DANIEL DERCKSEN TALKS TO SHAWN SLOVO ABOUT CATCH A FIRE AND SCREENWRITING

During my conversation with Shawn Slovo on February 5, 2007 (a week before the opening of CATCH A FIRE IN South Africa), it was clear that her mind was racing a million miles per second. Her passion for writing and her dedication to her craft were clear. Her energy was inspiring.

IT IS IMPORTANT FOR SCREENWRITERS TO KNOW WHAT THEY ARE WRITING ABOUT. IS CATCH A FIRE A PERSONAL STORY FOR YOU?
Well, is it? It does have a very strong personal connection. Yes, I would absolutely agree because of who my mother and father were. Joe Slovo told me about Patrick Chamusso in the mid 80s. Like any screenwriter, you are always looking for good stories. I figured that Joe would have access to stories, good stories, because of the kind of work that he did. I was always bugging him, to try and get a story out of what he had experienced. In the mid 80s, just after the events portrayed in CATCH A FIRE, said that if I wanted to write a story set in this period of our struggle, the armed struggle, then you should tell the story not of Mbeki of Sisulo or Mandela or these kind of iconic figures of the South African struggle, but the story of an ordinary man. He told me about Patrick, how this guy, who had no political history of political activism, unlike many of those who had crossed over to join the struggle, he had up to that point no real personal political involvement. Just wanted what most people on this planet want, which is a good job, security for his family, a future, keep his head down, to pursue his leisure pursuits, which in this case was football, which is a passion. He was happy. Life was as good as it gets for a Black South African at that time in history. And then, stuff happened which destroyed his family, destroyed his work, and instead of becoming a victim of the system he lived in,  a fire was lit inside of him and he knew that he had to do something about it.

IT WAS GREAT THAT YOU COULD SHARE THIS WITH YOUR FATHER?
The personal connection is fantastic. That is one of the great things about having this story made into a film because it does have that personal connection. It's not really a personal story in a sense. In the first draft of the script Joe wasn't even in the script. It isn't a script about Joe. Philip Noyce came onto the project and found out that Joe Slovo was the one who gave Patrick his orders. He said that we've go to put this in because it happened. Why would we leave it out? He felt that it was important to show that there was at least one white member in the ANC, because even though whites were in the minority, they were involved in the struggle.

IT HAS TAKEN 16 YEARS SINCE YOUR FIRST DISCUSSIONS WITH PATRICK CHAMUSSO FOR YOUR SCREENPLAY TO BE REALISED AS A FILM. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS JOURNEY?
I think it's just a question of timing. I did not write the script until after the events of 9/11. I taped Patrick's story when I met him in the early 90s just after his release from Robben Island.

WHY DID IT TAKE SUCH A LONG TIME FROM CONCEPTION OF THE IDEA TO WRITING THE SCREENPLAY?
Because I didn't chose to start pitching it, to try and get it developed at any studio, until four years before the film got made. It's not that I wrote the script and hawked it around, and talked about it. It was a question of timing. There were a number of reasons. Firstly, no one knew what was going to happen in South Africa in the 90s. There were talk that it would descend into anarchy, there were blood in the streets, and the economy would collapse. There was a period of transition, which included the TRC hearings, where the miracle that is South Africa, had to emerge. People weren't certain. It doesn't feel real now, considering how much the country has changed, but at that time there was a great deal of uncertainty. I didn't think it was the right time to tell that story. More importantly, the events of 9/11, when the word 'terrorist' became in usage that way that it is today, there was an actual contemporary relevance to the story, in that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. It was that post 9/11 world that brought the issues of CATCH A FIRE more to the forefront.

WAS THIS ALSO A JOURNEY OF SELF DISCOVERY FOR YOURSELF?
The whole of life is self-discovery, isn't it? In my experience. It's much more than it was a way to tell a story about things that I am interested in and affected me deeply in my life, rather than exploration. At the same time I definitely wanted to tell a black South African story because those stories are not told. Usually films in Africa are told through the main character who is a white protagonist. I wanted to tell the story about Patrick Chamusso. It's been a glorious experience,  and whether healing or a life quest, I don't know, but it's been great.

IS CULTURAL IDENTITY IMPORTANT IN YOUR WORK?
I'm not really conscious of that. If it's there, then it's there. In my work I always think to just engage as many people as I can in the story, to find the emotional heart and truth of a story. That's what I try and aim for.

