Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

298
the glue between the cultures, but often they didn’t fit into either of their
communities terribly well. 977
The script of “River Queen” tells the fictional story of an Irishwoman who lives among
Maori in the 1860s, becoming pregnant but then leaving her son behind and returning to
the Pakeha community. Margot Butcher believes that the story is “somehow
connected” with Ward’s pivotal experience of working on In Spring One Plants Alone
and “to his challenging memories of the Ureweras”. 978
Ward has been working on the script for the past five years with Wellington playwright
Toa Fraser, “hiring researchers, reading historians, even ploughing through nineteenthcentury
parliamentary manuscripts, diaries and original records to learn more about our
history”. 979 Historical research has been an important factor in much of Ward’s scriptwriting
from The Navigator to The Last Samurai. The difficulties of raising the finance
for this project have been enormous. As an historical epic set in remote locations, the
minimum budget was set at around twenty million dollars. Ward and co-producer Don
Reynolds raised much of the budget from British and other European investors, on the
strength of Ward’s international reputation, and a further ten percent from New Zealand
- five hundred thousand from the Film Commission and two and a half million from the
Film Fund. This however left a shortfall of approximately five and a half million
dollars, which resulted in the shooting date having to be postponed until the next
financial year, putting in jeopardy the investments already promised. It is interesting
that the size of River Queen – falling in the middle between a low-budget art film and a
Hollywood-style big-budget film – has made it difficult to line the project up with the
government’s guidelines and also with international funding which tends now to
gravitate towards either smaller or larger budgets. Also, Ward’s reputation as an auteur
has been seen as both an advantage and a disadvantage in securing overseas funding.
Investors are attracted to his reputation but nervous about the possibility that his
individuality will get out of hand and put the film over budget.
Ward has said: “You can’t expect Hollywood to back a small independent film in
another country, that’s not what Hollywood survives on. In fact you’re generally much
better to avoid American financing, because they then take control of the project and it
977 Butcher, "What Films May Come," 82.
978 Butcher, "What Films May Come," 82.
979 Butcher, "What Films May Come," 82.