Honour from Disgrace
The Age
Wednesday June 17, 2009
It was always going to take a brave filmmaker to tackle J. M. Coetzee's Booker-Prize-winning novel. Enter Steve Jacobs. Karl Quinn reports. ONE look at Steve Jacobs and you know he's not one to shy away from a challenge. A big bull of a fellow, he's wearing, on the day we meet, a red shirt and a red scarf that seem to flag his willingness for a scrap. And when he starts talking about his adventures in the Australian film industry, those first impressions are quickly confirmed. Steve Jacobs is a fighter."I've been trying to make films since the late 1970s," he says. "After I finally got my first film (La Spagnola) made in 2001, I imagined the second would be so much easier. It wasn't."Mind you, he didn't pick an easy task. The director's second feature is an adaptation of J. M. Coetzee's 1999 Booker Prize-winning novel Disgrace. It's a stunning book, but as bleak as they come. The story traces the fall from grace of Cape Town academic David Lurie following his affair with a student. In its aftermath, Lurie retreats to the country, where his daughter Lucy has a small farm. Terrible things happen to them.Tackling Disgrace constituted a kind of triple threat of bravery: the risk of failing to do justice to one of the most highly regarded novels of the past 20 years; the risk of incurring the wrath - at the least, the chilly disapproval - of the notoriously taciturn Coetzee; and the risk of having to deal with the famously "challenging" John Malkovich, the man cast as the story's not-entirely-likeable lead.So, how has Jacobs done? Pretty darned well, actually.The film works in its own right, but is also a scrupulously faithful adaptation of the book. Fidelity to the source wasn't something taken lightly. When Jacobs and his producer-scriptwriter-wife Anna Maria Monticelli picked up the rights to the novel in 2003, Coetzee retained script approval. "If he didn't like it, that was it," Jacobs explains. "Whatever work we did, down the drain."Luckily, he approved. "He read Anna's adaptation, and sent back some suggestions - really only three or four minor things - and that was it."Has he seen the film? Given it the thumbs up, or down? "He has seen it but he told us he wasn't going to comment on it," says Jacobs. "But he was kind enough to issue a paragraph for us to use in promoting it."For the record, here's that paragraph: "Steve Jacobs has succeeded beautifully in integrating the story into the grand landscape of South Africa. The lead actors give strong and thoughtful performances."As endorsements go, it isn't glowing, but then the Adelaide-based Nobel Prize winner (South African-born Coetzee moved to Australia in 2002 and became an Australian citizen in 2006) was never going to be effusive. It's just not his manner.So that just leaves Malkovich, an actor revered by those who watch him and seemingly feared by those who work with him. So, how was it? "How do you think it was?" Jacobs says. "You've read about him. That's how it was."Care to elaborate? "Well, he's a very intelligent man, so there was no, 'Can we do it again, a bit faster?' If I had a suggestion, if there was something I wanted him to do, I'd have to construct a very convincing case for it."If Disgrace was a challenge, at least Jacobs was prepared for it. Thirty years of kicking around the edges of the industry tends to hone your survival instincts.Jacobs says he first applied to the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in 1978 or 1979, but didn't get in (both Wikipedia and the Internet Movie Database say he was born in 1967, which is clearly wrong). Instead, he enrolled in journalism at Mitchell College of Advanced Education (now part of Charles Sturt University), but edged into drama. "I found I was reasonably good at acting," he says. "Over the years that's sort of how I've made a living."He studied and worked in theatre in London before returning to Australia. One of his first local roles was on the 1984 feature Silver City, where he met Monticelli, then also plying her trade as an actor. He had recurring roles in the likes of A Country Practice, Skytrackers and All Saints, but all the while thought of himself primarily as a filmmaker. There are, he says, maybe four scripts from that period, at least a couple of which he hopes will one day make it to the screen.The frustration finally gave rise to desperation. "Anna and I were tired of having producers knock back our work, so one day we just decided, 'Why don't we become our own producers?"'La Spagnola was the first fruit of that decision, and was pretty favourably reviewed. David Stratton described it in Variety as "a lively, if at times overcooked, first feature"; The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw called it "a diverting, original piece of work"; Philippa Hawker in this paper labelled it "a spirited, confidently off-kilter film with vivid central performances". But eight years on, and even with a second feature finally about to hit the cinemas, Steve Jacobs doesn't feel he can roll his sleeves down just yet."It hasn't become any easier yet," he says of the long haul to screen. "But with a bit of luck, this could change that. We'll just have to wait and see."Disgrace opens on ThursdayNeeding security from the securitySOUTH Africa can be a dangerous place to make a film, and so Jacobs and Co. had a security detail on Disgrace. Unfortunately, they were not to be trusted. "They were meant to be protecting us from theft, but then they decided to steal the car, Lucy's Kombi, and without it we were in real trouble," Jacobs recalls. "Luckily, the police caught them eventually. And when they did, they found a car full of prosthetic dog corpses (crucial props in the film). The thieves thought they were real, and they'd killed them." The Kombi was returned to the filmmakers. The security guards are still waiting for their references.
© 2009 The Age
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