Latest news with #Don'tLet'sGototheDogsTonight
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Embeth Davidtz says Spielberg, Altman influenced her directorial debut
LOS ANGELES, July 11 (UPI) -- Embeth Davidtz makes her screenwriting and directing debut in the film adaptation of Alexandra Fuller's memoir Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, in theaters Friday. As an actor on screen since 1989, Davidtz drew on memories of working with directors like Steven Spielberg in Schindler's List and Robert Altman in The Gingerbread Man while making the feature. In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Davidtz, 59, said she realized she'd been learning from Spielberg and other filmmakers when she stepped behind the camera herself. "I watched Steven set up a shot and be very exacting and specific with his actors," Davidtz said. "I watched Robert Altman move a camera. He had such a beautiful loose style." Davidtz optioned Fuller's book, which chronicles life in Zimbabwe before and after the 1980 election. Her goal was to hire a writer and director, but when she couldn't, decided to take on both roles herself. In her screenplay, Davidtz zeroed in on the portion of the book when 8-year-old Bobo (Lexi Vinter) is living on her parents' farm in Rhodesia, the former Zimbabwe. As the country's 1980 prime minister election approaches, in which Robert Mugabe would defeat Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith, Bobo has grown up apprehensive of Black Africans. Directing 8-year-old Lexi also reminded Davidtz of making the 1996 adaptation of Matilda. "Even Danny DeVito's dealing with a child, he was so beautiful with how he worked with Mara Wilson," she said "I think I was taking in things that helped me as a director long before I ever thought of directing something." Bobo's perspective was the only version of the story Davidtz felt comfortable telling as a White South African herself. Bobo talks about watching out for "terrorists," and bosses around the children of her parents' Black employees, because she learned the behavior. "It's not something she made up," Davidtz said. "That gives you the background to the family that she lives in and the society that she lives in." Davidtz also researched the Shona tribe of Zimbabwe, which factors into the story. She credits actors Zikhona Bali and Shilubana Fumani, both South African, with helping her steer potentially volatile scenes between Black and White characters. It also pleased Davidtz to see that behaving like a child of racist White Rhodesians was foreign to Lexi, who lives in modern South Africa. "She doesn't experience South Africa that way now," Davidtz said. "She said, 'Why do they treat them like that?' Which I thought was really actually hopeful to me that she's grown up in a much more integrated place than I did." Davidtz was a teenager in 1980 and living in South Africa following the Zimbabwe election. That is why she related to Fuller's book. "They were in a war which South Africa was not, but there was a lot of violence around us, a lot of oppression and suppression, people pulled off streets and state of emergencies being declared," she said. "Nelson Mandela was locked up that whole time. Anybody like him was either killed or locked up. It was like this pot boiling." In focusing on Bobo's story, Davidtz's own role shrank. She plays Nicola, Bobo's mother who sleeps with a machine gun in case of attacks by people she would consider terrorists. "Nobody wants to see this terribly racist woman behaving badly for an hour and a half," Davidtz said. "Then once I was directing, I was like let's really make that part as small as possible because I can't do all of it at once." Davidtz found Lexi through a Facebook post. It is Lexi's first role and Davidtz wanted an untrained actor. She also shielded Lexi from some of the more adult content of the film. Davidtz filmed with two cameras at once and gave Lexi instructions on how to react. "The way that I worked with her as a non-actor was not to give her a script," Davidtz said. "I didn't give her scenes to learn. If we were in an emotional scene, she didn't really know what was going on a lot of the time." Lexi did get to smoke cigarettes as one of Bobo's acts of rebellion. They were artificial and Davidtz warned her not to smoke real ones. "I said, 'You know why? Because it's going to make you look old and shriveled up before your time,'" she said. "I saw the eyes widen and she registered what I was saying." Now that Davidtz has directed, she would consider doing it again. She said, however, that it would have to be another passion project like Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight. "I'd have to love my story as much as I love this story," she said. "I fell in love with that memoir. I just thought she'd done such a brilliant job creating those characters and the characters are the reason I thought, 'Oh, this would tell a great story.'"
