I could not imagine my eyes. A Hollywood-looking movie set in my, of all locations, Harare neighborhood. Parked vehicles; gear (lights, digicam tracks, audio recording gadgets, so on and so forth); a lot of individuals doing this and that. After watching this exercise, I gathered the braveness to ask a tall man standing with a walkie-talkie what was slicing. A movie, he says. I can see that, I say, however what sort of film goes down? It is a massive one, he says. His walkie-talkie erupts. He listens. It does not concern him. Another person known as for. We resume speaking.
The movie has actual film stars, he claims. “From America?” I ask. Sure, America. The identify of the movie? A Dry White Season. The identify of the celebs? Marlon Brando, Susan Sarandon, and Donald Sutherland. My amazement is as vivid because the solar within the sky. How is that this even attainable? A movie with actual Hollywood stars, solely a Okay or two from my digs. I spot Donald Sutherland exiting a automotive. I simply can’t imagine my eyes.
With a heavy coronary heart, I inform you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has handed away. I personally suppose one of the necessary actors within the historical past of movie. By no means daunted by a job, good, unhealthy or ugly. He liked what he did and did what he liked, and one can by no means ask for extra… pic.twitter.com/3EdJB03KKT
— Kiefer Sutherland (@RealKiefer) June 20, 2024
A number of days later, I used to be on the movie set for A Dry White Season. Connection of a connection of a connection bought me a small job as a serving to hand for the individual working for the individual working for the cinematographer (Pierre-William Glenn or Kelvin Pike?). That is the way it occurs in Harare, and, to be trustworthy, the remainder of the world.
So, there I’m in the midst of an enormous film set. Donald Sutherland is doing a scene. He has to stroll from the door of the home (lights throughout him) to the mailbox. One thing unhealthy is about to occur. The story requires some stress on this scene. And right here, I study what this artwork is all about. The way it all comes collectively on the display screen. The machine behind the grand phantasm. Motion known as by the director, Euzhan Palcy; Sutherland, enjoying a Boer, Ben Du Toit, opens the door, walks out of the home, and walks to the mailbox. Lower. He walks again into the home. Closes the door. He has to do it yet again. Motion! Lower! He has to do it once more, and once more, and once more. Lastly, the director is proud of what she’s bought. Sutherland relaxes and talks with the director as individuals put together for a similar shot however from a unique place.
All of this occurred within the fall of 1987. Donald Sutherland, the nice actor, died right this moment on the age of 88.
RIP Donald Sutherland (1935-2024)
Invasion of the Physique Snatchers (1978)
Director: Philip Kaufman pic.twitter.com/UNpVTmiQhx— DepressedBergman (@DannyDrinksWine) June 20, 2024
The information of his parting despatched me again not solely to the Harare set of A Dry White Season—the primary Hollywood-financed flick directed by a Black girl, thus making Sutherland the primary (as far I can inform) white Hollywood actor directed by a Black girl—however to the dinner I had with him and the manufacturing workforce at a Chinese language restaurant in Harare. It was on, if my reminiscence is true, the second flooring of a constructing in a strip-mall. My sister, who additionally finagled a small job on the movie, was additionally at this dinner, on the desk with Sutherland. He stored asking us questions in regards to the metropolis. He was too busy to discover Harare. What might we inform him about it? We instructed him the whole lot we might.
Not lengthy after that dinner, after I left Harare, I noticed him on Sounds on Saturday—a present that featured music movies. How had I forgotten he is the daddy in my favourite Kate Bush tune, “Cloudbusting”? Certainly, “I get up crying…” Goodnight, Sutherland. I’ll at all times bear in mind you.
