CLENNITA JUSTICE:
Hello everyone.
My name is Clennita Justice,
and I'm an Engineering Program
Manager for Google Play.
And we're honored and
excited to welcome director
of the movie
"Belle," Amma Asante.
Everybody give her
a round of applause.
[APPLAUSE]
AMMA ASANTE: Thank you.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: So
welcome to Google Online.
Amma, thank you so much for
your amazing work in bringing
this little known
life to the world.
AMMA ASANTE: Thank you.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: We
really appreciate it.
So let's play the
trailer of the film.
A group of Googlers
got to see it
last night during a screening.
So I really enjoyed this film.
AMMA ASANTE: I'm glad.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: Thank you.
And for those that don't
know, Dido Elizabeth Belle
was discovered from an
18th century painting that
was done of her and her cousin.
So Amma, how did you
learn about this painting,
and how did it shape your
interest in doing this project?
AMMA ASANTE: Yeah.
So it was a really
interesting process for me.
2009, I had come
up with the back
of my first movie,
"A Way of Life,"
which I was lucky enough to win
a British Academy Award with.
And I had been
working, developing,
writing other projects.
One of them was a
Jane Austen adaptation
of a yet unadapted piece
called "Lady Susan."
and so I was working
with a producer who
had a small company, which
was part of New Line Cinema.
And doing all my
research-- because I
find that my research
is really my education.
That's how I've become educated
in any kind of way in life.
And was really
increasingly becoming
obsessed with the women's
position in 18th century
England in particular.
So 2009 comes along,
and I'm working
on three different projects.
The next one is
also a project which
is kind of looking at a
mixed race girl living
in Berlin during the 1940s
war, second World War.
So really, again,
looking at the experience
of a person of color in Europe.
And the BFI, who are the
British Film Institute,
are very much involved
in my work and my career
and financing work that
I've done previously,
had received an idea, a project,
from a producer-- my producer,
it turns out, Damian
Jones-- who had
been trying to get a project
about Dido's life off
of the ground for
quite some time.
Now, for him, it had started
life with a writer at HBO
here in America.
And they'd gone
through development.
It hadn't quite worked.
The project had been dropped.
Damian had brought
it to England.
They had continued
with the writer,
and for whatever reason,
they had moved on.
And so they came to me.
The BFI said to Damian, have
you sent this postcard to Amma?
Because she's obsessed
with the women's
experience in 18th
century England.
She's obsessed with people
of color in European history.
And she is an
irrepressible romantic,
and she's just dying
to tell a love story.
So have you sent this to her, to
see what she would make of it?
And so Damian eventually
sent me this postcard.
Now, I'd never seen
the portrait before.
But what I was lucky
enough to have experienced
was going to an
exhibition in Holland,
which is where I live
now, which charted
the history of black
people in European art
from the 14th century onwards.
And it was the most fascinating
exhibition I've ever been to.
And it really looked at us
from background character right
until we came to
front and center
and eventually became muses,
kind of closer to modern day.
But what it showed me was
that in the 18th century,
we were accessories.
When I say we, people of
color were accessories.
So we were there to express the
status of the main Caucasian
protagonist in the painting.
So we were always
painted lower down.
We were never looking
out, or very rarely
looking out at the painter.
We were always up at
the main protagonist,
with our arm reaching
out towards them, which
would draw your
eye towards them.
And so when this painting, which
is known as "Belle and Bete,"
came to me, it came
in a context where
I could see it was so different.
There is Dido, so
beautiful and happy,
with this sparkle in her
eye, looking directly
at the painter.
She's actually painted slightly
higher in the painting.
And wow, it's
Elizabeth's this arm
that is reaching out to her,
drawing your eye to her.
And it was a revelation to me.
And what I saw at that
point was the opportunity,
if I got it right,
to tell a story that
would combine politics,
art, and history--
CLENNITA JUSTICE: And love.
AMMA ASANTE: And race.
With the sub themes of love,
gender, the woman's place,
identity, belonging,
all of those.
I knew it was going to
have to be a big story.
So that's where it
really started for me,
and then it was a
process of research
and going back to finding out
exactly what kind of story I
would want to tell,
how much of it
would have to be drawn of
fiction and how much of it
would have to be--
need must be history.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: So what
was it like premiering it
at the Toronto Film
Festival after all of that?
AMMA ASANTE: It was incredible.
My first film had been screened
at Toronto Film Festival.
But we were a very small,
independent British movie.
And whilst Belle had been
made as an independent movie,
a British independent movie, we
were brought by Fox Searchlight
right before Toronto,
which was great.
And we weren't brought just
for the US or just for the UK.
We were brought for the world.
So it meant that--
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
Congratulations.
AMMA ASANTE: We had
their mics behind us
by the time we came to Toronto.
And it was quite a different
experience having a big studio,
or a studio like
Fox Searchlight,
behind you, who was so in love
with the story and so much
wanting to be part of
this story and bringing
this story to the world.
So it was an
incredible experience,
something like a three-minute
standing ovation, more or less.
