Reporter
matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt
Cazabon, a script written by local and international filmmaker Marilyn Birchfield, has been selected for the second phase of the UK Film Festival (London)’s scriptwriting competition.
Based on the real-life events of nineteenth-century landscape artist Michel-Jean Cazabon, the script explores the unusual friendship that the Trinidadian had with the British Governor, Lord Harris, at the time, as well as the tension of balancing a marriage and a sizzling affair with French Creole woman Madeline Saturnin.
Although the painter had not invented a new style of painting during his lifetime, the richness of his work was found to be in his unique interpretation of Trinidad’s tropical landscape via traditional European techniques. Techniques he would have learnt as an art student in France.
Cazabon was born in 1813 to a French Creole father who emigrated to Trinidad from Martinique before the British Empire enacted the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. Among scholars, it is argued that no other artist of the 19th century had made such an impression on the local art scene other than Cazabon.
Similar, but different, to his cultural background, Birchfield was born in Trinidad to parents from Venezuela and North American. When asked if her mixed cultural background had been a factor in what drew her to the artist, she said.
“Yes, of course. It’s such a fascinating story of culture and people just being people, not worrying about race, colour, ethnic background, or anything; it’s about friendship and the love of art. And I think that’s so important because of the heritage that’s left behind. I based my script on Geoffrey MacLean’s research,” she said.
Local author and historian MacLean’s extensive research of the elusive artist was explored in assembling her script. However, there was one piece to the research that has yet to be discovered. According to MacLean, there are neither self-portraits nor photographs of Cazabon.
“I strongly suspect they were destroyed by members of his family, probably in the 1930s. It was his reputation, his sexual exploits … ” MacLean said.
The genesis of MacLean’s research into the artist’s work originates from the presence of a void as it pertains to his life, which, inevitably, led the historian to become the country’s leading authority on Cazabon.
Because of her family background, Birchfield has been exposed to different cultures that would inevitably inform the subjects she would take on to better understand the past, present, and future of the world. She even went as far as establishing her own production company, Interamericana de Cine, after she had worked as head of the Video Department at one of Venezuela’s top oil companies, Corpoven.
Flipping through the pages of his published books on Cazabon, which included several paintings, MacLean reminisced on the critical moments that stood out to him about the artist’s life.
“The more I researched, the more I discovered how much the society after Lord Harris was prejudiced against Cazabon. Because he was never formally recognised as one of our leading nineteenth-century artists, neither was his work appreciated in the way that it should’ve been in terms of our history and heritage,” MacLean said.
Taking notice of the country’s ignored archive of treasures, Birchfield believes it is essential that the Caribbean’s cultural heritage be preserved through film and other forms of media.
“I think in general the Caribbean has been ignored and I think the region is a new frontier for filmmakers and storytellers, for people in media because it is so rich with so many stories, from fantasy to reality. And I think this hasn’t been explored,” she said. “I just feel in general that if you don’t really know your heritage, what makes you who you are today, as a society, as a culture, what do you have to base yourself on?”
Before finding out that her script had made it to the second round of the competition, the filmmaker had been spending ample time in the country with family and friends for the Christmas holidays last year, confessing to having forgotten the submission altogether.
“I actually forgot I submitted the script to the UK Film Festival because as a scriptwriter, a filmmaker, you try and try and you get so many rejects. Every time you send it, you have to pay a fee; it’s an investment. Then all of a sudden I got an email saying, ‘Congratulations, your script has been selected.’ I am thrilled. I hope I win” she said.
MacLean said the work of Cazabon was gaining popularity at auctions in Europe, especially in countries like France. Birchfield has high hopes her script gets funding and is then produced into a feature film. For future projects, she plans on doing stories focusing on Trinidad’s heritage, particularly folklore like La Diablesse and the soucouyant. The final date for the UK script competition is February 28.