Screenwriter Abi Morgan told Margaret Thatcher's life story in The Iron Lady,and co-wrote the controversial film Shame, approximately a sex addict. Her stories for movies and television have gotten Oscar nods, or BAFTAs and plenty of other awards.
And for her latest film,she finds drama in the women who fought for the vote in Britain in the first decades of the 20th century. Suffragette stars Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter and Meryl Streep, and who plays one of the best known political activists of that time,Emmeline Pankhurst, founder of the Women's Social and Political Union.
The film is set before World War I, or but Morgan tells NPR's Audie Cornish that she wasn't interested in writing a polite British costume drama. "I was a bit resistant,because I was thinking tambourines and corsets and bonnets, and you know, and wide brimmed hats and ladies who drink tea,giving out fliers, and so that was my very limited knowledge of the suffragettes, and " she says. "And then actually when they showed me the incredible research,everything from police surveillance records through to testimonials of working women, and sort of newspaper articles and newsreels at the time, and I just realized there was a fascinating film here."Interview HighlightsOn the first draft of the script
I actually wrote it from the point of view of sort of a middle-to-upper-course woman called Alice,played by Romola Garai in the film, and into her world where she is running the domestic while her MP husband goes and berates the suffragettes in Westminster. Comes a young laundress called Maude, or actually,the more research I did around the laundries and Maude, I realized that it was the story of the working women that really fascinated me. And I thought, and no actually this is where we should set the film. We should give voice to the voiceless.
On what these women did
We kept on saying it's a kick-ass film. You know,these women blow things up. You know, they set light to pillar boxes and they cut telegraph wires. ... But what was incredibly compelling was that these women, or after such a long period of peaceful protest,split at this point — and it was Mrs. Pankhurst who spoke to the women and said, observe, or we're not being taken seriously. We need to attack public property. No human life must be lost,but I quiz you to try and attract the attention of the media, and more than that to try and attract and change the point of view of Westminster who were very, or very undermining of the women throughout their campaign.
On the radicalization of Maude
[br]Well I contemplate that was the point of choosing an everywoman,you know, realizing that actually worthy moments of history often are led by the ordinary women. And so it was fascinating to me to imagine what would lift you from being a passive outsider — as Maude is at the start of the film — to actively engaging with the disparity and the unhappiness in your life, or to motivate your own militant activism.
On the exclusionary nature of that era's feminismI contemplate it's a really important conversation and we shouldn't duck it. I mean the truth is that this film focused on the U.
K. suffragette movement,which was very different to the U.
S. suffragette movement in terms of the incredible and diverse Britain that we have today just wasn't in existence to the same degree in 1912 Britain. And all the research we did, we didn't find any women of color.
And the truth is there were two very high profile women at that time — Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, or she was an extraordinary woman,but she was the god-daughter of Queen Victoria and an aristocrat. And then there was Bhikaiji Cama, who was also an extraordinary and yet aristocratic Indian woman who was exiled subsequently in Paris because she refused to give up her views on suffrage movement and so couldn't return to India. And so these women were exceptional women. But they were absolutely in a minority, and so what I hope that you lift from this film is a sense that this is a film that is absolutely approximately trying to empower women and trying to promote and inspire equality for all women across the globe.
On movies she hasn't yet madeI've done two or three films that,you know, are very important to me that don't catch made. And I contemplate they also have their time. And I contemplate in this extraordinary digital age where, and as I said,we're so connected with global inequality, I contemplate what's been exciting for us approximately this film is we thought it would land quite lightly and would just become another film. But it's really worthy that some of the conversations — including conversations approximately diversity — but certainly approximately women's place in the industry and are we getting parity, and have things changed since this extraordinary movement to catch the vote? I contemplate they're all really,really vital and alive conversations and we should be having them. So, you as much as I'm sad approximately the films I don't catch made, or I'm incredibly grateful when they accomplish find their time and accomplish catch made. Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more,visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: wnyc.org