Cry Freedom
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| Cry Freedom | |
|---|---|
 The movie poster for Cry Freedom. |
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| Directed by | Richard Attenborough |
| Produced by | Richard Attenborough |
| Written by | John Briley Donald Woods (books) |
| Starring | Kevin Kline Denzel Washington |
| Music by | George Fenton Jonas Gwangwa |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | November 5, 1987 |
| Running time | 157 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Cry Freedom is a feature film directed by Richard Attenborough, set in the late 1970s, during the apartheid era of South Africa. The film was shot in neighbouring Zimbabwe, and, although not banned in South Africa, cinemas showing the films were faced with bomb threats. According to the Internet Movie Database, the film was seized by authorities on July 29, 1988. In some cases, there were reports that prints of the films were wrenched off the cinema projectors and the film remained unseen in South Africa until 1991.
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[edit] Plot
[edit] Summary
Cry Freedom is the dramatization of the story of Steve Biko, the charismatic South African Black Consciousness Movement leader, who was murdered while in police custody, and Donald Woods, the white editor of the Daily Dispatch newspaper who befriended him. Woods wrote a book entitled Biko exposing the death of Biko while in Police custody. For him to get the book published, he had to escape from South Africa. This book, along with Woods's autobiography "Asking For Trouble," became the basis for this film.
Cry Freedom is the story of South African black activist Steve Biko (Denzel Washington) and the relationship he forms with liberal white South African newspaper editor Donald Woods (Kevin Kline). When we meet him, Biko has already been "banned" by the South African government. "Banning" meant he was not allowed to be in the same room with more than one other person outside his immediate family, not allowed to write anything for either public or private consumption. Additionally, he was not allowed to leave his defined banning area. Initially, Woods is critical of Biko's views and actions in his newspaper but is persuaded to meet with him. Biko invites Woods to visit a black township to see the impoverished conditions under which 96% of South Africa's population live and to witness the effect of the government imposed restrictions which make up the apartheid system. Woods begins to agree with Biko's desire for a South Africa where blacks have the same opportunities and freedoms as those enjoyed by the white population. As Woods comes to understand Biko's point of view, a friendship develops between them.
[edit] Longer Chronology
The film opens with the South African government staging a raid on a camp of people considered squatters under the Township rules at a location called Crossroads. Following the raid, the editor of the Daily Dispatch, Donald Woods, criticises both the South African government, because of the raid, and Steve Biko for inciting racism against whites through his philosophy of Black Conciousness. Dr Ramphele, Biko's colleague, visits Woods and invites him to meet with Biko in his banning area at King William's Town.
Biko takes Woods to Zanempilo, a rural clinic staffed by black medical people, and explains the basic tenets of his ideas. Donald Woods is at first skeptical of his ideas, but agrees to go to a black township. As a result, he employs two black reporters to give an urban black point of view. Biko defies his ban (which made it illegal for him to be in the same room as two or more people other than his immediate family) and speaks at a soccer match, taking Donald Woods with him.
Steve Biko is identified as the speaker by a person behind a cardboard "mask", but the police do not detain or harm him, as he is due to be a witness in an upcoming trial of some of his colleagues. At the trial, he gives the "We are in confrontation, but I see no violence" line. Also, at this point, the film gives him license to sum up the BCM's agenda for the viewer. The community centre at Zanempilo is vandalized by the local Police, but in disguise. A witness tells Donald Woods that the local police chief was the leader of the vandals. Woods complains to the South African Minister of Police, Jimmy Kruger, and urges him to establish a dialogue with Biko at Kruger's home. Woods is then "visited" by local detectives and told he must name his witness, or go to prison. Fearing for the safety of the witness, Woods refuses to name him.
The black members of Woods' staff begin to be arrested. After the death of one ("suicide" while in custody), Biko comes to Woods' house, telling him of his plans to go to Cape Town to meet with some students. Woods and his wife plead with him not to go, but he does driven by Peter Jones, and is stopped on the road to Cape Town and taken into custody. Some 10 days later, a doctor is brought in to examine him, after he has been badly beaten and left in a coma. The doctor urges the Police to take him to a specialist. They throw him on the floor of a Police Land Rover where he is driven over rough, mainly dirt roads to Pretoria, some 740 miles away. He later dies in Sunday the 12th September 1977.
The Government reports that he died as a result of a hunger strike, and Kruger tells Parliament that he is unaffected by the death stating that "Biko's death leaves me cold". Woods and his photographer accompany Biko's widow to the morgue and surreptitiously take pictures proving that he died from abuse. Woods has a meeting with other liberals and tells them his plan to go to the U.S.. After Biko's funeral, Woods begins to feel more pressure from the police. While trying to go to the US for a lecture, he is arrested and informed that he is now a banned person under the Internal Security Act. He resolves to leave South Africa in order to publish his book about Biko. His wife is reluctant, but agrees after a letterbomb attack, and T-shirts are sent to their children depicting Steve Biko with the caption "Steve" and impregnated with a caustic substance which is used normally to find fingerpints on paper.
Woods and his family escape South Africa to Lesotho, on the way to eventual exile in Britain. They follow an elaborate plan to get over the border before the authorities are alerted. Woods crosses the border disguised as a priest. As Woods and his family are flying in a small plane over South African territory to Botswana, without South African permission to do so, they claim to be UN envoys when asked for identification. During this time, the film graphically shows a massacre of protesting schoolchildren in Soweto by government forces when they were forced to use the Afrikaans language, and the conclusion of the inquest into the death of Steven Biko, in which the court declared that he had died due to injury to the head but that the police could not be held responsible.
At the end of the film, a list of all the people who died in police custody is shown. It lists them in chronological order from the date in 1962 when the South African government introduced imprisonment without trial to 11 June 1987 when the South African government issued a state of emergency and stopped giving out these details freely. Suicide by hanging was by far the most common cause of death given.
[edit] Cast
- Steve Biko- Denzel Washington
- Donald Woods- Kevin Kline
- Wendy Woods- Penelope Wilton
- Justice Minister- John Thaw
[edit] Criticism
South African journalist Donald Woods is forced to flee for his life after attempting to investigate the death in custody of his friend, black activist Steven Biko. Some felt that this film focused more on (white) newspaper editor and Steve Biko's friend Donald Woods, than on black activist and martyr Steve Biko. Others point out that Steve Biko's portrayal was sufficiently lengthy to earn actor Denzel Washington his first Oscar nomination for playing that role. Woods changed from a liberal newspaper editor with only a moderate concern for apartheid, to an internationally significant figure who endangered his and his family's safety to expose the gross injustices he discovered. The complexities of this stunningly brave metamorphosis required considerably more film time to reveal. Both men clearly made major contributions toward bringing apartheid to an end.
[edit] External links
| Films directed by Richard Attenborough |
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| Oh! What a Lovely War • Young Winston • A Bridge Too Far • Magic • Gandhi • A Chorus Line • Cry Freedom • Chaplin • Shadowlands • In Love and War • Grey Owl • Closing the Ring |
