Antony Thomas was making documentary films at a time in film and TV when leading producers and executives were backed by their organizations, could stand by their principles and get films made. Three very different commissioners – Charles Denton, Sheila Nevins and Tony Essex – gave him a free rein to make defining, bold films. They were not dominated by the obsession with ratings and chasing “subscriber loyalty”, or hampered by lawyers making risk-averse decisions to protect the brand, as is the case for factual entertainment today.
Tag: south african literature
Review | Green Lion, Henrietta Rose-Innes | Book of the Week
In the popular imagination, Africa is one great big game reserve where man can hunt to his heart’s content, relishing the thrill of the dangerous chase. Theodore Roosevelt, and Ernest Hemingway (that hackneyed darling of writing course instructors), recounted testosterone-fuelled tales of derring-do as they pursued their prey across the vast “uncivilized” plains of Africa. Roosevelt returned to the US with thousands of specimens – lions, elephants, rhinoceros – duly donated to the Smithsonian Institution. Disney’s film The Lion King is the second-highest-grossing Disney film of all time. It depicts all kinds of animals frolicking across great, untamed African landscapes devoid of human beings – whereas the reality is more likely to be that Africa becomes a great landscape empty of animals.
Green Lion is a deftly-executed novel about man and beast and extinction; about bereavement, animal magic and the human desire for connection. It opens with the mauling of volunteer zoo keeper, Mark Carolissen, who ends up in hospital in a coma. He was looking after a rare black-maned Cape Lion, Dmitri, kept in kept in captivity for breeding with lioness, Sekhmet. Visitors gawp in thrilling terror at the kings of the animal world, safe behind glass. Continue reading Review | Green Lion, Henrietta Rose-Innes | Book of the Week
Interview | Henrietta Rose-Innes | Author of the Week
Where were you born, and where did you grow up?
Born and bred in Cape Town, under Table Mountain. All of Africa to the north, Antarctica to the south, and an ocean on either hand.
What sorts of books were in your family home? Who were early formative influences?
It was a bookish home – we were always retreating into fantasy in different corners of the house. My parents had various interests and they collected books on art, archaeology, rare plants, antiques, medicine, carpentry, bird-keeping . . . as well as poetry and certain kind of mid-century fiction that they discovered in their youth. I grew up reading Graham Greene and Hemingway and Carson McCullers and a lot of classic Science Fiction. It was an old-fashioned but solid education. Continue reading Interview | Henrietta Rose-Innes | Author of the Week