UPI
a day ago
- Entertainment
- UPI
Embeth Davidtz says Spielberg, Altman influenced her directorial debut
1 of 5 | Embeth Davidtz, seen at the 2017 American Cinematheque Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., adapted, directed and stars in "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight." File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo LOS ANGELES, July 11 (UPI) -- Embeth Davidtz makes her screenwriting and directing debut in the film adaptation of Alexandra Fuller's memoir Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, in theaters Friday. As an actor on screen since 1989, Davidtz drew on memories of working with directors like Steven Spielberg in Schindler's List and Robert Altman in The Gingerbread Man while making the feature. In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Davidtz, 59, said she realized she'd been learning from Spielberg and other filmmakers when she stepped behind the camera herself. "I watched Steven set up a shot and be very exacting and specific with his actors," Davidtz said. "I watched Robert Altman move a camera. He had such a beautiful loose style." Davidtz optioned Fuller's book, which chronicles life in Zimbabwe before and after the 1980 election. Her goal was to hire a writer and director, but when she couldn't, decided to take on both roles herself. In her screenplay, Davidtz zeroed in on the portion of the book when 8-year-old Bobo (Lexi Vinter) is living on her parents' farm in Rhodesia, the former Zimbabwe. As the country's 1980 prime minister election approaches, in which Robert Mugabe would defeat Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith, Bobo has grown up apprehensive of Black Africans. Directing 8-year-old Lexi also reminded Davidtz of making the 1996 adaptation of Matilda. "Even Danny DeVito's dealing with a child, he was so beautiful with how he worked with Mara Wilson," she said "I think I was taking in things that helped me as a director long before I ever thought of directing something." Bobo's perspective was the only version of the story Davidtz felt comfortable telling as a White South African herself. Bobo talks about watching out for "terrorists," and bosses around the children of her parents' Black employees, because she learned the behavior. "It's not something she made up," Davidtz said. "That gives you the background to the family that she lives in and the society that she lives in." Davidtz also researched the Shona tribe of Zimbabwe, which factors into the story. She credits actors Zikhona Bali and Shilubana Fumani, both South African, with helping her steer potentially volatile scenes between Black and White characters. It also pleased Davidtz to see that behaving like a child of racist White Rhodesians was foreign to Lexi, who lives in modern South Africa. "She doesn't experience South Africa that way now," Davidtz said. "She said, 'Why do they treat them like that?' Which I thought was really actually hopeful to me that she's grown up in a much more integrated place than I did." Davidtz was a teenager in 1980 and living in South Africa following the Zimbabwe election. That is why she related to Fuller's book. "They were in a war which South Africa was not, but there was a lot of violence around us, a lot of oppression and suppression, people pulled off streets and state of emergencies being declared," she said. "Nelson Mandela was locked up that whole time. Anybody like him was either killed or locked up. It was like this pot boiling." In focusing on Bobo's story, Davidtz's own role shrank. She plays Nicola, Bobo's mother who sleeps with a machine gun in case of attacks by people she would consider terrorists. "Nobody wants to see this terribly racist woman behaving badly for an hour and a half," Davidtz said. "Then once I was directing, I was like let's really make that part as small as possible because I can't do all of it at once." Davidtz found Lexi through a Facebook post. It is Lexi's first role and Davidtz wanted an untrained actor. She also shielded Lexi from some of the more adult content of the film. Davidtz filmed with two cameras at once and gave Lexi instructions on how to react. "The way that I worked with her as a non-actor was not to give her a script," Davidtz said. "I didn't give her scenes to learn. If we were in an emotional scene, she didn't really know what was going on a lot of the time." Lexi did get to smoke cigarettes as one of Bobo's acts of rebellion. They were artificial and Davidtz warned her not to smoke real ones. "I said, 'You know why? Because it's going to make you look old and shriveled up before your time,'" she said. "I saw the eyes widen and she registered what I was saying." Now that Davidtz has directed, she would consider doing it again. She said, however, that it would have to be another passion project like Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight. "I'd have to love my story as much as I love this story," she said. "I fell in love with that memoir. I just thought she'd done such a brilliant job creating those characters and the characters are the reason I thought, 'Oh, this would tell a great story.'"