And just the first time
that we really felt
love for the film
from people who
had not been involved with it.
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
That's awesome.
So there's an
interesting dichotomy
represented with her name.
So there's Dido, which was what
her British family called her,
and then there's Belle,
which was her mother's name.
So why did you choose to
title the film "Belle"?
AMMA ASANTE: Well, in the movie,
we don't ever see her mother.
We only hear about her.
And we're seeing this
girl in this world, which
is completely white, apart
from Mabel, the maid.
And I wanted to honor her
mother, Dido's mother.
I wanted to honor her.
Even though she could
not be physically
present in the
movie, I wanted her
to be spiritually present
within our memories.
And so as she was Maria Belle,
and as she named her daughter
after herself, I wanted to name
the film after both of them
and pay tribute to her mother.
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
Very nice, very nice.
And how did you connect
with Gugu Mbatha-Raw
as the lead actress
for the film?
AMMA ASANTE: Actually, it
was a very easy process.
The movie that I
had talked to you
about earlier that
was set in Germany,
which I will shoot in 2015,
"Where Hands Touch," Gugu
had actually originally
come to audition for.
So she had come in for casting,
and this young woman stepped
into the room,
and her presence--
I was just completely
blown away at that time.
So I knew of Gugu.
Quite some time passed, and
she came over to America,
and she was involved
in TV series here
and a couple of movies.
She was on Broadway with
Jude Law playing Ophelia
to Jude Law's Hamlet.
So time passed, and both
my producer, Damian, and I
knew of her.
And eventually, it was
time to start casting.
We met probably every
biracial actress
of the right age in the UK.
And Gugu was one of those.
But Gugu's smart.
She's very, very smart.
She understood
what I wanted to do
with this story,
the kind of journey
that I wanted to put
this character on.
Which on the surface
is very simple,
but actually underneath
is very complex.
She understood that I wanted to
take this character from girl
to woman, with a political
awakening in there,
that it needed to be a
sweeping love story, as well
as a story that made us feel
the emotion of the impact
of slavery, even though we
never actually see a slave.
Now, it was very much my wish
that we didn't see slaves,
but we actually had to
feel we were looking
at the laws that
supported slavery.
And we had to feel
the impact of slavery
from that point of view.
And that's because-- that was a
really important reason, which
was I wanted to prove that
you could put a woman of color
front and center of an
Austen-esque piece of work,
a traditional British period
drama, and that it would work.
Now, obviously, in the script
that Damian had been working on
previously, which was a
very different world--
Dido was running around
with shells on her ankles,
and [INAUDIBLE] has an
affair with Elizabeth.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: It
was a different story.
AMMA ASANTE: It was
called "Belle and Bete,"
and it was a very
different movie.
And in that, you did see slaves.
You did see slaves, interludes
with slaves kind of floating
on the border, and it
was kind of a reminder
that this is what happened
to those over 100 slaves
during the Zong case.
But for me, I wanted to work
from a much more psychological
point of view and really
look at-- well, for me
it was important
that if I was going
to tell a movie that
was Austen-esque
and that looked at
genteel society,
that I also looked at the world
that was funding that society
and the economy of that
society and the trade
that was sponsoring
that society.
And that was the slave trade.
So yes, it was very important
for me to keep it Austen-esque,
but also make sure that
the impact of slavery hit.
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
And was it important
that the actress be of mixed
race that played the role?
AMMA ASANTE: Yes, it
was very, very important
that she be of mixed
race, being that we
knew that her father was white
and her mother was black.
It was very, very important that
she didn't look completely-- I
say completely black.
We come in all different shades.
But it didn't look like
both her mother and father
were 100% black or 100% white.
It was important
that we could see
that she was at the
junction of race.
She's at the junction of status.
She's at the junction of
all these different themes
in the story.
Because this story is
really about a woman
who comes to a place
where she has to combine
all of these parts of herself.
The child of a slave and
the child of an aristocrat.
The child of a black person and
the child of a white person.
A woman of color growing up
in an aristocratic society.
And she has to
find a way to love
all those parts of herself,
bring them together, and be
OK with it.
So it was very, very important
that she looked the mixture
that she absolutely is.
Absolutely, yeah.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: OK, so
there's a scene that I thought
was really powerful between
Mabel, the servant in London,
and Belle, when she's
combing her hair.
And she's struggling
to comb her hair.
And Belle offers to show her
how to comb her hair starting
from the ends.
AMMA ASANTE: Yeah, Mabel
offers to show Belle
how to [INAUDIBLE].
CLENNITA JUSTICE: I'm sorry.
Yeah, Mabel offers to
show Belle [INAUDIBLE].
And so I believe that there is
a significance there that you
want to convey to the
audience, was there?
AMMA ASANTE: Yeah, there was.
I was thinking about growing up
in a household of people that
love you, but are
trying to understand
the right way to love you,
the way you need to be loved,
but people who don't
look anything like you.
What must that be like?
