Interview [Part 4]: Misan Sagay, Screenwriter, “Belle”

Misan Sagay is a screenwriter whose credits include The Secret Laughter of Women, starring Colin Firth, and Their Eyes Were Watching God, starring Halle Berry. Misan’s most recent writing project is Belle, an historical drama starring Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson and Gugu Mbatha-Raw playing the title role.

Today in Part 4, Misan discusses some themes in Belle related to the issue of race:

Scott: Looking at the issue of race in Belle, I’ve read where it was important for you to avoid clichés: “Like the black character who earns the acceptance of the white characters through superhuman feats of generosity and saint-like goodness.” How did you go about developing Dido’s character to steer clear of clichés?

Misan: I pinned onto my desk this guiding principle in writing Belle’s story: We were not freed as a favor. We demanded and took our freedom as a right. Like Belle.

I set out to rewrite the emancipation story, to tell it form our point of view, a black point of view. To throw away the Wilberforce view of history in which we are pawns of greater minds — a big ambition for a little film.

A good example is how she came to the Mansfield’s in the first place. The key scenes for each character is how they are introduced. I spent a lot of time on those scenes and those scenes tend to endure draft after draft and onto the screen as in this case. How she came and on what terms she was accepted was very important.

In Dido’s case the usual thing would be for her to perform some act or show some quality that would make them decide to keep her. She would have earned the right to be there. But no one else in that household had to jump that hurdle. They were all there by right. It was important to me she was on the same footing. So Lord Mansfield had to change in order to keep her. She didn’t have to do anything.

It took many many drafts until I found the scene. Lord Mansfield is a man who believes in family and blood. He has taken in other relatives on that basis. What would take him over that threshold with Dido? Inconvenient children like Belle were usually sent away to boarding school (think Harriet Smith in Emma or Miss Swartz in Vanity Fair), then I conceived the scene in the picture gallery. There is a clear visual representation of what binds them. Common ancestry, common blood. As they walk along the portrait gallery together looking at their joint relatives she stops being this alien little black girl and is transformed in his eyes into what she is. A Mansfield. From that time it is believable he kept her, inconceivable he did not.

She is there by right. And once those decisions are made — decision of the heart as much as duty — it is ever pragmatic Lady Mansfield who now addresses the mechanics and the implications. Marriage? Impossible says Lord M. As if that could work. As this pivotal scene where we establish straight away she is there by right and they are trying to limit her rights. Not that she has no right and she has to earn them.

Her journey is to recognize her rights and seize them. Not that she should earn them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h7JWMzQPDQ

Scott: Similarly Belle avoids the cliché of the ‘white savior’ we see in movies like The Help, The Blind Side, Cool Runnings, even the ending of 12 Years a Slave, where black characters rely on the leadership and/or help of a white character to ‘save the day’ as it were. With Dido, the movie Belle presents a woman of color who is proactive and plays a dynamic, influential role in the resolution a key legal case. How did that narrative choice evolve and emerge?

Misan: It is inherent in the story I set out to tell. How did Belle influence Lord Mansfield’s decision? Not, how did Belle’s presence influence his decision? The first is agency, the other passive. I could have had scenes of her selfless goodness which would lead him to recognize her humanity. I rejected that absolutely. We have none of that. She is not particularly good. In fact, she becomes increasingly rebellious, an annoying teenager sneaking out to meet her boyfriend. But this is deeper. She isn’t going in search of him as much as going in search of herself. Anyone in that process is too self-involved to be nice I find.

I never have a white savior and I was aware that Davinier might evolve into that if I didn’t control him as character. He was the one I most feared would be ‘Wilberforced’ by white male development people . By that I mean whenever faced with the reality of the consequences of slavery, they want to look away. Slowly subtly every suffering black person is replaced by a white man making noble speeches. It achieves the same script point, but it is more comfortable viewing. It allows them to join in. They didn’t cause this, they stopped it. Davinier was the danger. So I made him the signpost, not the carriage. He points her the way to knowledge, but her decision to seek it and act on it is hers alone.

I made sure he is not in any of the scenes where she is finding herself. She is alone in Lord Mansfield’s his study, this place of warmth and acceptance and love. (I remember my father’s study this place of learning.) when she has the brutal awakening of seeing the Zong papers. She finds the detail of the case herself. Goes in search of that knowledge. Because Belle is about her inner life, what she felt.

Almost every journalist at the press junket in New York asked me why we didn’t see the slaves on the Zong. Actually every black journalist which I found unsurprising. I always want to see black people and have them speak for themselves and seeing the slaves was real source of impassioned debate during development. Against the vision of Kenwood, they might have been powerful. I set out to subvert Jane Austen and bring slavery home to Hampshire. Actually seeing the slaves was a choice. In the end in the process of editing, that went. If things are edited out, what remains still is yours. I also caution that the slaves in the water is an emotive issue, respect for our ancestors whether seen or unseen. They shouldn’t be referred to dismissively as a script point.

Tomorrow in Part 5, Misan considers the theme of gender in Belle.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Misan is repped by Independent Talent Group.

Twitter: @MisanSagayFilm.

For an interview with the movie’s director Amma Asante, go here.

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