Cry Freedom, Britain / Zimbadwe / USA 1987

This film was produced and directed by Richard Attenborough through Marble Arch Productions and Universal Pictures. It is based on two books by Donald Woods; he was an editor of the South African ‘Daily Despatch’ but had to flee the Apartheid State because of his work to expose the murder of a Black activist, Steve Biko. One book is Biko (1978) about the black activist; the other is Asking for Trouble The Autobiography of a Banned Journalist, recounting how he and his family fled their country to Britain. Woods had tried to interest several producers in making a film about Biko. He recounts how the proposed movie took the form that it did;

“Attenborough told Norman [Spencer] and me that he felt “a bloody good film” could be made on the basis of my books – provided the script with the right ingredients from both could be written. He thought that while Biko was the basic theme, Asking for Trouble provided “the way into” the movie, his reasoning being the same as Norman’s – that Woods’ story was the necessary balance to the Biko story if mass audiences were to be reached in Europe and the United States”. (Filming with Attleborough, 1987).

This was the basis for the screenplay by John Briley; he had written Gandhi and on this film was also a producer. Attenborough sold the project to Universal Pictures; note, they commissioned a survey to discover the recognition of Apartheid among U.S. citizens, the poll revealed 11%.

There were also issues with the South African regime, still repressing / oppressing the black majority.  Filming there was out of the question. However, the production was able to involve the Government of Zimbabwe, now liberated from white minority rule., The country had suffered serious violence between the two main political parties, partly based on tribal divisions; the violence died down in 1987 when the two parties formed a unified government, The Patriotic Front. The production used craft people, supporting actors and extras from the civilian population.

The film opens in an African township at dawn, the Crossroads settlement. An on-screen date, [telex-typed] gives 25th November 1975. Armed police in vehicles with dogs terrorise the inhabitants, wrecking homes in what was considered an illegal settlement; Black Africans were frequently restricted to reserves and forced to carry passbooks.

The film cuts to the offices of the ‘Daily Despatch’ where a photographer, Ken Robertson (Kevin McNally), brings Woods a record of the raid, and remarks that there were posters of Steve Biko in the settlement. Woods knew of Biko as a member of The Black People’s Convention and an advocate of a political philosophy, Black Consciousness. Woods writes an editorial critical of Biko and his philosophy. This leads him to being challenged to actually meet Biko, who was already subject to a state ban. These bans restricted a person’s movements and who s/he could or could not meet.

Despite this Woods and Biko meet; Woods is impressed with Biko, the more so when he gives the editor a surreptitious trip to a black township. We see both Biko’s activities to assist and support black people but also his public persona as an advocate of black autonomy. This includes being seized and interrogated by the security police and his testimony at a trial of black activists.  Then Biko is caught in a police check. Arrested he is interrogated for three weeks. At the end he is brain damaged from the torture and dies on the way to hospital.

Donald and Wendy Woods lead a rehearsal for the funeral

Woods, and his wife Wendy, are distraught and attend the funeral, which is a mass affair of black people with a few liberal whites in attendance. Woods then manages to get photograph of the body which disprove the State claim that he died on a ‘hunger strike’. Preparing to travel to the USA to give a series of lectures on Biko, Woods is arrested and subject to a banning order. By now he has a hidden manuscript on Biko. He decides that he needs to leave South Africa. His wife Wendy objects, partly on the grounds that he has not consulted her. However, the family are subjected to abuse and toxic parcels by the police and other racists. She agrees.

The escape has Woods travelling secretly to the border and crossing in to Lesotho from where he can fly via Botswana to London. Once across the order he will contact Wendy who will also have to travel secretly to Lesotho. Succeeding, they fly over to South African territory, fearful of interception by South Africa, but they survive this. The journey and the flight include flashbacks by Woods to events with Biko. Some of these comment on their situation, but others are about the struggle against Apartheid. The final flashback is the now infamous massacre of protesting school student in Soweto on June 16th 1976. As the plane flies on an on-screen lists records the black activists who died in police custody between 1963 and 1987.

Donald and Wendy Woods were involved in the pre-production and production of the movie, including all the filming in Zimbabwe. Woods describes this in Filming With Attenborough (1987). He describes in detail the whole filming process. As a non-professional Woods describes what he sees and hears: and provides a sense of just how different aspects of the filming work: something you do not get in Attenborough’s writings. He also emphasizes the painstaking attention to detail: in the look, dress and accents of characters: in the settings and décor: and in the particulars of any action. He also notes minor deviations, usually for clarity on screen. And he provides brief portraits of many of the regulars, crew and cast, who worked on Attenborough’s films.

Simon Kaye [sound], Donald Woods, Richard Attenboorugh, Kevin Kline [seated] and Wendy Woods

He also writes on the performances in the film. Denzel Washington and Kenneth Kline play very different characters but both are really effective. It is worth noting that Attenborough did audition African players for the role of Biko, but he felt that they lacked the appearance of the character and his charisma. Woods’ praise applies to the supporting cast, both from Britain and the USA and from Africa itself. There are couple of star cameos but not on the scale on the earlier historical biopics.

