Belle (2013 film)
Belle is a 2013 British period drama film directed by Amma Asante, written by Misan Sagay and produced by Damian Jones. It stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tom Wilkinson, Miranda Richardson, Penelope Wilton, Sam Reid, Matthew Goode, Emily Watson, Sarah Gadon, Tom Felton, and James Norton.[3][4]
Belle
Pia Di Ciaula
Victoria Boydell
- DJ Films
- TSG Entertainment
- Pinewood Pictures
- BFI
- 8 September 2013 (TIFF)
- 2 May 2014 (United States)
- 13 June 2014 (United Kingdom)
104 minutes[1]
United Kingdom
English
$10.9 million
$16.5 million[2]
The film is loosely inspired by the 1779 painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle beside her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray at Kenwood House, which was commissioned by their great-uncle, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, then Lord Chief Justice of England. Very little is known about the life of Dido Belle, who was born in the West Indies and was the illegitimate mixed-race daughter of Mansfield's nephew, Sir John Lindsay. She is found living in poverty by her father and entrusted to the care of Mansfield and his wife. The fictionalised story centres on Dido's relationship with an aspiring lawyer; it is set at a time of legal significance, as a court case is heard on what became known as the Zong massacre, when slaves were thrown overboard from a slave ship and the owner filed with his insurance company for the losses. Lord Mansfield ruled on this case in England's Court of King's Bench in 1786, in a decision seen to contribute to the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.
Plot[edit]
Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay is born in 1761, the illegitimate daughter of Captain Sir John Lindsay, a Royal Navy officer, with Maria Belle, an enslaved African woman in the West Indies. After Dido's mother dies in 1769, Lindsay takes Dido to England and entrusts her to his uncle William Murray, Earl of Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice, and his wife Elizabeth, who live at Kenwood House, an estate in Hampstead, near London).
They raise Dido as a free gentlewoman with their other great-niece Lady Elizabeth Murray, whose widowed father had remarried a woman who pressured him to disown Elizabeth. When the cousins reach adulthood, the Mansfields commission a portrait of them, but Dido fears she will be portrayed as a subordinate, similar to other portraits which depict aristocrats with black servants.
Dido's father dies, leaving her a vast income of £2,000 a year, making her an heiress. Lady Elizabeth, by contrast, will have no income from her father, as his son with his new wife has been named sole heir. Arrangements are made for Elizabeth to have her coming-out to society, but Lord and Lady Mansfield believe no gentleman will agree to marry Dido because of her mixed race. Fearing lower-ranking men will only marry her for her wealth, and that a marriage to a lower-status man will reduce her rank and shame the family, Lord Mansfield decides she will travel to London with her cousin but will not be "out" to society. He asks her to take her spinster great-aunt Mary's place as the keeper of the house, with the implication that she will not marry.
Lord Mansfield agrees to take the local vicar's son, John Davinier, into a law pupillage. In 1783, Mansfield hears the case of Gregson v. Gilbert, about an insurance claim for slaves killed when thrown overboard by the captain of a slave-ship. Dido helps her uncle with his correspondence. After John tells her about the case, she begins sneaking correspondence to him which he believes will advance abolitionism. Lord Mansfield and John disagree about the case; John is told to leave and not to see Dido again, and his pupillage is at an end.
Dido's aunts, Lady Mansfield and Lady Mary Murray, seek to steer Dido into an engagement with Oliver Ashford, younger brother to the bigoted James Ashford. At first, James is interested in Elizabeth but stops courting her once he discovers she will have no inheritance. Oliver, who has no fortune, proposes to Dido and she accepts, but continues to see John in secret. James takes Dido aside, tells her she will disgrace his family's name, then insults and gropes her.
Dido tells Elizabeth of James' true character, offering to give Elizabeth part of her own inheritance as a dowry so she can find a different match. Lord Mansfield finds out about Dido's visits to John and confronts them, and John professes his love for her. She meets Oliver and breaks off their engagement.
Dido is relieved when the painting is unveiled, since she is shown as Elizabeth's equal. She tells Lord Mansfield that the portrait commission proves that he can defy convention.
