Robert Graves bio-pic to be produced

CASTING is currently underway in England and the United States for the forthcoming Hollywood bio-pic about British poet and novelist Robert Graves. Filming is due to start in October and locations will be split between Deya, where Graves spent most of his life, and England. This will be the first time Hollywood has attempted to bring Robert Graves to the screen and director William Nunes, who has directed a number of short films which have won awards at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival, will focus the film, which has the working title The Poetic Unreason”, on the period of Graves's life between 1929 and 1936 and the last years of his married life with the American poet from Brooklyn, Cora Riding. The wife of Graves' son William said yesterday that they have seen the script, which they are happy with although a few little points had to be corrected and the odd “Americanism” taken out. “Robert Graves spoke very Victorian English,” she said. However, as the film is a bio-pic, the script is very factual, although in order to develop this period of the poet's life into a two-hour feature film, there has been some room allowed for “poetic licence.” Who will be playing the two leading roles remains to be seen, but a substantial amount of the film is due to be filmed in and around Deya, where the poet lived. Mrs. Graves also explained that the film, for which they have had to give permission for certain poems and works to be used, will include a flash back to the First World War in 1914 and the production looks “very interesting.” The period of Graves's life which the film deals with also includes his arrival in Majorca and Deya in 1939 with Riding. Over the past few months director Nunes has been in contact with Graves's three children, William, Lucy and Thomas as part of his research for the script. While a handfull of films have been made based on the life of Graves in the past, including Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot, this if the first time Hollywood has expressed an interest and also the first time a director has attempted to make a bio-pic about one of the greatest poets, playwrights and novelists of the 20th century. Mrs. Graves said that while the BBC made a factual documentary about Graves for his centenary in 1995, William Nunes's The Poetic Unreason will be a first. mc.mdbUbitel.es