The film runs for 157 minutes but it is not really epic in the way that Gandhi or Young Winston aspire to be. Much of the film is about characters interacting, often with frequent close-ups. There are some fine exteriors and landscapers, filmed by Ronnie Taylor. And the several mass action sequences are dynamic and use a favourite trope of Attenborough’s, the crane shot, often tracking back from the action. The editing is well done but the demands of a dual narrative makes it sometimes obvious. The soundtrack is predominately in English but there is also Afrikaan, Xhosa, Zulu, and Sesotho: there are English sub-titles but not for all the dialogue. The music is composed or arranged by George Fenton. There are orchestral accompaniment that tend to mark passages of emotion but there is also an amount of African music, including ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’; this is an African Christian hymn that was a sort of a national anthem for the Black struggle, ‘God Bless Africa’.

Generally the film garnered positive reviews. And it received a number of Award nominations. It failed to recoup the production costs from theatrical rentals, but likely has made money since from other formats.

The film is limited in some ways by the narrative which, as Woods explained, combined a biopic with an escape thriller. This is really noticeable at times; there is a cut directly from the Biko funeral to Kruger [Minister of Police, John Thaw] watching the event on television and then to Wendy in the Woods Home. This is just on eighty minutes into the film, almost exactly half-way. The change in pace and tone as the narrative moves from Woods friendship with Biko to the family escape is something that some critics picked up on. The flashbacks to Biko during Woods’ escape seem to be designed to keep the audience aware of the principal character. It seems to have been a problem and it does not seem to actually deliver on the motives of Attenborough and other producers. The first eighty minutes of the film are about Biko, mediated by white characters like Woods. Thus this strategy could have been maintained for the whole film: still including a reduced escape plot: but with a fuller and more detailed representation of Biko and his philosophy.

Richard Attenboorugh and Donald Woods in front of Zimbadwe extras

There is a certain irony in a film written and produced in Britain; the originator of the divided and colonised Southern Africa. And the prime funders, in Britain and the USA, were very much part of the system that exploited Africans under Apartheid. The film actually falls into a wider genre, journalist reporting on Third World conflicts. Under Fire (1983) is an example where the journalists leave a successful liberation: The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) is an example where the journalist leaves chaos and violent repression: whilst in Place of Weeping (1986) a South African journalist investigating a rural racist murder returns to the city, unsuccessful. The common trope across these films is that, at the end, the white [frequently male] reporters leaves whilst the indigenous struggle on or even die in that struggle. Cry Freedom fits the genre; with the Woods leaving South Africa, and leaving the struggling black consciousness movement there. However, Woods carries with him the spirit of Biko in his manuscript, so this film adds a rather different emphasis.

The centre of Black Consciousness in the 1970s were the Black Townships. And they have also seen the focus of a number of films addressing Black Resistance and Black Consciousness. A key title is Mapantsula (South Africa 1988), released in the same year as Cry Freedom. Like the mainstream movie this film is set in an African township: it opens with a demonstration suppressed by the police: and its penultimate’s scene is again the violent suppression of a township demonstration. The film was directed by a white anti-racist film-maker, Oliver Schmitz and scripted by him and the film’s leading player, Thomas Mogotlane; the latter worked in the township theatrical provision. The film is unconventional using some of the techniques advocated in Soviet montage. The film’s focus is the townships and the black residents. And in the course of the narrative Black Consciousness is shown to work on the characters. The film was made by circumventing the South African censorship body; but once released it suffered restricted distribution. However, it was seen in basic township venues and in video venues by ordinary Black Africans. Oddly, it got a nomination for the Academy Awards by South Africa; this may have been occasioned by a screening at the Cannes Film Festival and a warm response there. It is an African alternative to Cry Freedom, made for and by black Africans; and Mogotlane’s performance in the film suggests that he could have taken on the role of Biko in the mainstream movie.

Rather like Gandhi, Cry Freedom demonstrates the contradictions of western liberals making movies about liberation struggles directed against the film-makers home and imperialist state. There tends to be a simplification in the politics of the oppressed; so this film only offers a few lines by Biko about black autonomy and black resistance. In fact, the Black Peoples Convention not only had a complex political standpoint but one conditioned by the social situation of the time. The African National Congress, [larger than the more radical Pan-African National Congress) had little influence or presence in the townships They had  a military wing operating in the state  from bases beyond the border but much of their efforts went on influencing international opinion and action. At the time the ANC was opposed to the line of the Convention; something apparent when the film was made, the ANC not opposing the film but not supporting it either.

In colour and Panavision 2.35:1, running time 157 minutes. Also released in 70mm blow-up and 16mm anamorphic. Cut by ten minutes in Canada.