And it brought me
to a place where
I was thinking about
maternal legacy.
And the things we take for
granted, the simple things
that we take for granted, that
our mother passes on to us.
And so I had been
thinking about cooking,
and oftentimes it's our
mother that teaches us
how to cook the food that
comes from our community
and from our culture.
And I thought, well, Dido
wouldn't cook for herself.
So that's really
not going to work.
And then I thought, hair.
What is something we
do every single day?
We have to deal with
every single day, that's
like our thing, a woman thing,
and very much a woman of color
thing.
And it was hair.
And I suddenly
thought, no products.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: No tools.
AMMA ASANTE: No shampoos.
No tools.
Nothing.
Everything geared towards--
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
Except for the comb.
AMMA ASANTE: Except
for the comb.
Exactly.
Everything geared towards
a Caucasian woman.
And with nobody
there to teach you
how to take care
of your own hair.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: And
no one there that knows.
AMMA ASANTE: No one
there that knows,
no matter how much they love
you, no one there that knows.
And I was thinking about this.
And again, this was part of
me honoring her mother the way
through the story.
So you never see
this black woman,
but she's there very
much in the story.
And we never forget her.
She talks about her
right the way through.
And I thought, the other
thing was that I desperately
wanted to have another person
of color in the movie, which
is why I created Mabel
to be in the movie.
And I wanted to
show-- and the way
that I wanted to show that
Elizabeth and Dido, Belle, have
a sisterhood that comes
under a lot of pressure,
but they remain ultimately
essentially connected, I also
wanted to show some
connection between Belle
and a person of
color in the movie.
And so this moment comes in,
which I find for myself, when
I was putting it together, I
found it very hard and sad,
but also uplifting
at the same time--
CLENNITA JUSTICE: Yeah,
because Belle does it
with such affection.
AMMA ASANTE: Yes,
with such affection.
And I wanted it to be that way.
Now, this is part of three
mirror scenes in actual fact.
The first mirror
scene is one in which
Dido is actually
harming herself.
She's very uncomfortable
with herself.
The final one is one where
Dido is good with herself.
She's happy.
You see it's more smiles.
She's coming to that place
where she's OK with herself.
And the middle scene
is a transition.
It's reflecting the transition
that Dido is going through.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: Oh, when
they reflect off the mirror.
AMMA ASANTE: And this is when
they reflect off the mirror,
and Mabel is combing her
hair, and you see Dido relax.
And she's OK with this, being
around this woman of color.
She's relaxed in the
kind of sisterhood
that this maid offers her.
And of course, this maid
says, my mom taught me.
You see?
And so this middle scene is
representing a transition
that Dido is going through with
being OK with a part of herself
that society has made her
feel like is a burden.
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
That's awesome.
And in fact, what was
interesting in the painting,
Dido Elizabeth Belle
is wearing a turban.
So it gives you
sort of maybe a hint
that she didn't have anybody
that knew how to comb her hair,
and that's how they
managed it in reality.
AMMA ASANTE: That's probably
how they managed it, yeah.
Absolutely.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: Great.
So what was it like recreating
18th century England?
And where did most of
the filming take place?
AMMA ASANTE: It was a joy
because I knew that A,
I was doing something
really traditional
that all of you
guys as an audience
would have a shorthand to.
You would all know this world.
You've all seen
"Pride and Prejudice"
and "Sense and Sensibility"
and this wonderful world.
But B, I knew I was going
to be doing something really
different with it by
putting this character
in the center of it.
So I loved it.
I constantly thought--
I always have
a color chart for every
movie that I work on
because I think it creates
a harmonious aesthetic
on the screen.
But everything I
was working with
was knowing that I
was going to have
this woman of a beautiful
skin tone on the screen.
So for me, I wanted to present
to you a new idea of an English
rose, my idea of
an English rose.
So you'll see in
the picture here,
Belle is always sort of
featured often around roses.
She's in rosy colors.
Her color scheme is that
of beautiful flowers.
And we built out the color
scheme of her entire world
really from there.
So each family really
has its own color.
So for the Ashford
color, they have
this kind of icy cold blue.
Go figure.
And for Belle and
the Mansfield family,
I really wanted that
sense of it being
regal, regal and
important and wealthy.
So they have golds.
You'll see that in the world
behind Dido here, it's gold.
Their carriage is gold.
Lord Mansfield's world is
pretty gold as well quite often.
So it was great.
We filmed mainly at English
heritage houses in London.
We weren't able to film
at the real Kenwood House
because it was being
refurbished at the time.
So we filmed in
two or three houses
that we then had
to put together.
I had to have a little map--
CLENNITA JUSTICE: [INAUDIBLE].
AMMA ASANTE: Where I said, this
is where the staircase will be,
and this is where the
dining room will be.
And my wonderful, wonderful
production designer
was working with me to do
that and created, again,
the beautiful aesthetic
that you see on screen.
So we shot a lot in London.
We shot in central
London, where we
had to shut whole
streets off and really--
very little of what
you see is CGI.
