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DVD
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Peter Morgan's Hat Trick
Is it possible for screenwriter Peter Morgan to etch a TV movie triumph to go along with the Oscar night glory of his latest feature films? Absolutely.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007 at 12:10 PM
By Shelley Gabert
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WireImage.com
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Morgan (l), running out of room on his mantelpiece
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In a society that often glamorizes murderers and serial killers, in the shadow of daily news about brutal killings and the abduction of children, we have all become somewhat immune to feeling that much horror and repulsion over crime. It’s a self-protective mechanism, to be sure.
But with shows like Oprah having become a place for the families of victims to face their child’s killer, it’s hard to imagine a time when the thought of forgiving a murderer was inconceivable, the very notion of sexual crimes against children was almost unimaginable. That was the environment at the time of the infamous Moor Murders in England in the mid-60’s, for which Ian Brady and his lover Myra Hindley both received life sentences (at that time, there was no death penalty).
What’s most remarkable about Longford, the February HBO film that is new this weekn on DVD, is that the actual crimes and trial are of little interest. Instead, screenwriter Peter Morgan (The Queen, The Last King of Scotland) and director Tom Hooper (Elizabeth I) examine the case from the point of view of Lord Frank Pakenham, the 7th Earl of Longford (Jim Broadbent), who fought for Hindley’s release and rehabilitation.
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Clayton Chase/WireImage.com
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Director Tom Hooper in Park City
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As Hindley, Samantha Morton gives an understated performance, while Andy Serkis – the man normally used by Peter Jackson for motion capture magic – is wonderfully edgy as her partner in crime Brady. But it's Broadbent who steals the show and disappears, again, into a role.
"I developed the physical and vocal side of the character first,” Broadbent explains during a recent Television Critics Association panel discussion attended by FilmStew. “From that, the psychology seems to fall into place, particularly when the writing is so brilliant and it's all there."
"I wasn't sure I was getting anywhere close until we were in one of the prisons we visited for filming purposes,” he adds. “One of the wardens who had no great fondness for Frank Longford, having witnessed him visiting her many times over the years, was heard to say, 'Oh, God, I thought we'd gotten rid of that bastard.' So I figured I must be getting quite close."
HBO’s latest crown jewel explores Hindley’s seduction and manipulation of Longford as well as the broader themes of crime and punishment, specifically the state of Britain’s prison system at the time and whether or not as a society, then and now, we really believe in the possibility of reforming convicted killers.
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Clayton Chase/WireImage.com
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Colossal chameleon Broadbent
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"Myra Hindley was the most hated person in the country," suggests Morgan. "The fact that a woman could kill children or participate in the killing of children meant that she was totally unforgivable. And Lord Longford, who at one point was in line to occupy the highest political office of them all… For him to be presenting her had him, on the one hand, as the focus of press attention in a way that was gratifying to him, but on the other hand brought his family into the most incredible danger and stress.”
“Did he or did he not mortgage his good name forever? Was it or was it not the biggest mistake he could possibly have made?"
Morgan was actually researching Richard Nixon when he came across one of his biographers, Frank Longford. "He [Longford] was asking us to forgive Nixon really far too son,” Morgan explains. “Nixon left the White House on the 8th or 9th of August, 1974, and I think he had probably handed in a book by September saying, ‘He’s fine.’ But I love how misjudged Longford was and yet how he was coming from the right place in some ways."
"He also took on pornography at the time when the main newspaper in the country has naked women on the third page,” he adds. “So you’re not going to make friends very quickly. I loved how inappropriate this man’s campaigning was and yet how much I actually shared his views on pretty much everything."
“We don’t hear much about forgiveness in 2006. And in Britain, we don’t hear much about faith."
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Mike Pearce/WireImage.com
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Co-star Samantha Morton
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Longford’s Catholicism and his belief that no one is beyond forgiveness or redemption played a major factor in his 20-year crusade for Hindley. While he had visited other prisoners before, when he learned that she once converted to Catholicism, Longford encouraged her to return to the church and ask for God’s forgiveness.
Certainly other films like Dead Man Walking have explored redemption and forgiveness, and whether the death sentence is humane. And the more recent Capote shows what writing In Cold Blood cost its author. But here, Longford is fighting the entire system, within which Hindley has in essence become a political prisoner.
Even though Hindley wasn’t charged with actually killing the Moor Murders children, and thus normally would have been up for parole in 12 years, she ended up serving 36 years in prison prior to her death in 2002 . "I read somewhere that a country can best be judged by the nature of its penal system, and I really liked that," Morgan reflects. "If we’re deciding that you’re going to put people in jail endlessly, and you know they no longer present a danger to the public, you’ve got to be thinking: What about rehabilitation? What about parole? What do we want?”
“Are we a forgiving country, or aren’t we?” Morgan asks. “Myra Hindley was undoubtedly singled out for unequal treatment. Had she been a man, she would have been quite anonymous. We wouldn’t have heard much about her and she would have been let out after ten, maybe 13 years.”
“She was being judged under terms that are not judicial. But rather in tabloid terms and in terms of a politician saying, ‘I can’t afford to let his person out.’"
In one of Longford’s most heartbreaking scenes, Hindley tells Longford that her solicitor thinks she should discontinue her relationship with him, that his campaign on her behalf had done her more harm than good. This is after she lied to him 21 years earlier about whether she knew anything else about the case. For Longford, who has staked his entire reputation on her, it’s a pivotal moment that shatters him but ultimately, somehow, does not shake his belief system.
As Longford says at one point in the movie, ‘Forgiveness is the cornerstone of my faith and I’ve made my life loving the sinner and hating the sin… Anyone, no matter how evil, can be redeemed.’
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