WHO WOULD YOU SAY THE REAL SHAWN SLOVO IS?
The real Shawn Slovo? I have no idea. I don't know how to answer that question.

WHEN PEOPLE HEAR THE NAME SLOVO, IT IS ASSUMED THAT THERE IS A POLITICAL AGENDA. ARE YOU A POLITICAL PERSON?
I don't see how I can fail to be, really, given my upbringing and who my parents were. And, you know ... even though the choices that they made about how to live their lives, to become political activists, deeply affected my upbringing in a sense that I had to go into exile as a teenager, adjust to a new culture, a new society. That has deeply affected who I am. I am not a member of any political party. I mean, I vote, but I've never been a political activist because what I chose to do in life is write fiction, screenplays. I'm very upset about all kinds of things that are going on in the world. I'm very aware and very upset.

DO YOU SEE OR REGARD YOURSELF AS A HERO?
No. Absolutely not. If you ask who the real Shawn Slovo is, all I can say is I think I have a great life in that I do what I wanted to do and I love what I am doing. I think that's how I would define myself. And I feel really fortunate and privileged to have had the opportunities that I've had, and to have had the upbringing that I've had.

THE DESIRE TO BE A SCREENWRITER, WHERE DO YOU THINK IT STARTED?
Because I love film. And I think it came from my mother because in the 50s in South Africa you could see all these from films coming from the New Wave, the Italian directors, and she loved European films. I loved going to cinema.

HAVE YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A SCREENWRITER?
Yes. But it took me a long ... I didn't start writing until my early thirties.

WHY DID IT TAKE THAT LONG?
Because it is bloody difficult, isn't it? It's many hours, on your own, in a room ... These are some of the great things I've come to realise, but it is very hard to have that discipline. It's very hard work. You write, working on your own a lot of the time, and it can be quite isolating. It's difficult because it's a process.

WHY DO YOU THINK IT'S SO DIFFICULT FOR FIRST TIME SCREENWRITERS TO ACTUALLY REALISE THAT IT'S HARD WORK WRITING A SCREENPLAY? IT'S NOT JUST 'FAME AND FORTUNE".
I think it's the fame and fortune that attracts all sorts of people to screenwriting. There are very few people who do excel in their discipline. Because of the glamour and celebrity and the whole mystique attached to the film world, I think a lot of people want to write a script. I think once you start writing ... I mean, it's not ... it's everywhere in the world and not only talking about South Africa, but the UK as well, we have all sort of initiatives to encourage the development and mentoring of screenwriters. The trouble is that a lot of people can write, but it's having the story to tell. Having something to say that is fresh and different, and that will engage audiences. There are lots of stories, but it's that reaching out to an audience which is a combination of skill and luck and timing. That's the think to attain to, and you make sure that the story you are telling in a highly, highly competitive market - you know, with the mushrooming of television, satellite and Internet - the media world that we live in at the moment, you have to be startling, and try and give audiences  something different if you are not in a position to give them what they want, which is the success of things like the Shrek movies, franchises, that's something else.  I think to come up with original work or brilliant adaptations of good stories, you've got to find something that an audience wants to go and see. I'm not saying that CATCH A FIRE is necessarily that story because it's not going to please all of the people all of the time, but you've just got to make a story that will convince people to invest in your film and attract the talent you need to get the film made.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACHIEVE WITH CATCH A FIRE?
I hope that people are engaged by the story. That's what I hope.

A MAJOR THEME IN CATCH A FIRE, IS THAT OF FORGIVENESS, HOW ONE MAN, DESPITE THE TORTURE AND HUMILIATION HE ENDURED, MANAGES TO FORGIVE HIS ENEMY. HOW IMPORTANT IS FORGIVENESS IN YOUR OWN LIFE?
It's a big issue in my life because me and my sisters Robyn and Julian went through the TRC process and sat in the room with the men who murdered our mother. Personally speaking, I understand why they were given amnesty, which they were. I understand it was the political situation at the time and why they were granted amnesty. On a personal note I can't ever forgive but that does not mean that if I were in a position to take revenge, I would do it. In other words, Craig Williams is sitting ten feet away from me, and he is the one who sent the order to kill my mother. If one handed me a weapon, it is the last thing on my mind because there is nothing to be achieved by taking revenge. I think that is what CATCH A FIRE is about. You can never ... you can ... Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting and I will never ever forgive of forget, and I live with the pain of the murder of my mother every single day of my life, but I certainly have no feelings of revenge.

