story that Young Sandra Ella Ramangwane • Comment on the evolution of San- is both authentic and revealing? Sannie Laing Alice Krige dra’s character throughout the film. • Did having South African writers Abraham Laing Sam Neill working on the script (screenplay) SPEECHES AND make it more authentic? Leon Laing Hannes Brummer SILENCES • What do you see as the crucial Adriaan Laing Kaylim Willet events of the story that propel the Petrus Zwane Tony Kgoroge What people say in this film, how they narrative? speak and the context in which they • Which scenes did you find most CREW speak are crucial to our responses to upsetting? Director/ Anthony Fabian the characters. producer/writer CHARACTERS AND Producer Margaret Matheson • Discuss how Sandra responds to PERFORMERS her parents, teachers, whites and Producer Genevieve Hofmeyr blacks. This film is very character driven. Writer Helen Crawley • Describe Abraham’s tone. What Writer Jessie Keyt does it say about his character? Responding to characters: Writer Helena Kriel • Is Sannie a submissive character? Discuss. Composer Hélène Muddiman • Are the characters in this film • English is not the only language represented sympathetically? used in the film. How does • Do they change and grow over the filmmaker integrate other time or are their characters actor you have chosen. languages? essentially static? • Select two scenes that could be • Which of them display qualities, shown at an awards ceremony that MUSIC whether attractive or frightening, best demonstrate what you have that you recognise? said in your recommendation. A film’s soundtrack is made up of • With which of these characters do sounds and music, with composer you sympathise? STUDENT ACTIVITY and sound designer working closely • Do you feel ambivalent about any to achieve complex moods. It’s worth of the characters? Read the article, starting below, about closing your eyes at certain points in actress Sophie Okonedo. this film to fully understand the many STUDENT ACTIVITY layers of this soundtrack. • Discuss the similarities and • Write a 200-word piece outlin- differences between Sophie Singer Miriam Stockley contributed to ing what you see as the major and Sandra. the music of the film, performing her strengths in the performance of the • Discuss the difficulties for Sophie own work as well as the work of oth-
Jewish Actress Sophie In 2005, the tall, striking actress burst of Bees [Gina Prince-Bythewood, Okonedo Explores into the international spotlight when 2008]. Biracial Identity she was nominated for an Oscar for her harrowing turn as the wife of a Now she has tackled her first leading By Naomi Pfefferman hotel manager who hid more than role in Skin, based on the true story 1,200 refugees from genocidal militias of Sandra Laing, a biracial girl born ‘I’m a North London, working-class, in Hotel Rwanda [Terry George, 2004]. to white parents – unaware of a black black, Jewish girl,’ actress Sophie As the unexpected new toast of ancestor in their family tree – in 1950s SCREEN EDUCATION Okonedo said. ‘I love my upbringing Hollywood – Newsweek described her South Africa. The film chronicles because it had so many different performance as a ‘revelation’ – she the parents’ battle for Sandra to be colours; it’s given me the equipment to went on to portray an emotionally classified as ‘white’, her rebellion play lots of diverse roles.’ disturbed young woman in civil rights- and marriage to a black man and era South Carolina in The Secret Life subsequent struggle to be reclassified
Continued overleaf … 10 … Continued
as ‘colored’ to keep her children. At Eventually Joan, a hairdresser and supporting actress Oscar for Hotel one point in the film, Laing’s parents Pilates instructor, was able to afford Rwanda. The two women were learn the ten-year-old Sandra cannot a flat above a fish and chips shop. visiting an art gallery located in a continue to live in their home unless The actress’ mother infused young stately mansion in London: ‘My mum she is documented as a household Sophie with the sense that she just stood in the middle of the room servant. could accomplish anything, and her and started screaming,’ the actress grandparents, who had been born recalled. When a guard reprimanded The script stunned Okonedo when it to Russian and Polish immigrants her, Joan declared, ‘I don’t give a f---. arrived at her North London home not in London’s East End (England’s My daughter has just been nominated long after her Oscar nomination. ‘The equivalent of the Lower East Side), for an Academy Award.’ The entire story was so extraordinary I almost remained central figures in her life, gallery burst into applause as the two couldn’t believe it was true,’ she regaling her with stories of her great- women triumphantly strutted outside, said from the flat she shares with her great-grandfather and other forbears where Joan, the seventy-year-old twelve-year-old daughter. depicted in old photographs. Pilates teacher, turned cartwheels on the sidewalk. And then there was the personal ‘My grandparents kept a fairly Jewish connection for Okonedo, 40, who was household,’ Okonedo said. ‘They The close relationship Okonedo raised by her Ashkenazi mother and celebrated all the holidays, and they has with her mother bears little Yiddish-speaking grandparents after spoke Yiddish when they didn’t want resemblance to Laing’s experience. her father, a Nigerian civil servant, me to understand the conversation. After she