It's real stuff
that you see there.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: Yeah.
That's what it looks like.
AMMA ASANTE: We shot
in the Isle of Man
to do a lot of our
exteriors, which
is very green and
lush and beautiful.
And we also shot in
Oxford, which is actually
where Gugu, the lead
actress is from.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: So that
was exciting for her.
AMMA ASANTE: So it
was like going home.
And her art teacher actually
walked by accidentally
while we were
filming and was like,
is that woman in that
outfit Gugu Mbatha-Raw?
Because I used to teach her.
So I had to kind of take
him through all the barriers
and get him through to
her to speak to her.
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
Oh, that's awesome.
So now I want to switch up a
little bit and talk about some
of the historical
aspects of the film.
So most of us in the US are
very aware of America's role
in the slave trade, but maybe
not as familiar with England.
And since England emancipated--
I should say abolished slavery
decades before the
US, can you tell us
more about that history
of the slave trade,
and and specifically,
the Zong massacre
that's sort of the critical
judgment that happens and is
the beginning of
the end of the slave
trade of the British empire.
AMMA ASANTE: So some
of you may know this,
but I know even a lot of
English people don't know this,
British people don't
know this, which
is that Britain was the middle
man when it came to the slave
trade.
And whenever I'm
speaking, I often say we,
and then I have to
define which we,
because I'm a bit
schizophrenic because I'm Black
and I'm British.
For this moment, I'm British.
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
You're British.
OK, got it.
AMMA ASANTE: So what we would
do is we were the suppliers.
We were very big in
shipping at this point.
And we had what you would call
the shipping triangle, whereby
we would sale from
England to Africa and then
to the Caribbean or the
Americas and then back again.
And no leg of that
journey should be empty.
We should always have goods
which we could trade and then
drop the goods off, pick up new
goods, and go somewhere else.
So here's how it worked.
We would take whatever goods
that Britain had to offer.
We would load them on
the ship, sail to Africa,
exchange those goods, with
money as well, for slaves.
Load up the slaves, then off to
the Caribbean or the Americas.
Unload the slaves.
Pick up cotton, spices,
whatever we could get, and then
bring it back and
sell it in Britain.
So that's what we did.
Now, slavery was all a
bit too vulgar to have
on British shores.
It was all a bit-- it didn't
work for the genteel society.
So it was all you
guys that had it
over this side of the Atlantic.
So when I say I wanted to look
at the economy that was holding
up this genteel society that
you see in "Pride and Prejudice"
and these other period dramas
that come before-- because Dido
was a little bit earlier,
actually, then Austen's time--
this is the trade.
This is the shipping trade.
And what I should
also tell you is
that the world that you
come into with Belle
is on the cusp of change.
So whereas the kind of
marriages at the time
were based on status.
You married so that your
family status could grow.
What was happening now
was the love marriage
was coming in slowly.
It was starting
to pierce society.
It was becoming not acceptable,
but it was on its way
to becoming acceptable.
And new money was coming in.
And this new money
would be a farmer,
for instance, who might gain
enough money to buy a ship.
And then he would start on this
triangle that we talk about.
So he would also be
involved in the slave trade.
And then suddenly, he's making
a lot of money from this.
Suddenly, his children are
the child of a wealthy man.
Suddenly they might
be of interest
to someone of old money who
might want to marry them.
So there was a fear of this.
And Lord Mansfield is very
representative of that cusp
of change that we're on.
He's got one foot in the
now and the status quo
and rules must be stuck to.
Let's not break up the chaos.
Let's not encourage chaos
or break up the rules.
But then he's
conflicted because he
has this other foot
very firmly in being
a progressive man in tomorrow,
being a man ahead of his time.
And those two areas are
conflicting inside him.
There could be 10 movies made
about this incredible man who
chose to raise Dido
the way that he did.
So you've got all
of that coming in.
Now, the Zong case
comes into the story
because many people
were trying to get
into the shipping
trade at this time.
And the man who comes to
be the captain of the ship
that sails on this terrible
journey is actually a doctor.
And this is his first time
actually captaining a ship.
So he gets on the
ship and doesn't quite
know what he's doing.
And it's a protracted journey.
The journey is longer
than it should be.
So they've packed the
slaves in, in the disgusting
way we know that they would,
one on top of each other.
They said that you
could smell a slave
ship a mile downwind
of it because it
was so disgusting
and full of disease.
And so you can imagine,
when this journey
becomes even longer because
he's missing all the points
where he should be
stopping and getting off,
these slaves are getting
more sick and more sick
and more sick.
And what happens is he
decides at a certain point
that he is going
to order his crew
to jettison these
slaves from the ship
because he realizes he will get
more money from the insurance
than he will on the
open market for them.
Now, you could do that.
You could jettison your cargo.
You could jettison
whatever it was
you were carrying,
if you could prove
that it was in
danger in your ship.