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Innocence is a war zone in the feisty, unsentimental ‘Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight'
The bracing period drama 'Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight' humanizes a childhood that sounds easy to hate. It's 1980 and 7-year-old Bobo Fuller (an astonishing Lexi Venter) is running wild around her parents' farm in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, an awkward temporary name for a civil war-stricken country holding its breath for an election that will decide its future. Most Black Africans are rallying behind Robert Mugabe, who promises to return the land to them. Bobo's white immigrant family backs his Western-educated opponent Bishop Abel Muzorewa. 'He's not like a real African,' Bobo explains, a guileless child repeating the adults she's overheard. Bobo's father and mother are on edge. Tim (Rob Van Vuuren) is in a mysterious militia. Nicola, played like a taut violin string by Embeth Davidtz (who also directed and adapted this story from Alexandra Fuller's memoir of the same name), sleeps cradling an assault rifle. The Fullers don't have money but they do have local servants, Sarah (Zikhona Bali) and Jacob (Fumani Shilubana), and a surplus of bullets, brandy and entitlement. To set the tone, an early sequence has a hungover Nicola machine-gunning a snake in the kitchen, then ordering the help to clean up the blood. 'Sorry about the mess,' she says blithely. 'Bring me my tea, please.' Civilians on both sides of the conflict are getting violently murdered, although you'll notice that the news in Bobo's earshot is more concerned with the white victims. We stay in the girl's perspective: mornings taunting the Shona kids to give chase as she dirt-bikes past their camp with a rifle on her shoulder, afternoons heedlessly desecrating their ceremonial graves and midnights where she's terrified to go to the bathroom lest she get shot by home invaders or her trigger-happy folks. Davidtz was in grade school when her own family moved from New Jersey to apartheid-era South Africa. 'Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight' isn't her biography, but she understands. As in the book, Bobo's take on things is blunt and chipper and usually wrong; we're entrusted to read between the lines. (I snorted at her definition of 'terrorist.') In the ignorance of a child, we glimpse the conviction of settlers who insist, as Nicola does, that they'll fight for this territory with their bare hands. For contrast, there's also Bobo's sensitive older sister, Vanessa (Anina Reed), who hangs ABBA posters on her walls and wears trendy print dresses, clearly yearning to go through puberty somewhere far away from here. The pull of the film lies in how Davidtz allows Bobo to bob on the surface of things while we feel the dark undertow. The truth is there in the baleful eyes of the figures who don't get to speak, especially the bloodied prisoners handcuffed to the stair railing at the police station where her mother works. And the confusion is there too, like when Shilubana's formidable Jacob proudly raises a Black Power fist and the girl raises hers back, or when boisterous men run up to her car window with a chicken. Are they mocking her? Or is it a friendly game? Fuller's personal history was mostly interested in capturing her unusual youth. It's absolutely worth a read, given her family's quirky esprit de corps even when they had nothing to eat but impala. Mugabe's election hangs over everything but barely gets a direct mention. This fictionalized version is more politically curious to the point of teetering on false. Bobo pesters the grown-ups with tons of pushy questions. Nicola gives limp answers. 'Are we African?' It's complicated. 'Are we racist?' Certainly not. 'What sort of people are we?' We have breeding. That haughty last reply, which actually comes from Bobo's grandmother (Judy Ditchfield), is doubly ironic delivered to Venter's dirt-smeared, cigarette-smoking hooligan. The girl is so filthy that just one look at her gets across the idea that this lifestyle is repellent. Bobo belongs in the pantheon of filmland's savage moppets next to 'Aliens'' Newt and 'The Road Warrior's' Feral Kid. Those roles have become iconic, and yet first-time actor Venter runs circles around them. It's a minor miracle that Davidtz put this young performer — with her missing teeth and natural ease — in front of the lens, and a major one that Venter can deliver reams of