a Clint Eastwood film
Based on the book “Playing the Enemy” by John Carlin
Plot(Spoiler Alert)
1990 South Africa, Nelson Mandela is released from prison after serving 27 years. Four years later, he is elected to be the first black President of South Africa. He wants to unite the people of the country by having the Springboks win the 1995 Rugby World Cup, lead by Francois Pienaar.
Clint Eastwood: “Unification was Nelson Madela’s obsession. He was a man who could forgive the people who had jailed him after 27 years. He says that there is strength in forgiveness. He had philosophies that are great. He took a sport that was being played by one segment of the population in South Africa and Made it a unifying factor for his presidency."
Blaine: Morgan Freeman said that there is more to this story than just winning games. The team had to reach out to the black population to involve them in a sport that was alien to them. The idea was to symbolize, through sports, the possibility of a larger reconciliation.
John Carlin was a chief for the London Independent in South Africa between 1989 and 1995 which was the period of great transition and drama with Mandela on center stage in South Africa’s history. And so he wrote the book about Mandela with the climax of the book being the Rugby World Cup final of 1995. The reason John wrote the book was because he felt that this story contained a tremendously valuable, exemplary lesson for the ages.
A lot of people in America hadn’t heard about this story and the producers thought it was a great way to get a sense of the soul and character of Mandela. John Carlin thought the book would never get made into a film, but he was thrilled that they wanted to because it would be sending out a message that would reach out to a lot people.
Morgan Freeman had met with Nelson Mandela to have tea at his house. Nelson was a big fan of Morgan Freeman and his face lit up just from meeting him in person. Nelson knew that if there was ever going to be a movie about him, he would like Morgan Freeman to play him.
Morgan was very honored that Nelson had him in mind to play him. It just so happened that Warner Bros. had a movie in mind about a piece of Nelson Mandela’s past. The producers were with Morgan and Nelson gave them a second approval to make the film. Morgan Freeman and Nelson Mandela do have a few similarities judging by their looks, only Morgan is bigger than Nelson. Also Nelson’s skin color is a little lighter than Morgan’s and his hair is whiter. Morgan’s eyes are wider than Mandela’s. But Morgan’s head is the same shape as Nelson’s and he has the same forehead as him.
Anthony Peckham was hired to do the screenplay and he was very nervous about doing the project because this was huge for him. Nelson Mandela is his hero. Anthony got over his fear and worked on the script fast. The script was finished and the next thing they needed was a director and Morgan Freeman had Clint Eastwood in mind after working with him twice and being a good friend of his.
Morgan told Clint that he had this great script, but Clint always says he’ll be the judge of whether it’s a good script or not. Clint ended up loving it. He felt all the material was natural for a movie and also a chance to show an example of how a very charismatic person can affect a whole country by using his creative powers. Morgan wanted to do a perfect job of playing Mandela and it was a challenge for him. He had to get the voice, the rhythm and the accent right.
Anthony Peckham said that Matt Damon was meant to be Francois Pienaar. Matt loved the script so much that he would do anything to be in “Invictus”. For Matt Damon, the story is about the best of humanity and what we can be. As soon as Matt finished reading the script, he looked up Francois online and it concerned him seeing how big he is when he saw a picture of him. Matt went to Clint asking if he was the right choice for this part because Francois is bigger compared to him and Clint informed Matt not to worry and let him take care of it. Matt had a voice coach to help him get the accent. Francois invited Matt over to his house and prepared a gourmet meal. Matt was still a bit concerned that he was too short compared to Francois. Francois talked to Matt a lot about the game, what happens in the training rooms, a bit about the technical stuff and what his philosophy would be as captain, which changed. The most important thing for Francois on that field was how well his team played.
Aimee McDaniel is a sports coordinator and she was in charge of casting the six teams and training them. Most of them were real rugby players. Aimee would show the guys these videos of a rugby game then have them train for two and a half hours. Chester Williams was a member of the Springboks team back in ’95 and he would coach these guys on how they should play. Clint Eastwood said they got the camera at just about every angle you could get the players and because it was rugby the people would be running in every angle.
Clint wanted to shoot “Invictus” in South Africa because it needed to feel real. It was important to shoot at real places that these events took place. The Union Building was one of them and no one has ever been allowed to shoot there until “Invictus”. They thought it was such a marvelous building that they wanted the authenticity of it. They had a rugby field and every morning a bunch a baboons were there and they had to wait to shoot until they were gone. As soon as the players went on the field, the baboons would leave, go up to the trees and be the audience for these players. Some of the stuff had to be fake. Mandela lives in Johannesburg, but they shot in Cape Town and re-created his house.
Everyone was moved of the silence when they went to Robben Island, the prison Mandela spent twenty seven years of his life in. They built there own cell because they felt the real one was too small to shoot in. Clint tested it out by going in with a camera, but it didn’t work for him so they went with the real one instead. It made them think of what it was like to live in a small space for so many years. Nelson told Morgan that spending time in that cell for twenty-seven years gave him a lot of time to think. What Mandella was thinking about was how to create national salvation. He had to give up so much. He was separated from his family, he missed out on seeing his children growing up, but he made every single person in South Africa his family. Mandela was a man who forgave and knew how to leave the past behind and move on with his life. Nelson Mandela’s legacy keeps going on even after his passing in 2013 at the age of 95.
My rating on “Invictus” is five out of five stars.