Dido sneaks into the court to hear Lord Mansfield narrowly rule that the slave-trading syndicate is not due insurance payments for the slaves whom the crew threw overboard during the voyage. The ship's officers claimed they ordered this action because they were out of drinking water, but Lord Mansfield had discovered that the ship passed by many ports without stopping for more water, before murdering the slaves. The slaves' quarters were overcrowded, making them sick and not likely to fetch a high price at auction, so the officers had decided they would be worth more in insurance payments after their "loss", and threw them overboard. When Lord Mansfield sees John and Dido outside the court after his ruling, he says that Dido can only marry a gentleman. Therefore, he agrees to resume John's pupillage, so that he can become a lawyer. Dido and John embrace, in acknowledgement of their romantic feelings.
In the credits we see Dido and John married, having two sons. Elizabeth also married and had three children, and their joint portrait hung at Kenwood House until 1922, when it was moved to Scone Palace near Perth, the birthplace of Lord Mansfield.
Production[edit]
Filming began on 24 September 2012. The film was shot on location in the Isle of Man,[10][11] Oxford[12] and London. It is the first major British motion picture to be shot in true-4K, using Sony's F65 CineAlta digital production camera.[13] The film was produced by DJ Films, Isle of Man Film, and Pinewood Pictures with support from the BFI.[14]
Production designer Simon Bowles created the 18th-century Bristol Docks on the Isle of Man and created a set for Kenwood House, based on a number of stately homes in the London area.
Original music for the film was composed by Rachel Portman.[15]
Historical references[edit]
The film is a work of historical fiction, inspired by a painting and the evidence that Dido was brought up at Kenwood House. The relative lack of details about Dido Elizabeth Belle allowed screenwriter Misan Sagay considerable artistic licence in framing the young woman's story, within the broader historical context of the slave economy and the abolition movement.
The only other direct historical reference made about Belle, other than the painting and American loyalist Thomas Hutchinson's personal diary,[34][35] appear in Elements of Moral Science, a 1790 work by the Scottish professor of moral philosophy James Beattie, who met Belle and in the book states she recited poetry with "a degree of elegance"[36] equal to any English child of her age, arguing against the then prevailing theory that "negroes are naturally and utterly incapable of distinct articulation".[36]
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, who was Lord Chief Justice of England from 1756 to 1788, presided over two important cases, Somerset v Stewart in 1772 and the Zong insurance claims case in 1783, which helped lay the groundwork for Britain's Slave Trade Act 1807. In the film his concluding line at the end of the Zong case – "the state of slavery (is) so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it" – was historically actually quoted by him in the Somerset v Stewart case eleven years before.[37] As in the film, he was the great-uncle of Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray.
At the suggestion of the producers, HarperCollins published a companion book, Belle – The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice (2014), by biographer Paula Byrne, recounting the lives of the film's principal characters.
Authorship[edit]
Some press coverage ahead of filming cited Asante as the sole writer of Belle as well as director.[38] Press releases that followed Fox Searchlight's acquisition of the film gave the final credit determined by the Writers Guild of America as "Written by Misan Sagay".[39][40] Sagay claimed she began writing her script in 2004, after seeing the painting of Dido Belle at Scone Palace. The project was initially developed by HBO. It then received funding from the British Film Institute in 2009, but Sagay left the project the following year due to serious ill-health.[41] When Asante was hired, Sagay believed that Asante would edit her script. Instead she learned that a script without her name on was being used.[41]
The subsequent arbitration process undertaken by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) determined that Sagay provided the bulk of content used in the script, so Sagay was awarded sole writing credit.[41] Cast members Penelope Wilton and Tom Wilkinson expressed "incredulity" at the accreditation decision.[42] Wilkinson said he "only saw and worked from a script written by Amma".[43] Information obtained by Entertainment Weekly showed Asante wrote 18 script drafts, before she directed the film.[43] Producers planned to submit Asante and Sagay as co-writers, but Sagay wanted a solo credit. Producer Damian Jones then asked the WGA to give Sagay a "story by" credit, with Asante getting a "screenplay by" credit, but this was rejected.[43] Asante appealed the WGA's decision, but lost.[42][44]
Release[edit]
In July 2013, it was announced that Fox Searchlight Pictures had acquired distribution rights for the film in the UK and USA.[45] Belle premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival on 8 September 2013.[46][47] The film was released on 2 May 2014 in the United States, 9 May in Canada and 13 June 2014 in the United Kingdom.