Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 30, 1994 TAG: 9404300067
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Lynn Elber Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But he recognizes that his 718-page book, whirling across more than than 100 years of history and through the rich lives of its characters, found its rightful home on TV.
"From the beginning, people said what an amazing group of movies this is going to make," Gurganus said by phone from his home in Chapel Hill, N.C. "The problem was always which two hours could be lifted from the book.
"It became clear the only way to get a sense of the sweep of the book was something longer; either an immensely long movie or television."
CBS is devoting four hours to "Oldest Living Confederate Widow," which airs tonight and Tuesday. Diane Lane and Anne Bancroft split the portrayal of the title character, Lucy Marsden, as she ages from teen-ager to 100.
Donald Sutherland plays William Marsden, the Civil War veteran whose memories of the bloody era shape his life and marriage. Cicely Tyson is Castalia, a housekeeper and ex-slave who becomes a friend to Lucy.
The story is told in flashbacks by the widow, who has kept her spirit and lively curiosity intact.
The part of Lucy was such a "tour de force opportunity," says Lane, that she accepted it even though six months pregnant with daughter Eleanor; she began filming a month after giving birth.
There was also the challenge of interpreting a popular work, said the actress, who played in another miniseries based on a renowned book, Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove."
"I hope everybody's happy with it," Lane says. "It's all about the book and being as true as possible to the vision it all came from."
Gurganus' 1989 novel has sold 3 million copies in English and has been translated into seven languages. It was honored by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1990 with a prize for first fiction.
He was content to leave the script to another writer, Joyce Eliason, remaining faithful to his novels. "The Practical Heart" will be published in January; a "Confederate Widow" sequel is in progress.
"I wanted a woman to write the screenplay, because I felt it was very much about the war from a woman's perspective, and the world from a woman's perspective," he said.
But Gurganus jumped at another way to get involved: a bit acting part. "The producers knew I have enough of the ham in me," he says.
"I have a ride-on part as a Confederate officer. Dealing with the horse was the real terror of the thing. I haven't ridden since I was 9 years old and a photographer came to the house and made me sit on a pony."
Donning the uniform and weapons was a surprising thrill, says Gurganus, whose ancestors served in the war. As a child, he imagined the clash of his great-great-grandfathers, fighting on opposite sides at Shiloh.
"As soon as I put on the boots and the spurs . . . I tell you, (it was), `Now I am a man,' " Gurganus says. "When they put the sword around my middle, that was all she wrote. I was bossing people around."
The filming moved as well as delighted him, as he watched his characters and stories become solid, he says.
"You create this old-age home, and there's everybody in wheelchairs waiting for you," he says. "You write the battle scenes, and there's all these dentists and psychotherapists - who spend their weekends dressed up as Confederate soldiers - enacting them."
Gurganus was struck by surreal moments: the cast breaking for lunch in the midst of a battle scene; the simulated burning of a plantation, a Georgia estate that actually escaped Yankee wrath; wearing Confederate gray among actors portraying slaves.
He had reservations about how TV would treat his work, the writer admits. He was concerned that Castalia - "really my favorite character I've ever written" - wouldn't come through effectively.
"But I think it does. She is ferocious and humane and really works well," he says, lauding Tyson's portrayal. "Also, I didn't know if Anne Bancroft could appear to be 100 years old. She's a very good-looking woman."
He calls her transformation, with the help of rubber concrete, "amazing. I didn't recognize her."
Although he admires the size of the audiences that TV can attract, Gurganus worries about how the onslaught of commercial breaks will affect the tale.
"That interruption is something that no storyteller really likes," he says. "I hope the flow of the story is strong enough to withstand that. Anne Bancroft's character is very overtly the storyteller in the film, so there is a controlling voice-over that holds the piece together."
by CNB