The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

eating breakfast and even shaving amid scenes in which he relates “amusing” and
“moving” anecdotes about his life. 210 Alongside the familiar chronological narrative of
Mandela’s life as one of courage, strength, determination and reconciliation, scenes of
imtimacy, familiarity and charm served to reinforce the image of Mandela as father of the
national family
Another television documentary was released in 1999 as Mandela prepared to step down
as president. The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela, a two hour programme told the story of
“the man behind the myth”, and tried to examine Mandela’s “character, leadership and
life’s method” through “intimate recollections” with his friends, political colleagues and
adversaries, as well as Robben Island prisoners and jailers. The two‐hour long
programme, also screened in two one‐hour portions, was made to be screened on PBS’s
Frontline, the premiere public affairs documentary platform in the United States. While
some remembered the young Mandela as having had “quite an early sense of his own
historic destiny”, the film explored ‐ drawing on Anthony Sampson’s argument ‐ how he
“transformed himself in prison” into “a mature leader and statesman”. Interviews with
biographers Sampson and Richard Stengel served to illuminate what had “separate[d]”
Mandela from ordinary people (“his singular pursuit of his life’s mission, his unwavering
moral certitude, his own sense of destiny”), as well as “what made him like the rest of us”
(his “vanity, his anger, his stubbornness”). 211
Feature films about Mandela’s life were also produced. One starring Sidney Poitier as
Mandela and Michael Caine as F.W. de Klerk was shot in South Africa during 1996, and
released under the title Mandela and De Klerk on cable television in the United States in
early 1997. Hurriedly made, costing only $5‐million, and relying to a large extent on
newsreel footage, the film was reviewed as “not an inspired piece of film making” and a
“cheap walk to cable TV”. This would have been pleasing to South African filmmaker
210 Cape Times, 23 October 1996.
211 The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela (Produced by David Fanning and Indra deLanerolle for Unapix
Entertainment, Story Street Productions and Films2People, Directed by Cliff Bestall, 1999). See the US
PBS website, . Interestingly, Stengel was acknowledged in the
production as a Mandela biographer and “co‐author” of Mandela’s memoirs.
264