So if you could prove that those
slaves were so sick that they
were making the
crew sick, if you
could prove there
wasn't enough water,
if you could prove there
wasn't enough food,
if you could prove there
was-- I don't know,
the ship was tipping and
had too much weight on it,
and you had to jettison so
that you had enough time
to get to land, whatever.
What is clear, what we
know, and what I found out
during my side of
the research, was
that they did, in fact,
pass these eight ports where
they could've stopped
and got water.
So this ridiculous argument that
they didn't have enough water
was in fact a lie.
And so therein
was the Zong case.
Now, Lord Mansfield was
caught between his peers, who
were the people who financially
benefited from the slave
trade, and of course
his own moral values.
And even more so, his
love for his child.
If he pronounced in a way
that would confirm value
to his child, he was
actually sticking a knife
into the lifeblood of--
CLENNITA JUSTICE: The economy.
AMMA ASANTE: The economy
of England and his peers.
But if he found for his
peers, what would he
be saying about Dido and who
she and what she means to him?
What we know about Lord
Mansfield previously
is that he had ruled
on a case called
the Somerset case, in which
an American comes to England
with a slave, and the
slave, once on English soil,
says I'm on England now.
I'm not a slave.
You can't make me a slave.
And here, the question-- just
as the question in the Zong
kind of centered
marine insurance law--
the question here
really centered
on, when you're on English
soil, can American law prevail?
And Lord Mansfield
says no, it can't.
It can't prevail.
And therefore,
the slave is free.
And he frees the slave.
So he had already kind
of ruled previously
in a way that would
direct us towards the fact
that he was ahead
of his time, he
was a man of good moral
judgment and value.
But of course, we
still could not
know what he might
rule on the Zong case.
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
Very, very interesting.
So now we want to take
a look at an argument
scene between the cousins.
When I saw that scene, I kept
thinking she was going to say,
you're black.
Like they did in the
beginning of the movie.
But she doesn't.
She says illegitimate.
And I'm wondering, was that
in the original script,
or did you try out
different responses doing
filming to find
what was authentic?
AMMA ASANTE: No, no.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: You knew?
AMMA ASANTE: No, no.
I mean, I always knew I was
never going to take you there.
Because what I wanted to do was
create a sistership, as I say,
a sisterhood.
And however that
sistership was going
to have to address the issues
of race and position and status
at some point.
It was always going
to have to do that.
But I knew if I took you
there, you would never
come back from it
with Elizabeth.
She would never be
in your hearts again.
And also, it would
destroy everything
that I had done
previously in showing
you that look how two
women of different races
can love each other.
So I was never going
to take you there.
But what I also
wanted to do, which
is something-- there
are many parallels
that I had wanted to
strike with this film.
One is the parallel of
gender, the woman's place,
and the woman being owned by her
husband versus the slave being
owned, so the idea of ownership.
And the other parallel that
I really wanted to look at
was this idea that
illegitimacy could
be, in some circumstances,
as much of a burden
as being a woman of color.
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
Yes, and it was
in that time for people
that were illegitimate.
AMMA ASANTE: Exactly.
Right up until the '60s,
people have talked to me
about being illegitimate
and the burden
that it kind of put on them.
And so I wanted everybody to
understand, this is complex.
This is not simple.
There was no race issues
without class issues,
without gender
issues, without all
of this stuff that was
overlapping the whole time.
And for a woman,
again, at the junction
of where I've placed her,
at the junction of all
these different paths,
and as she says,
I find no place I can
find where I belong.
Then I wanted to show you the
complexity of what this is.
I mean, what I did
have a ball doing
is putting together the
dialogue of two girls arguing
in the 18th century.
And what you don't see in
that clip is-- what follows
is what I call a
south London curse
because Belle does put Bete
right, in no uncertain terms.
And I could never have
put together that scene
without that South London part
of me coming into the curse.
And in many screenings
that I've been to,
it gets a huge
round of applause.
And when I'm sitting in
the screening, I'm there.
I'm clapping with her even
though I put those words
in her mouth because I
still feel it at that moment
when she is finding
her own and saying, no.
You will not demean me.
I will not allow
you to demean me.
So, yes.
I mean, in so many ways
the language of the film
is so bold.
You get the black
at the beginning.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: Yes, it is.
Very direct too.
AMMA ASANTE: Very direct.
That's something that I
experienced in my life
with my first
husband will not mind
me saying that his mother,
when she first met me,
I was very young
in my early 20s,
said, oh, she's quite
pretty, but she's very black.
Do you know, but she's black.
And 10 years old, and it was
still, nice dress on her,
but she's--
CLENNITA JUSTICE: She's black.
AMMA ASANTE: She's black.
And Miranda
Richardson's character
is very much based on that
experience and that person.
So the language is
very bold, but I
wanted to play with the
boldness of the language versus
not-- because the
whole scene starts
so gently with
this piano playing,
and this loving
sisterly conversation,
and then goes into this
horrible, ugly place.
And I wanted to draw you in
to the dialogue I had created
there, and draw you in and
make you think, oh, now it's
going to be horrible
and disgusting.
