Just as the Tufts Daily primarily caters to a college demographic and romance novels are typically written for middle-aged women, any writer must consider his audience. Sometimes, with the most terrifying of blessings, it's multiple audiences. Such is the case for Gavin Hood-the South African writer/director of the film "Tsotsi" (pronounced "soht-see").
When you are a filmmaker from a country without much of a historical or unified film identity - such as South Africa - you write and make a film with your country's audience in mind. Whether the goal is to entertain, to challenge, or even to strengthen the value of the film industry, most films with this background do not leave their country of origin. That is, unless they are nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.
Adapted from a novel by Athol Fugard, "Tsotsi" - which has its Boston theatrical release tomorrow - tells a story of universal themes and proportions, even if it only spans a few days. A young hoodlum from a South African township (played by Presley Chweneyagae) faces a series of trials that delve beyond his hardening life experiences to seek out his compassion.
Recently I sat down with Gavin Hood for a chat about "Tsotsi." While my first question of the interview should have been: "Mr. Hood, can you say 'International Market'?" I refrained from such condescension, as he seemed already humbly aware of the magnitude of his film. With genuine excitement and relief at the success of "Tsotsi," Mr. Hood eagerly shared his thoughts about his film with me.
Question: Congratulations on your Oscar nomination. How has that been sitting with you?
Gavin Hood: Well, really it's great, not just for me but for everyone involved, because until something like that happens you don't realize how relieved you are that they're all so happy. Because you don't realize - you've been carrying a fear that the film actually might not be any good at all. And then a lot of people who've worked on the film and invested in the film and put money into the film and marketing time into the film - it's not just the director that's got a lot to lose, and so part of what you feel as a director is really happy that they're all happy. (Laughter)
Q: Well, not to add a little more pressure to it for you...
GH: Oh god, yes, do.
Q: From what I understand of the film and South Africa, it's more than just the people who were directly involved with the film who are happy, but it's a national thing. People were very excited about this. I mean it did well in box offices there...
GH: Which was a huge relief.
Q: As far as what I've read about how South African filmmakers typically make films about South Africa and the way that they want to portray their country to the international audience, your work seems very different from all that. It's very "real." But it sounds like people are pleased with what you've made despite your display of those harsher realities?
GH: Yes, which is kind of surprising because of course the film is a gangster movie, which doesn't necessarily paint the country in the best light. And a minority of people - I'm pleased to say - are wondering, "Well, is this a good thing to show South Africa this way?" But I think...that is why the film is being embraced, because it isn't shying away from the struggles and challenges that we do face. But it has a heart, and those themes of redemption and forgiveness are themes and ideas that South Africans have had to explore and are particularly proud of how they've explored them, through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and elsewhere.
Q: I'm hinging on this word "mythic" you keep using. Tsotsi really is a journey, as you describe, with these human interactions along the way that could - elsewhere - easily be used just to get some tears. Did you have reservations about using these classic mechanisms to evoke emotion? I didn't feel like it was sappy, but I wonder if - as you were writing it - that idea crossed your mind.
GH: I'm very grateful to you for saying that because of course that was one of my biggest fears. I mean with a story like this, as a director you know you are walking a very fine line of being moving, and being sappy. And so a lot of times I feel filmmakers being afraid of being sentimental and pulling back too much the other way and being cool. Cool is actually too safe, because cool is just a mask... with a movie like "Tsotsi," the right question is: what is going to help us get behind this actor's eyes. So you go to Production Design, and you say, "Okay, we're not making a documentary. We're making a mythic story, one that's universal and timeless and could be set in the slums of Athens in 500 BC, it could be set it South Central L.A. or in Moscow."
I need the story to tap into that universal human emotion and for the film to have two things: it needs to tap into the exotic world in which it's set, and South Africa is cool - dare I use that word... But what's really going to make it play here [Boston] is if it taps into someone in Boston's central emotions and they suddenly find themselves feeling emotional and relating to someone who seems to be very different from them. So to get that, we need to reveal his universal humanity.
Question: The music is very powerful and it's getting a lot of press along with the film. How do you feel it complemented the other elements of the film? How do the lighting and the design - which you've just described as so deliberately restrained - fit in with the liveliness of this music?
GH: Yes, liveliness is a great way to put it, and it's a great question because what makes this music so fantastic is that it really comes from those places. We weren't wondering what music we should add to this to give it atmosphere, we said, "Hey, here's the music." It was like a gift. So that's lucky.
But then you say, well what does it also do? The one thing you don't want to do in a film like this is - because of what you raised before about it being dangerous in terms of being sappy - you don't want the film to become worthy, and bogged down, and slow, and up its own backside. You want it to grab the audience by its throat and say, "I promise I won't bore you! Stick with me; we're going on an emotional rollercoaster." And the music helps with that enormously.
You pump it in at the beginning and get the energy up, and that allows me to counterpoint it, because I've had you up there. Now when I want to go slow it doesn't feel slow, because it's like "phew, okay."
Question: I'm curious about where you found Presley Chweneyagae. Where did you find him and all your actors?
GH: I hasten to say, I wasn't trying to deliberately find actors without experience, because you are trying to find the best actors for every role, but in the case of Presley, he'd never done a film. He's 19 years old, so a lot of young actors haven't. But he has been doing a lot of theater. He comes from a township, a tough neighborhood, and his mom sent him down to the community theater center and put him in some plays... This is a guy who has been very, very focused on becoming an actor and understanding very complex characters, flawed characters. And my job was to just help him transfer into a new medium, help him to trust his stillness and trust that film acting is about what happens between lines, you know those reaction moments.
