FOR they too countersued for giving the rights to NTA for the miniseries production of Things Fall Apart, with an all-star cast that includes Pete Edochie as Okonkwo, and the NTA miniseries icon, Peter Igho as the Supervising Producer.
“Didn’t you give them the rights?”
“I did. For only Things Fall Apart. But not for No Longer At Ease or A Man Of The People.”
It is my conjecture that Things Fall Apart was never their interest after all, that they were never interested in the dignity of the African hero, flawed though he may be, which Okonkwo projects in it, and that they merely wanted to ride on Things Fall Apart’s fame and coattails to the bank, by focusing on the love story and cultural conflict in No Longer At Ease and the political satire and prophetic drama of A Man Of The People, which will be more appealing to the Hollywood crowd. In other words, in spite of the popularity of the book all over the world, some ignorant script writer who knew nothing about the box office potential of Things Fall Apart, who was incapable of exploring the depth of its cultural and pioneering reach in opening the eyes of the world to Africa beyond stereotypes, in opening the whole world to an alternative view to their “noble savage” concept of an African hero, the writer and the producer accepted the line and made the film for Hollywood rather than the whole world.
And they misfired woefully.
It has always been an uphill task for a filmmaker to match the ingrained, deeply entrenched reader’s vision, the film in the reader’s inner-mind, the conception of a book that sticks in the mind after reading it, when s/he takes on a popular novel. It is even more so when s/he takes on such a world book as Things Fall Apart, especially when the filmmaker is ignorant of the culture that forms the base of the film he is making. Everyone who saw that film was sorely disappointed. And wished it had never been made. Why? Because the film had totally destroyed, forever, their fantasy of Okonkwo and the village of Umuofia. The film has also blocked the opportunity that could have followed it to make the film of the legend’s other works.
Moreover, there was a racist element inherent in the decision of the studio to combine No Longer At Ease and A Man Of The People with Things Fall Apart — without permission. You can say anything about Hollywood IP-stealing, but they know where to draw the line when it comes to the material of established writers in the western world. Hollywood would not have done that with the works of any writer in the West without a clearly specific written/contract permission. Period.
You could see now why the man cried!
“But you should have written the film script yourself sir.”
“I don’t know how. And I trusted them.”
Trust Hollywood!
Before anybody blamed him for giving the rights of Things Fall Apart to a major Hollywood studio, rather than trust it into the hands of the Ousmane Sembenes of that era, one must realise that this is Things Fall Apart, and not just any book. Things Fall Apart has become the book of the world. It is said to have been translated into about sixty languages. And sold at least 10 million copies. It has therefore been taken out of our hands and given to the world, and the world has accepted this gift with open hands, wholeheartedly. Those who have read it would be thrilled, anxious to see it on the screen, potentially over 10 million of them. And the attraction of the rest of the world seeing it in film, the most popular medium in the world, that attraction and the desire to reach it is very real, would be very real for any writer in his shoes. Hollywood was certainly the right place to which to entrust it. Imagine the possibility of its reach, if it had been done right. Remember this was before Nollywood. Long before Africa Magic in its multidimensional, multilingual form. Before YouTube. Monetary gains apart, remember its further impact if they had concentrated just on Things Fall Apart, explored it to its depth and presented it to the owners of the book, the world, in its filmic form. Again remember this was pre-Nollywood, pre-Africa Magic. And with the power of Hollywood behind it, its publicity machine and its worldwide distribution network at work, Things Fall Apart could easily have added to its laurel as the most watched African film in the world. But that opportunity may be lost forever.
Why wouldn’t the man cry!
As it always does, Hollywood treats African culture, African stories and themes with impunity, and willy-nilly will handle its subject matter with the same ignorance and laziness it has always handled African current affairs, issues - the African entity. They did it to Prof. Soyinka with Kongi’s Harvest, to the extent that he disowned the film and insisted that they should not as much as credit him even though he acted in it. Steven Spielberg did not spare any cost on research into the making of Schindler’s List, and did pay Consultants to remain on the set to make sure he was true to his story and the Jewish culture he was presenting to the world. He should be commended for doing the same for Amistad starring Djimoh Honshu, which he also coproduced with Debbie Allen the Dance Choreographer, known to be a diehard Africanist in Hollywood. Steven Spielberg was and is a rare breed in Hollywood.
[I was one on the set of Tears of The Sun and appealed, when they went astray, to the Sony Studio that made the film, the Executive Producers, the Director, and the African star with clout in the film. I put my career on the line. The script that actors auditioned for was not the film that was shot. And with the way the Director shot “Tears...”, rewriting the script and making the day’s shoot available early in the morning to only those in the scene that day, it was not possible to accurately discern which direction he was taking the story, until the special screening to selected people. That was when I challenged the stakeholders on the so-called Nigerian facts presented to the world in the film. Yes there was a repercussion. For example, I was edited out so much that if you blinked, you would not see me in the film. But my petition forced some little changes nonetheless]. A Consultant on the set of Things Fall Apart, who is knowledgeable not only of the book but also of the culture that gave birth to it, would have been able to challenge the stakeholders on the direction it was going].
