Film4 embarks on quest for Bruce Chatwin

13 May 2011

Film4 is teaming up with producers Rachael Horovitz and James Wilson to develop a film about shape shifting writer-traveler-fabulist Bruce Chatwin and his extraordinary relationship with his wife Elizabeth.

Bestselling novelist and travel writer Hari Kunzru and novelist and screenwriter Katie Kitamura are writing the script based on Nicholas Shakespeare's acclaimed biography Bruce Chatwin as well as Elizabeth Chatwin's life rights.

An unwitting back-packer icon to millions of readers of genre-bending travelogues The Songlines and In Patagonia - written in trusted Moleskine notebooks which now bear his name and promise of reward if returned - Chatwin makes most multi-hyphenates look one dimensional. 

Re-invented from provincial origins in the English Midlands, autodidact Chatwin started as a porter at Sotheby's before being promoted after spotting a Picasso in the salesroom as a fake.  As Swinging London blossomed he became the auction house's glittering prodigy art expert, known as ‘the eye' for his ability to uncover a hidden gem or a forgery.

Seen as chairman material by others, but part T.E. Lawrence, part Che Guevara by himself, his defining restlessness kicked in.  Claiming that looking at art was causing blindness and that his doctor had prescribed viewing distant horizons as a cure, he quit and went to the Sudan to live with nomadic tribes, his life's obsession.

After studying archaeology, his stint as a wide-ranging arts correspondent ended with a rumoured1974 telegram to The Sunday Times, "Have Gone to Patagonia for 6 months".  That South American journey led to his third re-invention, as a famous travel writer, and thereafter he wandered the globe as author, art collector, socialite, amateur archeologist, latter day nomad, truth-seeker, and seducer.

A protean charismatic who dined with Jacqueline Onassis in Manhattan, and shepherds in the steppes of Turkestan with equal ease, Chatwin was armed with physical beauty, wit, and infallible taste.  Miranda Rothschild said of him "He's out to seduce everybody, it doesn't matter if you are male, female, an ocelot or a tea cosy". 

He was a master storyteller, no story concerning him more than his own.  Critics accused him of excess, including passing off the AIDS that killed him at 48 variously as the effects of a bite from a little-known Asian bat, his consumption of a 1000 year old Chinese egg, or a fungal infection found in "a killer whale cast up on the shores of Arabia". As Shakespeare puts it: "He tells not a half truth, but a truth and a half."

Throughout he returned from far-flung lands to England, and to his American wife Elizabeth.  At the film's heart is a unique love triangle between Chatwin, the open road, and Elizabeth, who nursed him as he lay dying.

Kunzru and Kitamura are eschewing literary biopic convention for a prismatic approach that dramatises Chatwin's many faces and his intentional blurring of fact and fiction. 

Film4 head Tessa Ross said, "Hari and Katie's kaleidoscopic take hooked us instantly. It captures the passion of Chatwin's wanderlust, inner and outer, with a unique relationship and two amazing roles at its core".  Sam Lavender shepherds the development for Film4.

Lesley Thorne at Aitken Alexander Associates represented the Chatwin estate, Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare.  Jackie Eckhouse at Sloss Eckhouse LawCo and Nick Marston at Curtis Brown negotiated the deals for the producers and writers respectively.

 

Hari Kunzru
Hari Kunzru is the author of the novels The Impressionist (2002),  Transmission (2004), My Revolutions (2007) and Gods Without Men (2011), as well as a short story collection, Noise (2006). His work has been translated into twenty-one languages and won him prizes including the Somerset Maugham award, the Betty Trask prize of the Society of Authors, a Pushcart prize and a British Book Award. In 2003 Granta named him one of its twenty best young British novelists. Lire magazine named him one of its 50 "écrivains pour demain". He is Deputy President of English PEN, a patron of the Refugee Council and a member of the editorial board of Mute magazine. His short stories and journalism have appeared in diverse publications including The New York Times, Guardian, New Yorker, Financial Times, Times of India, Wired and New Statesman. His fourth novel, Gods Without Men, will be published in August 2011. He lives in New York City.

 

Katie Kitamura
Kitamura is the author of novels The Longshot, which she is adapting for director Peter Berg (Battleship, Friday Night Lights), the forthcoming Gone to the Forest, and travel book Japanese for Travellers. She writes regularly for The New York Times and The Guardian.

 

Nicholas Shakespeare
Nicholas Shakespeare is a novelist, biographer and journalist.  He adapted his novel The Dancer Upstairs for the screen, which was directed by John Malkovich starring Javier Bardem and released by Fox Searchlight Pictures.  He is also the author of the novels The Vision of Elena Silves, which won the Somerset Maugham Award and a Betty Trask Award, The High Flyer, Snowleg, and most recently, Inheritance.

 

Rachael Horovitz
New York based Horovitz won the Golden Globe, Emmy and 2010 Producers Guild David Wolper Producer of the Year Award for her work on HBO's Grey Gardens starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. Her next film, Moneyball, directed by Bennett Miller (Oscar-nominee for "Capote") stars Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman and will be released in the US on Sept 23 by Sony Pictures. Additional credits include Alexander Payne's About Schmidt and David Mamet's State and Main.

 

James Wilson
Produced Attack the Block with Nira Park, The King with Milo Addica, and was an executive producer of Shaun of the Dead.  He is next producing Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin.  Previously he was a production executive at Fox Searchlight Pictures and FilmFour working on the development and production of a range of films including Sexy Beast, Dancer In The Dark, The Filth and The Fury, The Last King of Scotland, The Ice Storm and The Full Monty.  He is also a director of Big Talk Pictures.

 

About Film4
Film4, headed by Tessa Ross, is Channel 4 Television's feature film division. Film4 develops and co-finances films and is known for working with the most innovative talent in the U.K., whether new or established. Film4 has developed and co-financed many of the best UK films of recent years, films like Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, Martin McDonagh's In Bruges. Steve McQueen's Hunger, Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky and Another Year, Ken Loach's Looking For Eric, Sam Taylor Wood's Nowhere Boy and Chris Morris' Four Lions.

Currently on release are Mark Romanek's Never Let Me Go, Kevin Macdonald's The Eagle and Richard Aoyade's Submarine.  Miranda July's second film The Future and Paddy Considine's debut feature Tyrannosaur premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and will be released in the UK later this year.

Film4's current productions include The Iron Lady directed by Phyllida Lloyd and starring Meryl Streep, Joe Cornish's directorial debut Attack the Block, Pawel Pawlikowski's Woman in the Fifth, Steve McQueen's Shame, Lone Scherfig's One Day, Walter Salles' On The Road, Ben Wheatley's Kill List, Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights and Ben Palmer's cinematic take on the TV hit The Inbetweeners.

As part of its increased funding, Film4 is set to take a pioneering role in exploring the digital, online arena through Film4.0.   Its aim will be to find new talent and discover new ways of making, marketing and distributing films and engaging new audiences online.

The channel will create a new executive position to spearhead its digital initiatives under the brand banner of Film4.0.

For further information visit www.film4.com/productions

 

Film 4 Press contact:

Justin Jeffreys Taylor Herring PR

+44 (0) 20 8206 5151

justin.jeffreys@taylorherring.com