But she would never
do that to her sister,
even in the situation.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: Yeah.
When she said it, it felt
so much more authentic
than what I was
expecting to hear.
Because I was
like, that wouldn't
work because they
love each other.
AMMA ASANTE: They
love each other.
Exactly.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: Exactly.
Awesome.
OK, so from what I've
read some of the history
about Dido Belle Elizabeth
on Wikipedia and BBC sites.
And so I learned that
Belle's existence
was discovered by the
papers-- well, the painting.
And then they discovered
more about her life
through the papers
of the Kenwood house.
And I was wondering, where there
any writings in Belle's hand
that were found that
could speak to her voice?
AMMA ASANTE: My god.
I pray that there
will be one day.
I pray that there
will be something.
There was a gentleman
named Hutchinson
who came over from America.
And he came over to talk to Lord
Mansfield about the Zong case
and wanting to really lobby
Lord Mansfield to fight
against the insurers,
fight for the ship owners.
In other words, to
lobby Lord Mansfield
to find that it was
OK for you to drown
your slaves because
this was going
to have such an
impact on slavery.
And now he writes in his
diary-- and I'm totally
paraphrasing here, but
it's easy to find online.
It's easy to find on Google.
He comes to the house,
and he sits down,
and he has a formal
dinner with the family.
And after dinner, this
Negress comes out--
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
As he described her.
AMMA ASANTE: And she
has the entire family
wrapped around her little
finger, essentially.
And she's walking arm in
arm around the gardens,
and they're treating
her like one of them.
And he's horrified by this.
He's absolutely
horrified by this.
And what he says is,
I did want to bring up
the Zong with Lord
Mansfield, but I
didn't think that that
was quite the right time.
In other words, he knew that
they clearly loved this girl,
and that bringing up
issues of black people
at that particular point and
encouraging the massacre--
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
And the king to say--
AMMA ASANTE: Say that it
would be OK to massacre them.
It's probably not
the right time.
So virtually, it's
elements like that.
It's papers that we can find.
For instance, we know where
she married John Davinier.
She married him in St. George's
Church in Hanover Square.
We know that she christened
all of her children
in the same church.
So that kind of
paperwork-- I was
able to look at the two wills
that Lord Mansfield left
Dido Belle money in.
And to discover also that
even though in the film,
we portray it that he isn't
sure if he can, he does.
But also that his
sister, Lady Mary,
played by Penelope Wilton,
also leaves her money.
And what that
expressed to me, it
helped to cement for me the
idea that they loved her.
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
Yeah, they loved her.
AMMA ASANTE: They
loved this girl.
And she had to teach
them the right way
to love her, as
I've said before,
but they loved this girl.
So it was really,
for me, finding
all of this information for the
story that I wanted to tell.
Because there have been
plays on Dido Belle before.
There have been short
movies of Dido Belle before.
As I say, there was
this earlier version.
And it was about
me as a director
finding my vision of the story,
the story I wanted to tell.
And so I can only do that
through piecing together
my own history and
deciding then how
it should all be sewn together.
But no diaries.
But there's still time.
You never know.
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
You never know.
AMMA ASANTE: You never know.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: Yes,
that's how life is.
So I think we're going
to stop now and take
some Q&A from the audience.
Does anybody have-- there's
a mic in the center here.
Anybody have any questions?
OK, I'll ask
[INAUDIBLE] question
while people come to the mic.
Actually, the next
one is a scene.
We'd like to queue the
scene where she's actually
having a conversation
with John Davinier
about her status in life.
AMMA ASANTE: I love her
look in that moment.
CLENNITA JUSTICE:
Yeah, I love her look.
The transition.
AMMA ASANTE: The way
she looks at him.
Absolutely.
It's a complex scene, that one.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: Yeah, that's
what I wanted to ask you about.
Could you elaborate on
her thoughts at that time?
Because she's recognizing
this interesting position
she's in society,
where she doesn't
have to marry for
money and position.
AMMA ASANTE: Well, this is all
part of her awakening, really.
All part of her
political awakening,
all part of her
understanding of who
she is as a woman and a woman
of color and where she fits.
Like I say, I always
wanted to strike
that parallel of ownership
between this person of color
being owned and the
woman being owned.
And I was exploring
this in my own mind,
as I do one day,
as I do in one day.
And I was sitting at my desk
and putting together the story
that I wanted to tell.
And I wanted to express
the pressure of society
at that time.
I mean, so much pressure
came from society.
And as I say at the beginning
of the movie via Lord Mansfield,
society has a habit of casting
out even one of its own
when it has the opportunity.
It was so easy to
kind of be cast out
and kind of be blacklisted and
be turned out from society.
And I was kind of thinking
about this fortunate
position of this character
and how she's wealthy
and a woman of color
at the same time.
And yet, she's still
desperate to belong.
She's still desperate to
be like the other girls who
have to marry.
And she's still desperate for
society's endorsement, which
says she should not only marry,
but marry in equal or higher,
which is a man of consequence.