her character's inner narration with pitch-perfect conviction. Only 7 herself at the time of filming, she has none of those trite child-actor tics like over-mannered naivete or phony cheek. She even pulls off lines that should be clangers: 'I really hope we don't die in a land mine today.' Davidtz gets great mileage out of watching Bobo tramp around ordering Sarah to fix her something to eat. (Wiping her nose, she couldn't be snottier.) Sarah — whose real name was Violet — is a minor character in the book. Here she's been promoted to its conscience and Bali does masterful work layering politeness over irritation over a germ of affection for this disastrously neglected little girl. In turn, the script loves Sarah fiercely and fears for her safety. Doting on this brat is dangerous; a public hug would put a target on Sarah's back. There are people watching the Fuller house from the hills. The camerawork, by Willie Nel, uses horror-movie tropes to keep us on edge: stalkerish POVs framed by binoculars, eerie tracking shots that pad around like a spy. The gimmicks are effective, though a bit of a feint. Davidtz deploys a tad more dramatic theatrics than she needs. One plot point is underscored by clanging church bells that definitely don't exist on this empty stretch of land. But the film does boast a great soundtrack with tracks by the Zimbabwean psych rock band Wells Fargo and the Kenyan-born crooner Roger Whittaker, as well as the Scottish bagpipe music that Nicola puts on to relax. (No, really.) As Nicola, Davidtz hurls herself into a hot-blooded, scenery-chomping performance in which her cheekbones and nerves get harsher as the film goes on. Nicola refuses to leave her property, though we struggle to see why she wants to stay. Her adamancy is meant to feel unjustifiable (although she enjoys crushing ticks with her bare feet). Still, there's a telling line toward the end that she delivers in a scream — a reason that makes sense even as it defies logic — and a shot of her galloping on a horse where she looks genuinely at ease. In that image alone, you believe Nicola's connection to this land. Even if you despise the Fullers on principle, 'Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight' is an enthralling watch. There's outrage underneath every offhand remark and heartbreak in watching this fraying community turn on each other. The sovereign state of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia will only exist for a matter of months. The lives of this family and millions of others are balanced on that flimsy hyphen. It's so obviously insufficient, and so obviously doomed.
New York Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight' Review: Through a Child's Eyes
The family drama elegantly realized in 'Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight' is relayed entirely through the perspective of Bobo (Lexi Venter), a white child who witnesses her mother spinning out against a backdrop of the bloody transition from Rhodesia to an independent Zimbabwe. Written and directed by Embeth Davidtz and adapted from Alexandra Fuller's memoir, the film takes place during the 1980 election, when Robert Mugabe became prime minister. Tensions are high on the modest farm Bobo's family, who comes from Australia, maintains alongside a small staff of Black laborers. An outdoorsy child, Bobo understands the world by observing the adults around her, particularly her mercurial mother, Nicola (Davidtz), whose feelings of entitlement over the land degenerate into racist mania. Amid the friction, Bobo's chief ally is Sarah (Zikhona Bali), a Black maid who indulges Bobo's longing for companionship despite concerns that her affinity with a white child could make her a target for Black militants fighting for independence. Davidtz, who grew up in South Africa during apartheid, uses jump cuts and an ever-moving camera to build a mood of youthful wonder, and the movie's best sequences foreground Bobo's childhood innocence. Because she lacks a conception of colonialism, Davidtz sometimes struggles to negotiate the film's fidelity to her point of view with a more complete picture of the war. It doesn't help that a past tragedy meant to round out Nicola's character comes off as oversimplified. But as the spunky pixie holding the story's reins, Bobo commands our attention. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs TonightRated R for violence, assault and grown-up matters. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. In theaters.
