Invictus Screenwriter Anthony Peckham on His Homeland, Nelson Mandela, and Rugby

[tabatha]

<snip>
This weekend, audiences across America will begin applauding Invictus. The Clint Eastwood-directed film stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela on a quest to rally post-apartheid South Africans around the Springboks, the national rugby team so many had grown to see as the symbol of racial privilege. To do so, Mandela employs the aid of team star Francois Pienaar (played by Matt Damon), who must convince his teammates that they represent black South Africans as well as whites and then show his countrymen the same as they fight to win the 1995 World Cup. It’s perhaps one of the more uplifting moments in both sports and geopolitical history, and critics already are hailing it as one of the most important films ever made about South Africa.

Integral to its creation was screenwriter Anthony Peckham, who was born and raised in South Africa but now lives near Morro Bay because he’s “sort of a country bumpkin at heart.” Self-described with a laugh as a “25-year overnight success,” Peckham is riding a rather impressive wave of accomplishments right now, as he also helped pen the forthcoming Sherlock Holmes film and recently was hired to work on Deep Sea Cowboys. But he had a few spare minutes to chat with The Independent about Invictus, which will be screened on December 16 as part of the S.B. County Action Network’s S.B. Cannes series and followed by a panel discussion about the importance of youth sports in underserved communities.
</snip>

Interesting comment - that I had reached as well, some years ago:

"We forget quickly, but a lot of what happened during the Bush era began to feel like the South Africa I had left—using fear as a tool to divide the nation and manipulating it in that way, which was all too familiar to me."

http://www.independent.com/news/2009/dec/05/south-africas-unifying-scrum/

[malaise]

1. We'll definitely be watching this movie

Profound comment
Rec

[SpiralHawk]

2. "I was a divider, not a uniter. Smirk." - xCommander AWOL (R)

"You know, divide and conquer the fear-infused Homeland (smirk) and all that shit, so the dumb TV-watching proles would bend over and take it from me and my 'elite' corporate republicon chickenhawk cronies like Rush $40-million-a-year DraftDodger' Limbaugh. It worked, too. Nice to have the corporate republicon media borg on your team. Too bad about you American proles and shit. Smirk."

- xCommander AWOL (R)

[TheMightyFavog]

3. Read the book this movie was based on by John Carlin.

Wonderful book.

[HamdenRice]

4. Can't wait to see it! I always wondered why there weren't more SAn "frontier" movies

SA between 1800 and 1900 was one of the most interesting places on earth, and ripe for movie treatment -- lots of weird cultural encounters and cross cultural borrowings, lots of people of all colors riding horses (especially the Basotho), skirmishes and gun battles, a perfect African "wild west" for the movies -- and oh yeah, one of the most gorgeous and surreal and diverse landscapes on earth.

[tabatha]

5. One of the most interesting books for me about that time was

"Frontiers" by Noel Mostert.