And so she's working
out all these arguments
in her head that I wanted to
offer to you as an audience.
And on the one
hand, she recognizes
that she's in this
very strong position.
She is this woman who is
both free, as a female
and as a slave, a female
because she has money,
and a slave because she's
been taken into a family that
has allowed her
not to be a slave
and decided to honor the
side of her bloodline
that did not emanate
from slavery.
But then, on the other
hand, wanting to belong,
she's talking about this
pressure of, but who will
society think I am if I don't
marry a man of consequence?
And then she's realizing
also the ridiculousness
of this pressure.
Because it would be
like a free Negro
begging to have a
master, exactly that.
In the end, when you're working,
the characters speak to you.
And they come to you
with their own story.
And there are times when I
would come up with stuff,
and I'd go, oh, that was clever.
Oh, I like that.
And that was one of
those moments where--
so many of what comes out
in this story comes directly
from my own family and my
own love connections in life,
like what is right can
never be impossible
was something my dad used
to say very regularly.
Or when her blood
father says to her,
her biological father
says, you will not
understand this in this moment,
but know that you are loved.
That was something
my father used
to say to me when I was very,
very small, when he was trying
to give me this deal to
go out into the world.
And even Lady Mary's line of,
Elizabeth, wait for no man,
was a line from my big sister.
She's six years older
than me, and she
used to try to be
the grownup woman.
And so she used
to say to me, you
should never wait for any man.
I'd be 10 years old,
and she'd say this.
But these particular
lines were really lines
that for me just came from being
in the shoes of the character
and being in the story.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: OK, so I
see a few people in line.
So yes, we'd like
to take a question.
AUDIENCE: Hi Amma,
my name is Lauren.
AMMA ASANTE: Hi, Lauren.
AUDIENCE: Thank you so
much for coming today.
I had the chance to
see the film yesterday,
and it was beautiful.
AMMA ASANTE: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: Thank
you for making it.
AMMA ASANTE: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: I have a
quick question for you.
My question is,
what made you decide
to make the film more
lighthearted and about romance
versus a darker
film that stresses
the turmoil of slavery?
AMMA ASANTE: Well,
Lauren, I think-- I mean,
for me, I definitely wanted to
create this Austen-esque drama
that I talked about earlier
and challenge myself
to be able to make
a film in that way,
show that a woman of
color could do it,
could be behind the
camera and do it,
but also that a woman of color
could be in front of the camera
and appeal to everybody,
appeal universally.
Now, as we know, Austen
never talked about slavery.
And if I had gone that route of
making something much harder,
I'd have been coming away
from my idea of working
in that Austen-esque
subgenre of movie making.
For me, I always
knew that I was going
to tell this more gentled story
where you wouldn't actually
see slaves, but as
I explained earlier,
you would feel the
impact of the horror
of what was happening to them.
And I also think
sometimes that you
can communicate to an
audience more easily when
the horror is emotional
and psychological,
but is not kind of so
explicit on the screen.
And I like to think that I
don't come to movie making
with a message, but I
come to ask questions
and to try and motivate
you as a society
to have those conversations
and ask those questions.
And I think what a costume
drama like this does
is inspire conversation
and dialogue.
Because not everybody
wants to read the newspaper
or wants to be hit over
the head with a message
or a political kind
of stance in that way.
But I think when it comes
to you in this gentle form,
you naturally respond to it, as
opposed to feeling like you're
being forced to respond to it.
So I wanted to challenge myself
and see if I could really
tell what is essentially
still a tough story,
but within the context of a
love story and self-awakening
and a journey towards
self love and not
be explicit with violence.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
Congratulations for seeing
your vision through.
It's beautiful.
AMMA ASANTE: Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
AUDIENCE: Hi, Amma.
My name's Jana.
AMMA ASANTE: Hi, Jana.
AUDIENCE: Like I said,
I actually saw this
at [INAUDIBLE]
and got to witness
and be a part of the
standing ovation.
So thank you for
coming to Google.
AMMA ASANTE: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: So my
question-- I'm really
interested in
black protagonists.
And I read a lot of
articles, more recently,
about black Renaissance in film.
"Belle" is a part
of the films that
are named, including "12 Years
a Slave," "The Butler," "Djengo"
even.
Some of the argument,
people are arguing
that this is a black
Renaissance, whereas I
read other articles that kind
of discredit this and say all
of these films are most
of them focus on blacks,
but in a space of servitude
or not modern blacks.
There's a disparity.
And so I want to
know your thoughts.
"Belle," I think, is different
because it's a historic piece,
but she's not in a position
of servitude necessarily.
But I'd love to hear your
thoughts on the larger
argument of this presence
of blacks on screen,
but also them being in
the past and not current.
AMMA ASANTE: Sure, sure.
Well, I do like to think
that "Belle" kind of steps
away, outside of that
argument to a certain extent.
So I do agree with you there.
But I do think that, as
filmmakers, and particularly
as filmmakers of
color or filmmakers
that are putting stories about
people of color on screen,
we kind of have to have the
freedom to a certain extent
to choose the stories that
touch us that we want to tell.
