AGNIESZKA HOLLAND
The Polish director of Mr Jones talks to Carl Marsh about why, in the age of fake news, we need this film more than ever.
The script was written by first-time screenwriter Andrea Chalupa. Could you talk about how you came across the script?
She is a young American journalist with a Ukrainian background. Her grandparents emigrated after the Second World War to the US; her grandfather was a Holodomor famine survivor and a principal witness in front of the American Congress when it was identified. Because she is a politically engaged journalist, the role of fake news in contemporary propaganda gave her a special point of viewpoint on the story.
Sometimes it is difficult when you read a script to find the style in which to tell a story, but this one grabbed me. I felt it was relevant today and I am always attracted to the investigation about ‘the good’ – why some people are as courageous as they are, and why they have this ‘gene of justice’ as they call it.
We are living in an era of fake news and the war on truth. What do you think today’s audience would learn from Mr Jones about the media?
I think that they could learn two things: how propaganda can be very useful and very convenient and how important objective, investigative and factual journalism is – journalism that doesn’t take sides.
James Norton gave a sensitive, sympathetic portrayal of Gareth Jones – was it important to you that the audience realise how much of a forgotten hero he was?
Yes, of course. The general meaning of the story is also a tribute to this particular guy, and also to the Holodomor famine which was a crime against humanity practically unknown to the public. It is important to remind [ourselves of this], because the fact that we somehow forget and forgive this kind of political regime makes another regime of a similar kind much more probable.
With the Holodomor famine, why do you think now was the right time for a film to be made about the subject?
Ukraine is in a very difficult moment, politically and militarily, but they are trying to build up a new national identity. I am afraid that Holodomor will become a part of this renewed national identity. It would be dangerous to build a fundamental identity on such victimology. At the same time, it is so deeply entrenched in the people’s biography and collective psychology. It is a very deep trauma [that needs to be] expressed and expelled, and I think a film like Mr Jones plays some role.
Mr Jones is out in cinemas nationwide from Fri 7 Feb.
DID YOU KNOW…?
- Gareth Richard Vaughan Jones was born in Barry, South Wales on 13 August 1905.
- He was educated at the universities of Aberystwyth, Cambridge and Strasbourg, and spoke several languages fluently, including Welsh, French and Russian.
- He acted as the foreign policy adviser to the former Prime Minister and fellow Welshman David Lloyd George.
- Jones reported on the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany, interviewed Joseph Goebbels, and even flew aboard Hitler’s private plane (the first non-Nazi journalist to do so).
- He spoke to many influential figures as an interviewer, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Lippmann and William Randolph Hearst.
- By writing about the Holodomor famine (1932-33) in Ukraine, he publicised a state-directed genocide estimated to have killed ten million people.
- While investigating Japanese territorial expansion in Inner Mongolia, Jones died in mysterious circumstances on 12 August 1935, aged just 29.
- The Gareth Jones Tri-lingual Memorial Plaque was unveiled by then Ukrainian Ambassador, Ihor Kharchanko, at the Old College, Aberystwyth in 2006.
Read our interview with James Norton and read more about Gareth Jones.