HOW DO YOU SEE THE FILM INDUSTRY IN SOUTH AFRICA?
I think it's vacant, isn't it? There are many more priorities in this country and it needs a lot of investment, whether it comes from the state of private investment, but the priorities at the moment have been different, people don't have housing or education or schools, but I think technically, there is an enormous well of talent here, the actors are extraordinary and writers and directors need to be given the opportunity to develop their skills. Because there hasn't been much of an industry in this country people haven't been given the opportunity to work on your skills. No one is born a screenwriter or a director. It's something that you learn, providing you have a talent to start off with. You have to learn by your mistakes.

WHY WASN'T THE FILM MADE IN SOUTH AFRICA? IT WAS FILMED IN SOUTH AFRICA, BUT IT IS NOT A SOUTH AFRICAN FILM.
We couldn't find the money here. It cost 15 million US dollars. You can't get that budget together in this country because you don't have the investors. We don't have the studios; we don't have the producers that have access to that kind of funds. The thing is that Working Title Films in the UK, they do have that kind of money to make a film and they wanted to make this film and pay for it (laughs) and that's why it was not made here.

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT IF YOUR FATHER WERE STILL ALIVE TO SEE THIS FILM. IF HE WAS HERE, WHAT DO YOU THINK HIS REACTIONS WOULD BE?
He would be absolutely thrilled. It's my regret that he is not alive to see it.

YOUR NEXT PROJECT?
90% of scripts that are developed don't get made into films. I have been working in this industry as a screenwriter for twenty years and I have had three films made, but I have never been out of work. I get jobs, and then projects don't make it to the screen for one reason or another. So who knows what my next film will be. I am currently working on an adaptation of the non-fiction book 'Bobby Fischer Goes To War', which is about the 1972 World Chess Championship between the Americans and the Soviets in the middle of the Cold War.

DO YOU PREFER WRITING ADAPTATIONS TO ORIGINAL SCREENPLAYS?
I don't care. They're both hard. It depends on the story.

DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR ASPIRANT SCREENWRITERS AND FILMMAKERS IN SOUTH AFRICA?
Keep writing. Read as many film scripts you can get your hands on. Watch as many films as you can. Start reading film scripts. Start learning about film language. It's a much different form from any other kind I think of writing. I don't necessarily think I could write  novel or could do journalism, or write plays, because it's to do with structure and form. I think you can pick up an enormous amount from just reading, particularly great screenplays of great films, or films that you like.  These days it's easily available on the Internet. For me, when I started writing,  I worked in the film industry, in the film business as a script editor for about seven years. I worked with other writers and I worked on developing material and I think that is the best possible education you can have in screenwriting because it is a form, stating the obvious, it's an audio visual way of telling a story and for that you need to know how to do that kind of writing.

DO YOU HAVE A SPECIFIC WRITING PROCESS?
Once I have done the reading and the research, I never ever start writing a script before I've done extensive outlines. That can be scene by scene breakdown, I want to see the whole story written our properly in order to find out what the holes are, to find out where I've got a third act. I will never start writing a screenplay until I have an outline, and then I rewrite my outline or my treatment, and I rewrite, and rewrite to the point where I feel confident enough to start writing a decent script. There is no such a thing as writing, it's always rewriting.

YOUR VIEWS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A SCREENWRITER AND DIRECTOR ?
You have to absolutely work on your people skills. No matter what line of work you are in, the more you give out and the more you interact with other people, the better. No matter what job you do. It is very important to get on with people and to accommodate people, particularly directors  because film is a collaborative medium, so you write your script and you hope the director will take it to the next stage with you, and you become a team then.

ANY SPECIFIC COMMENTS ON CATCH A FIRE?
I am absolutely thrilled that it got made and that it is finally going to play to a South African audience. I hope that people can see beyond its setting, apartheid South Africa, and I hope that they can find some kind of emotional connection with a story that, for me anyway, has great contemporary resonance. 

Copyright © 2007 Daniel E. Dercksen

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