Now, certainly, I can say
that as a British filmmaker
of color, we've been starved
of those opportunities
to really tell stories about
things that matter to us.
So the first thing
we're going to do
when we get those
opportunities is kind of
go to the heart of
stuff that matters.
And who we are today
and what inspires
us, what motivates us
to move forward today,
I think has so much to
do with our history.
So why not, as filmmakers, be
able to look at that history.
Now, I know Steve McQueen
has made other movies aside
from "12 Years a
Slave," and I certainly
have made other movies aside
from this movie, "Belle."
And I intend to go on and
make movies of all kinds.
In fact, the next
movie I'm going to make
is for Warner Brothers.
It's called "Unforgettable."
It's very much rooted in today.
It has a double female lead,
and it's very much about, again,
the woman's experience, looking
at many of the themes of Belle,
but much more in a
modern day context.
And I have no doubt that
many of the filmmakers
whose films we've talked
about-- "The Butler," I mean,
what was precious
if it wasn't today?
And though the lead
character in that movie
had a very, very difficult
time, she wasn't in servitude.
But we have to be allowed.
Otherwise, us restricting
ourselves as people of color
is no different to other
people from other races
restricting us.
Just because it comes
from us, from the inside,
it doesn't make it any better
or any more right or any more
worthy.
What we have to be allowed to
do is, A, tell our stories.
There have to be more
of us so that there
is a variety of those stories.
Sure, if you've only
got five or six of us,
you're always going
to be able to sew
comparisons between our movies.
When you have 50
of us, then you're
going to be able to-- I mean,
what was Spike Lee doing?
I mean, what has Spike Lee
been doing for all these years?
He hasn't been telling
stories of people
of color in servitude.
We don't have to
go that far back
to illuminate these stories.
So the arguments for me
are unfair, unwarranted.
And I think they're restrictive.
And they restrict creativity,
to be honest with you.
We have to be free.
I didn't tell "Belle"
without knowing
that I had a responsibility.
And I can tell you that I
took that responsibility very,
very seriously.
And that is why,
despite the fact that I
had a lot of
worries and concerns
that she was too feisty and
her development was kind of too
up front, for me, I was not
going to come to a story,
I was not going to put
a character on screen
unless she was that.
Because they were worried
that she wouldn't be likable.
And I said, what's
not going to be
likable is a weak,
wallflower woman of color put
on the screen at
this particular time.
And so I took that
responsibility seriously.
And as filmmakers of color,
we know how to do that.
But we also have to be allowed
to be creative, I think.
AUDIENCE: Well, thank
you for inspiring
the next generation of
filmmakers of color.
AMMA ASANTE: Thank you so much.
Thank you.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: Awesome.
Thank you.
Oh, yes, one more.
AUDIENCE: Hi, Amma.
My name is Finneas.
And I just wanted to ask if
you had any pieces or scenes
that you had to take out that
you want us to know, I guess,
would be interesting
to hear about those.
AMMA ASANTE: Well, early
on from the script,
I had written a scene-- this
is not a very serious scene,
but it's just a scene I would
have loved to have shot,
where I had written one of the
very typical ballroom scenes
that you get, the
quintessential ballroom scene
in the period drama.
And again, I'd never seen a
woman of color in that context,
so I really wanted to shoot
the typical dance, 18th century
line dance scene that you get.
And it was a very
big scene, and I
was going to be shooting
it from the point of view
of somebody watching from above.
And it was just so big
and expensive that we
had to take that scene out.
I did create a scene at the
very beginning of the movie
where you see the
painter putting together
a sketch of the girls.
It's actually Elizabeth's face.
What you see is the kind of
quintessential English girl
coming to the fore, kind of
emerging in the painting.
But what you don't
necessarily know is actually,
the end of the painting
is going to be something
very different, far more
powerful and strong.
We had to take that out
because it was long.
It was a sort of intercut
opening credits scene.
But intercutting that with
Captain Sir John Lindsay
arriving to collect
the little Belle.
That was a little
bit long winded.
So we took that out.
Essentially, I was able to
keep the essence of the movie
that I wanted.
So while we sliced out
lines, we didn't take out
too many full scenes that I
thought were really important,
thankfully.
I'm a control freak.
And I've been lucky
enough, in both movies
that I've made,
to be able to get
what I want up there on screen.
And it won't always
be like that.
I know that, employers.
I know that.
But for now, this
is how it has been.
And I essentially got what
I wanted up there on screen.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
AMMA ASANTE: Thank you so much.
Thank you.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: Well,
thank you so much, Amma.
AMMA ASANTE: It's
been such a pleasure.
CLENNITA JUSTICE: Yes,
thank you for sharing
the film and your
perspective with us.
This was great.
And we want to congratulate
you on the success
of your sophomore project.
And we hope you come
with your next project.
AMMA ASANTE: Thank you so much.
You were really good to talk to.
[APPLAUSE]
