BRAVE is the director who takes on a remake of a much-loved classic, although, to be fair, Washington Square is based on Henry James's novel, not, as was William Wyler's The Heiress, on the play by Ruth and Augustus Goetz. But the Polish director, Agnieszka Holland, is not a woman to be deterred by such petty considerations. Her first English-language film, The Secret Garden, made in 1993, was a substantial hit, and her second, Total Eclipse, made in 1995, although a flop at the time, has found its second wind. The reason is simple. It starred Leonardo DiCaprio. Holland has been a director for 20 years - her first solo film, Provincial Actors, made in 1979, was widely acclaimed - and her career in Poland was set to flourish when, days after she completed her second film, A Woman Alone, the introduction of martial law forced her into exile.
That was in 1981, and restarting her career abroad proved a hard slog. But four years later Angry Harvest, starring Armin Muller-Stahl, got an Academy award nomination for best foreign film. After it came Europa, Europa, a moving and sensitive film about a young Polish Jew captured by the Germans who pretended to be a Nazi to survive, which was a success and the cause of controversy when the German selectors failed to include it in their Oscar nomination submissions list.
The French-made Olivier, Olivier, about a long-lost son and the 15-year-old male prostitute who claims he is the missing boy, followed, and then came that career shift, with Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, described by Variety as ''executed to near perfection'' in which, as in Washington Square, Maggie Smith stars as the governess looking after the two little orphaned girls.
Holland read James's novel for the first time six years ago, and although the story stayed with her, she had no plans to develop it for the screen. ''What intrigued me were the main characters: the development of the young woman, Catherine, was very powerful and I thought it would be interesting to have the space to show the change.''
Catherine is played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, an actress, Holland says, who can be beautiful when she wants, plain when she wants. ''It has nothing to do with make-up, because she wears very little,'' she adds. ''I think talented actors often have this ability to transform themselves. Jennifer felt a personal attachment to the character. She is the sweetest person, very tiny, very private and in some ways insecure but with a strong inner imperative. She is much more intelligent than Catherine.''
She says she had not realised the Wyler film was such a beloved classic when she agreed to direct Washington Square. She watched it, thought it a nice movie, but made in such a different style of acting that it showed her she had the right to do it again because she wanted to tell the story differently.
For such an American story it is remarkable that the three other leading roles - father, aunt, and suitor - are filled by Britons Albert Finney, Maggie Smith, and Ben Chaplin. Holland says she could not find the Americans for the roles. It was a question of training. British actors may do Ken Loach one day, Shakespeare the next, while Americans do not have such a wide range.
She admits that working with Dame Maggie has its hazards. The Dame has a deserved reputation for being difficult, but she says this is because Smith is a perfectionist. ''She is so courageous, and she and Jennifer got on well together.''
Holland has several projects in hand, not all of which, she knows, may get made. One is Miracle Worker, a true story set in Canada, Poland, and Russia about a woman healer; another is a project with 20th Century Fox, The Falconer, a contemporary melodrama; and a third is an adaptation of Russell Banks's novel Continental Drift. She is also looking at one called Nova Scotia which is about the Highland Clearances.
n Washington Square opens tomorrow at GFT.
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