Terence Davies is no stranger to period drama or controversial choices. His last movie was an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel The House of Mirth. The book is set in New York, but Davies chose Glasgow as his principal location, and he shocked many when he stuck X-Files star Gillian Anderson in a corset as the film’s heroine.
Davies is set to offend purists again by watering down Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s distinctive language. And for the role of Chris Guthrie, Sunset Song’s main character, he may be about to disappoint aspiring Scottish actresses by opting for a big-name star from Hollywood or south of the border.
"I think it will attract an A-List actress," said Steve McIntyre, chief executive of Scottish Screen, the public agency, which has invested £500,000 (500,000 pounds) of lottery money in the film. "It needs to be someone who will help attract finance into the film."
Although now regarded with nostalgia, Sunset Song was controversial when it appeared in 1932, tackling alcoholism, infanticide, suicide and incest. One reviewer noted that Gibbon was "for ever calling a spade a spade, when there is no need whatever to refer to the implement at all."
A 1971 adaptation, with Vivien Heilbron, Paul Young and Andrew Keir, remains a landmark in Scottish television drama. BBC Scotland subsequently dramatised the sequels Cloud Howe and Grey Granite.
The book uses dialogue such as "Hold your damned wheeber (whistling), you’ll need your breath for the bout (field)". Davies, who is both writer and director of the new film, admits the adaptation was a "major challenge". He has jettisoned much of Gibbon’s language in pursuit of an international audience.
McIntyre said: "The script is obviously in a more contemporary language, because it has to work for a modern audience."
But Isobel Murray, professor in modern Scottish literature at Aberdeen University, said: "The language is one of the most brilliant things about Sunset Song and it’s actually not madly difficult." She pointed out the BBC version stuck with the Doric and found an international audience.
"You’re taking a huge risk when you change the language. Gibbon wrote something like 13 novels, but only three of them really worked and that’s the three that he wrote in his own tongue."
McIntyre said: "One always runs the risk, when one tackles any classic novel, of offending purists... But at the heart of the book is the relationship with the landscape and I think Terence Davies’s visual approach ought to really capture that... It’s a classic Scottish novel, with a fantastic screenplay by one of the most gifted film-makers working in Britain today."
Producer Bob Last said the budget was "substantially" in place. The exact sum remains secret. "It’s significant - this is an ambitious epic film," he added. "We’re reasonably optimistic that we will be shooting by the end of the summer."
He expects to film at least partly on location on the Mearns farmland between Dundee and Aberdeen, which could provide a huge tourist boost for an area largely ignored by film-makers.
"We are commencing the search for Chris," said Last. "She’s a fantastic romantic heroine who has a brutal life, but comes out of it all strengthened... She’s a very contemporary woman in her aspirations, but she nonetheless takes strength from the ancient land."
Davies cast Anderson in The House of Mirth after seeing her photo, having never watched The X-Files. "I suspect we might have that kind of revelation again," said McIntyre.
In the book Chris is a redhead, though the story begins with her in her mid-teens, which may rule out Anderson. Kathleen McDermott, the former Glasgow hairdresser who made an impact in Morvern Callar, is nearer the right age, but lacks formal acting training and may be considered too modern and urban.
"There’s a genuine global search going on," said Last, opening the door for young Hollywood stars like Star Wars’ Natalie Portman; Spider-Man’s Kirsten Dunst; Claire Danes from Romeo and Juliet; Erika Christensen, star of Traffic and The Banger Sisters; and perhaps even Sarah Michelle Gellar, desperate to broaden her career beyond Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Brian Pendreigh is the author of The Scot Pack.
