USA,
1996, 120 min
Shown in 1997
CREDITS
- dir
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Jo Menell, Angus Gibson
- prod
-
Jonathan Demme, Edward Saxon, Jo Menell
- cam
-
Dewald Aukema, Peter Tischhauser
- editor
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Andy Keir
- source
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Manga Entertainment, Inc., 727 North Hudson, Suite 100, Chicago, IL 60610. FAX: 312-751-2483
- gga award
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Silver Spire, Film & Video: Biography
-
COMMENTS
This screened as part of the Mandela Celebration. Jo Menell in person.
OTHER
Once you see Nelson Mandela through the eyes of this moving, spiritually uplifting film, you'll have no trouble understanding why the South African president is a national and international hero. In the words of one aide, Mandela is a gentle and exceptionally dignified leader. But as filmmakers Jo Menell and Angus Gibson show us, and as much of the world already knows, his life has been anything but gentle. Mandela's story is followed in clear, concise detail, from childhood to his 27-year prison stay to the presidency. Mandela himself speaks frankly about his own past—the circumcision ritual he (and all boys of his day) went through, for instance, or working in the lime quarry during his long years on Robben Island. The film details Mandela's life as a controversial trial lawyer and radical political activist, becoming in the process a primer on South Africa’s struggle for one man, one vote. But the filmmakers never lose sight of the human elements of their subject. We see the landscape Mandela grew up in, beautiful but rife with poverty. We see him shaving in a hotel room, choosing the right tie for his inauguration. It all adds to the man's dynamic personality, and mirrors his open, honest interaction with the men and women of the country he gave up a good portion of his life to help.
—Kurt Wolff
FACTOID #88
Steve Cochran, the American actor who starred in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1957 SFIFF entry Il Grido, demanded a private screening of the film before it could be shown to Festival audiences so he could ensure that scenes that had been censored in Italy had not been cut from the print. Cochran, who had American distribution rights to the film, got a screening’delaying the film’s 8:30 start time for ticketholders.
