Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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Department of Education)”. 324 This was an approach taken by many other filmmakers
at the time – for example, Roger Donaldson and Ian Mune who had obtained Education
Department backing for their Winners and Losers series in 1976. Ward and White took
a “fairly pragmatic approach”, aware that they “couldn’t attempt something that was
going to be logistically too ambitious, that it had to be reasonably confined, and had to
satisfy someone like Vincent in the strong visual orientation”. White was interested in
“the more practical aspects of the confines of the story in terms of characters and setting
and so on”. 325
They began to search for suitable material in February 1977, and decided upon Janet
Frame’s novel A State of Siege as best suiting their purposes. White explained: “It did
not take long for us to settle upon the idea of attempting to adapt a work by Janet
Frame. Aside from sharing a respect for her writing, we both felt the complex
psychological and emotional themes she deals with would present us with a challenge
that was unique”. 326 In addition, “We both felt it was so perfect because it certainly
triggered all kinds of visual images in Vincent’s head. It wasn’t something that was
dialogue-heavy and therefore we felt quite comfortable doing an adaptation”. 327 White
also saw the potential for adapting a work by Janet Frame, who at that time, while not
being well-known to the general public, was “in the Arts Council circles, heralded as
being someone special”. 328 In his application for funding to the Arts Council, White
included among the main reasons for choosing to adapt a work by Frame the fact that no
similar attempt had been made to film her work and that there had only been three
minor stage productions of A State of Siege (by the Unity, Globe and Downstage
Theatres) and a dramatized version for radio done by the NZBC some years before. 329
(It was rumoured in film circles that the absence of film adaptations was the result of
Frame’s own reluctance.)
The choice of subject-matter for the film was an unusual one for two young male
filmmakers. Psychological fiction by women had been a strand of New Zealand
literature since the days of Katherine Mansfield, and it had attracted some male film-
324
McDonnell, "The Translation of New Zealand Fiction into Film," 128.
325
Lynette Read, interview with Timothy White, 29 September 1999.
326
Timothy White, "Production of a Film Drama," Diploma Fine Arts (Hons), Canterbury, 1987, 2.
327
Lynette Read, interview with Timothy White, 29 September 1999.
328
Lynette Read, interview with Timothy White, 29 September 1999.
329
Timothy White, “Application to the Creative Film Fund of the Queen Elizabeth Arts Council” (1977),
1.