eloped with a Zulu- abandoned the family when Sophie I feel sad I didn’t learn Yiddish as a speaking vegetable peddler at the was 5. child,’ she added. ‘It’s such a fantastic age of 16, Laing was disowned by language, so expressive. And now my her conservative parents and only ‘I could relate to being black and grandparents are too old to teach me.’ reconnected with her mother after her brought up in a white family,’ she father’s death. said. ‘Of course being raised in North Now that her grandparents are in their London in the 1970s was much kinder 90s, the family holiday celebrations Okonedo met Laing a few times on the than South Africa in the ’50s. But it have ceased. ‘But culturally I’m still set in South Africa: ‘She was sweet was helpful to understand what it is very Jewish,’ Okonedo said. ‘It’s all in but very shy and spoke English only like to have a family that is a different my blood.’ as a second language,’ Okonedo said. color than you – and to question your Their conversations were short and heritage when people say, “That can’t Over the years, her mother has generic: ‘I couldn’t very well ask her, possibly be your mum.”’ remained Okonedo’s staunchest “How did you feel being abandoned champion – encouraging her to attend by your father?”’ Okonedo was the only black the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art congregant at the liberal synagogue after she dropped out of school at 16, The film’s director, Anthony Fabian, she attended with her grandparents, and later traveling with her to theater described the drama as ‘a journey although she refuses to discuss and movie sets to attend to her into color’. It also ‘tackles the eternal previous remarks she reportedly made hair. ‘I’m not very good at the whole human question: Who am I and where about encountering discrimination dressing-up thing,’ Okonedo said. do I belong?’ he wrote in a statement. from both blacks and Jews. Her big break in a mainstream film Okonedo agreed. ‘Sandra constantly She also declines to discuss her came in 2002, when Stephen Frears had these breakdowns and crises of estranged father, Henry Okonedo, cast her as a kind-hearted prostitute identity,’ she said. ‘Because of her who left Sophie and her mother, Joan in Dirty Pretty Things, which revolved unique circumstances, there was (née Allman), in poverty when he around the struggle of an illegal no one for her to relate to and no returned to Nigeria. Okonedo spent immigrant from Nigeria in London. collective for her to join. That’s a very her formative years in a dangerous Okonedo herself once visited Nigeria, frightening place for any human being housing project, notorious for drugs and she acknowledges that her roles to be. You feel like you’re falling all and criminal violence. When a in Hotel Rwanda and Skin are perhaps the time, falling through space with government worker paid the family attempts to explore the African side of nothing to hold onto.’ a visit, he asked what they did with her identity. SCREEN EDUCATION all the books in a large bookcase. - http://www.jewishjournal.com/ ‘Because of course poor people don’t It was her mother who was by her film/article/jewish_actress_sophie_ read,’ Okonedo told London’s Daily side, however, when Okonedo’s okonedo_explores_biracial_ Mail. cell phone rang with the news that identity_skin_20091020/ she had been nominated for a best 11 ers. Born in Johannesburg, her work is Sandra Laing: Tony Fabian the direc- SL: I wanted to let the world know heavily influenced by African music. tor of the film phoned me in 2000 that what apartheid did to a person in he wanted to meet me and told me South Africa and to let people know African music features strongly in this that he wanted to make a film about that if something happens to you long soundtrack. It differs markedly from my life. I agreed because other people ago and you are scared to talk you music from the West. – newspaper and TV people – always must talk about it and let it out and came to me and they just took the you can then go on with your life. • Is that important? story and went, and in Tony’s case I • How does indigenous music add felt that he was the one who would W&H: In the press notes you say that to the film? change my life. He did but it took this is a story of family, forgiveness seven years to make the film. and the triumph of the human spirit. STUDENT ACTIVITY Have you forgiven your family? W&H: Did he change your life? Pick some music from another part SL: Yes, I have forgiven my family. I of the globe and discuss its attributes SL: Yes, I was staying in a small rented didn’t get a chance to ask forgive- and its specific, identifying qualities. house wasn’t working and couldn’t ness from my father but I did see my support my children, but now I am in mother before she died and now just • What are the different instruments a bigger house and my life is much my brothers are left. used? better. • Is there a focus on vocals? W&H: Have you spoken with them? W&H: What was the hardest part for STUDENT ACTIVITY you to watch in the film? SL: They don’t want to speak to me. They are still angry with me from when Below is an interview between Sandra SL: The time when I called my mother I left home and when I chose black Laing and a journalist from the online from my cousin’s house which was the people over them. publication Women and Holly- first time I spoke with her after ten or wood
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