EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Family/AFFAIRS
Timing and luck are all part of the business of filmmaking as Sharman Macdonald, The Edge of Love screenwriter and mother of the film's star Kiera Knightley, tells Miles Fielder
Keira Knightley (pictured below with Matthew Rhys) was instrumental in getting her mother Shannan Macdonald’s (far right) script for The Edge of Love into production
STANDARD LIFE
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STANDARD LIFE AUDIENCE AWARD
16 THE LIST 19 Jun 3 Jul 2008
t the programme launch of the 2008 lidinburgh International Film Festival artistic director llannah
Mc(iill thanked the makers of The [fr/gt) o/‘lxm' for
providing her with the perfect opening night film. What McUill no doubt meant by this was that The lit/gr of l.1)t'(' is a very line film. but moreover one that boasts a talented. young cast in Keira Knightley. Sienna Miller. (‘illian Murphy and Matthew Rhys. directed by John Love is the Devil Maybury. and with an excellent script by (ilasgow- born playwright and screenwriter Sharman Macdonald. who also happens to be Knightley‘s mother.
Under Mc(iill‘s directorship. the IiIFI" has focused on writing and women. so the lilm perfectly suits the festival’s opening night slot. It takes as its subject matter the menage- a-quartre between poet Dylan Thomas. his wife (‘aitlin. his childhood sweetheart Vera Phillips and Phillips‘ husband William Killick in wartime London and rural Wales. What‘s particularly appealing about the script is the way it eschews the conventions of the traditional artist biopic foregrounding of the male and his personal demons and the relegation of the female muse to the background and instead focuses on the two women‘s relationship. and the relationships between all four characters.
011 the way to a script meeting in Paris. Sharman Macdonald stopped off in London to talk about The lit/gr (if/mt). Whiz/.ng from too much coffee. and excited about popping over to France on the Iiurostar. Macdonald. a lovely. chatty bohemian who evidently passed on her good
looks to her daughter. confirms that she set out to write an unconventional artist biopic. ‘l was never interested in writing a biopic.‘ she says. dtunping her travel bags to share her second pot of coffee of the day. ‘I find it awfully difficult to look at whole lives. Dylan Thomas died in 1953. reportedly after drinking IX whiskies. In our film. he hasn‘t even written I’m/er Milk Wood by the time it ends. It's a story about four friends. and about the borders between love and sex and friendship and what happens when they‘re crossed. Two of these people happen to be Dylan and (‘aitlin ’I'homas. Of course. realistically there would never have been a film made had two of the characters not happened to he Dylan and ('aitlin 'l‘homas.‘
Macdonald says she wrote the first draft of The lit/gr of Love six years ago. after she was approached by Rebecca (iilbertson. granddaughter of the Killicks. who became one of the lilm‘s producers. ‘I started writing the film when Keira was making the first l’irutvs oft/Iv ('uribln'un.‘ Macdonald says. ‘I was with her [on location] on St Vincent. but I was actually very reluctant to do it. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my husband lactor Will Knightleyl. because he did a lot of the research and a story dateline breakdown. I was working on three other projects at the time. and Ijust thought. “I can‘t take on any more." I wrote the film in so many places. mostly abroad: Los Angelcs. the Bahamas. New York. France. I actually think it was a really good thing to write from a distance. I write about people in Scotland from my home in Iingland. so I
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