Producers of Things Fall Apart did not show that they cared, and ended up making an old genius cry. The film did not star anyone familiar with the culture in Things Fall Apart. Only one Nigerian appears in the film, and not in a starring role, only one Nigerian, from the Nigeria, which gives the world Things Fall Apart.
Is it any wonder then that the man cried!
The experience of Prof. Achebe and, I dare say, Prof. Wole Soyinka with Opera Wonyosi motivates me in the campaign to attract Nigerian authors into the Nigerian film industry. The future of the Nigerian film industry depends on it. We are the only film culture whose writing luminaries abandon its film industry, a creative field whose most creative and experienced creative minds refuse to tread and chart. I believe Prof. Wole Soyinka went back to school, as it were, after his Nobel Prize, and learnt how to write screenplays. A wonderful and tough act to follow. Nigerian great and award-wining authors can do the same, if not go back to school, at least attend workshops, organized with experienced screenwriters they would respect from established film industries in the world. They have their great works to convert into screenplays, or fresh works directly into screenplays, written by they themselves, and shot into movies, perhaps themselves. If not themselves, at least the line would have been drawn and the framework structured for any Director who takes on their work.
The best films qualitatively in terms of how many Oscars won, the most grossing films in the world from many years past have been adaptations from books. The Godfather Series, Jurasic Park series, The Lord of the Rings series, Titanic, Avatar, Harry Potter series, etc., are adaptations that have had tremendous success. Not only qualitatively, but at the box office also.
Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison made more money with Beloved when she sold the novel that won her the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature to Oprah Winfrey, than she ever made with all her works combined. Even though the script was not written by the author herself, it was written by an African, the Ghanaian Princess Akosua Busia, who understood both the African culture, the root of the story, and the southern American culture, where it was set.
It wasn’t that Oprah first gave it to her, in her search for a “named writer”, and Beloved was Busia’s first ever screenplay. But Oprah was knowledgeable enough to know that all the Hollywood star script writers that wrote copies, for which she paid millions, did not accomplish what she felt, why she bought the book, until she went back to what Busia had submitted.
Nigerian authors have to write the scripts to their famous works themselves, because Nigeria does not have the screenwriting culture, which Hollywood built, the writing culture that allows Toni Morrison and other great authors to sell their works and sleep well at night, not fearing whether or not they will be violated liked they raped Prof. Chinua Achebe. The man was therefore, in a way crying out to other Nigerian writers to be careful if they don’t want to have with their works the bitter taste of his experience with Things Fall Apart the film.
It is a shame that the Nobel Foundation does not give a Nobel Peace Prize posthumously, having given the last to Dag Hammarskjold in 1961, [the Foundation’s statues changed and stipulated in 1974 that it could no more award the Peace Prize posthumously]. This will hit hard those who are unaware of that fact and would like to renew their lobby for a Nobel Prize for him.
Mahatma Ghandi, the ultimate symbol of non-violence struggle for democracy and freedom in our time was never awarded the Prize, despite the fact that he was nominated every year from 1937 – 1939, in 1947, and again in January 1948, a few days before he was murdered. For if there ever is a writer who is well deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature, Prof. Albert Chinualumogu Achebe is the one.
Just as there have been many speculations on the reason the Nobel committee shunned the most worthy representative of the vision and goal of the Peace Prize, most prominent among which was the rumor that Great Britain was strongly against giving the award to Gandhi because of his anti-British colonialism stand in India, and the Committee was afraid to thereby ruin its relationship with Great Britain at the time, the rumour for denying Prof. Achebe is as regards his “active” participation in the Nigerian Civil War, war in general, which the non-violence organization is totally against. It is a shame that the Nigerian civil war should have cast such a long shadow over such an illustrious literary career.
The Nobel committee has remained quiet, as always, on why it actually refused to give the award to either Gandhi or Achebe. The closest effort of the Nobel Committee at recognizing Gandhi was when the Dalai Lama received the award in 1989, and the Chairman of the Nobel Foundation committee said his award was “in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi”.
But why must Prof. Achebe’s illustrious literary career be defined, be remembered for a Nobel Prize NOT received? For no matter what awards are received or not received, Achebe’s lofty height in the world literary terrain remains secure and permanent, and, like for those who are even more famous after they are gone, his fame is just about to multiply in geometric proportions!
As a postscript, I was able to attend his Funeral at Ogidi, thanks to my Hon. Minister, Senator Bala Moahmmed, who understood and allowed me to go. It was a funeral for a king, attended by two Presidents, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, who turned a learned critic of three of the Prof’s works, and John Dramani Mahama of Ghana, for whom the Prof. was also a mentor. Where Prof.’s wife, Prof. Christie Chinwe Achebe summoned that courage and fortitude to still sing during the funeral no one else but she will ever know. Because the decision had been made not to have an open casket at church, a very tight few of us had been allowed to view his open casket in his house, lying-in-state in perfect peace.
And everyone cried!
Oyekunle, MD/CEO Abuja Film Village International Ltd. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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