Richard Attenborough About This Item. Buy Item Item Details Item Gallery Film Review Richard Attenborough Search Site
We are based in South London near Croydon, UK, and if preferred this item can be picked up by appointment. Just e-mail here (ihuppert5@aol.com). I also welcome the old fashioned cheque and po as it is cheaper to process.
Hardcover: 128 pages
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (INSIDE FLAP):
Sir Richard Attenborough, CBE, an actor worked on both stage and
screen from the early 1940s, became an independent
film maker in 1959. Shortly
afterwards, he embarked on what was to become a twenty year quest to direct and produce
Gandhi, his triumphant film about the Mahatma, which won
eight American and five British
Academy Awards in 1983. In the interim, he had directed Oh! What a lovely War,
Young Winston, A Bridge Too Far, and Magic. More recently, he directed the
internationally successful film musical, A Chorus Line.
Attenborough, who
was
born in Cambridge in 1923, is a recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Peace
Prize and was awarded the Padma Bhusan in India before being
installed as Commandeurdes Arts et des Lettres in France.
In 1987 he was
designated a international ambassador for UNICEF. His numerous appointments include
the vice presidency of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and
the chairmanship of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Capital Radio, Channel 4 Television, the
British Film Institute and the British Screen Advisory Council.
Cry Freedom, produced and directed by Richard Attenborough, is another epic film
with all the sweep and scope of Gandhi. The beautiful but turbulent backdrop to
this suspenseful drama, based on a true
story, is South Africa.
There, during the 1970s, one of the modern world's most extraordinary
friendships was forged. Steve Biko was young, black and
such a charismatic a
ctivist
that the authorities had declared him a Banned Person.
Donald Woods,
white,
affluent and liberal, was editor of an influential newspaper. Cry Freedom
is their story of a land and all her people, rich in in everything except common humanity.
Richard Attenborough had sought an anti-apartheid subject that would appeal to world
cinema audience for even longer than he'd striven to bring Gandhi to the screen.
Then, returning in triumph from the 1983 Academy Awards, he found himself embroiled in
a public feud with the South African government, caused by hi refusal to attend segregated premieres. it was in
this context that he received a proposal for a new film based on two books
Donald Woods published in exile.
Before making a firm commitment Attenborough felt in all fairness he ought to visit
South Africa and attempt to see what was happening for himself. This journey brought him into
contact with many people, black and white alike. Throughout there was a creeping sense of
being watched until, finally, he was filmed
visiting Winnie Mandana and
denounced on state television as planning - by means of a film - to incite protest
and strikes in the townships. Attenborough left South Africa persona non grata and convinced
he must make Cry Freedom his next project.
Two years later you chose to make the film on location in Zimbabwe, where this
newly independent nation, defiantly existing by jowl witht he apartheid state, proved to him
that the black majority rule - so dreaded by the Afrikaners - can triumphantly
succeed.
CONDITION
Collectible - Acceptable. Dustjacket has significant wear, tear back cover top right corner. Book itself is in what i would say 'good' condition. (see scans). Signed and dated in black pen the inside page by Sir Richard Attenborough.
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For scans without watermarks e-mail here.
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