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Movie Review: War, through one child's extraordinary eyes, in 'Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight'
'Are we racists?' That's the blunt question posed by Bobo, a white girl living on a farm in Africa, to her horrified (and defensive) mother. There are so many ways this three-word line reading could land wrongly — or just seem forced or mannered. But it feels thoroughly organic when voiced by Lexi Venter, an extraordinary first-time actor who gives, at age 7, one of the more compelling child performances in recent memory in 'Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight.' It's a performance that was seeded, watered and nurtured by Embeth Davidtz, an extraordinary actor herself who wrote, directed and stars in this adaptation of Alexandra Fuller's admired 2001 memoir. One imagines Davidtz, in her triple role (and as a first-time director), had hundreds upon hundreds of decisions to make. Her most important, though, was finding and casting this youngster possessed of a wild nature, a mop of unruly hair and a face like a broad canvas waiting to be painted. The movie, which chronicles one family's life in the turbulent, waning days of white rule in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia), was not always going to be narrated by a child. Davidtz's first attempt at adapting the memoir, told in third person, was too remote, she herself has said. Then she zoomed in on the idea of telling the tale uniquely from Bobo's perspective. Davidtz, who spent much of her childhood in South Africa, was drawn to the project because it recalled her own experience growing up in a world where racial inequality and violence were everywhere, but none of the adult explanations made much sense. The director's own family life also included, like the Fuller family's, mental illness and alcoholism; she has said that neither the outside world nor home life felt safe. And that's how it is for Bobo, 8 years old when we meet her, the younger of two daughters of Nicola and Tim Fuller. We will soon learn that another daughter died as a toddler in a tragic drowning — one of the reasons Nicola (Davidtz) is so emotionally tied to the family farm, as conveyed in one particularly brutal scene brimming with rage. She may not be native to the land, but her offspring is buried in its soil. We begin with Bobo explaining how she's afraid to go alone to pee in the night. 'Terrorists,' as they've been described by the adults, might lurk anywhere, even on the way to the bathroom, carrying a gun or knife or spear. But imaginary threats are accompanied by real ones. During the day, a trip into town with her mother necessitates an escort vehicle. 'I really hope we don't die in an ambush today,' Bobo says casually to an armed guard. This is a child who helps her Dad pack his ammo at breakfast. The film, shot in South Africa, is set in the days before and after the 1980 parliamentary election — a crucial vote that will bring the Black majority to power in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. Visiting her parents' home, Nicola patronizingly instructs their Black servants which candidate to support. At home, Nicola's desperation rages. She drinks bourbon by the bottle and sleeps with a huge gun. She doesn't spend much time with her daughters, which leaves Bobo plenty of time to hang out with the animals, ride her motorbike, and smoke cigarettes. Such habits earn Bobo the disapproval of her most valued friend, Sarah (Zikhona Bali, in a warm and nuanced performance), one of two adult servants who work on the farm. The other is Jacob (Fumani N. Shilubana), who warns Sarah that her relationship with Bobo is too publicly affectionate in these precarious times. Besides, he tells her, Bobo thinks of her as a 'stupid village girl.' But there is real affection between the two. Privately, they laugh and share stories. And Sarah, conscious of the risks, tries to be the attentive parent Bobo lacks. When she catches the girl, messy-haired and smudgy-faced, smoking — at age 7! — she scolds her. 'There's nothing wrong with me, I'm perfect!' Bobo replies, with the self-belief that comes from a childhood spent bossing around people like Sarah. You can direct moments like this, as Davidtz does expertly while somehow turning in a heartbreaking and increasingly unhinged performance of her own. But you can't manufacture lightning in a bottle — for example, the infectious joy Venter exudes, even while family is losing everything, singing a rowdy song about a stripper. Davidtz has said she searched far and wide to find her star, interviewing experienced child actors but not finding the 'feral' girl she needed. A Facebook search yielded Venter. Davidtz knew she was the right before even meeting her in person. Working with the girl three hours a day, she did not give her a script, but rather provided guidance and let her improvise. Nobody's perfect, though Bobo may think she is. But in Venter's performance, Davidtz has found something pretty close: a child actor who can carry an entire film and never seem like she's acting. Bobo's story has now been told; let's hope we see young Venter telling many more. 'Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight,' a Sony Pictures Classics release, has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association 'for violent/bloody images, language, sexual assault, and some underage smoking/drinking.' Running time: 98 minutes. Three stars out of four.
