In 1970 the Stonewall riots had only just happened and if you were famous – or wanted to stay that way – you didn’t even hint you were anything but straight. However, Dusty Springfield didn’t care about that. In 1970 the British singer, who’d already had vast success with songs like I Only Want to Be with You and Son Of A Preacher Man, came out as bisexual, telling the London Evening Standard that, “I know that I’m as perfectly capable of being swayed by a girl as by a boy.”
She is a fascinating figure, and now it looks like she’s getting a long overdue biopic, currently titled So Much Love. It doesn’t look like it will cover her whole life, instead concentrating on the period when she was recording her legendary 1968 album, Dusty In Memphis. The official synopsis (as reported by The Guardian) says, “It will follow her as she navigates her way through the politics of the recording studio and the city, and will also explore her encounter with the music of Motown, her stand against apartheid policies during her aborted South African tour and her thorny brushes with men in the music industry.”
Although that synopsis might typically make us thing the film would ignore her sexuality, the fact that it’ll be written and directed by Phyllis Nagy, who scored an Oscar-nominated for her screenplay for the decidedly queer, Carol, should mean it’ll be a better rounded portrait. Gemma Arterton has already been lined up to play Dusty.
The Their Finest and Prince Of Persia actress commented, “I have been an admirer of Dusty Springfield since I was a teenager: her effortless husky voice, the way she conveyed emotion through music, how she helped bring Motown to the UK. Dusty was ahead of her time in many ways and inspired so many future artists. She was generous, witty, mercurial, shy, extroverted and a true English eccentric. I simply cannot wait to play her.”
The film should shoot in the UK and US next year, and may be in cinemas by the end of 2019 (presumably hoping for an awards run).
Synopsis: ‘A woman sets out to reclaim her life in this stirring, emotionally rich look at what it means to start over. Tara (Gemma Arterton), a housewife in suburban London, is living a life that is no longer hers: it belongs to her overworked, self-absorbed husband (Dominic Cooper); her young son and daughter; and the numbing routine of housework and childcare.
It’s been revealed that Eva Green and Gemma Arterton have signed up to star Vita & Virginia, based on the true story of the love affair between Bloomsbury Group luminaries Virginia Woolf and VIta Sackville-West. Chanya Button (Burn, Burn, Burn) is set to direct the movie, working from a script by Dame Eileen Atkins (adapted from her 1992 play).
During World War II the UK, those who weren’t fighting had to make all sorts of cutbacks, with food rationed, blackouts ordered at night and limits on nearly everything. However, cinema was seen as so important to raising morale that the government invested large amounts of money in uplifting movies. It certainly worked, as more cinema tickets were sold per year in Britain between 1942 and 1946 than at any other time in history.
The Voices debuted this time last year at the Sundance Film Festival. It’s taken a while to get it to audiences, partly because while the premise of Ryan Reynolds talking to animals sounds like it’ll be a family-friendly romp, the movie itself is a lot more weird and unusual than that.
For the last decade or so Christopher Nolan has gone from unknown to one of the most powerful directors on the planet, but it should always be remembered that he’s had a hand in the script for all his movies (often working alongside his brother, Jonah).