| Director's Statement
The
making of the Little Knave, from conception to final production, took
two and a half years. Part of the reason it took so long is because I
tried so many times to abandon it, but there was something in the film
which demanded to be heard. In a way, I made the film because I had no
choice! Relinquishing that creative control and simply following the
spirit of the film really informed my perception of the adolescent
experience. I felt a kinship to the main character in the sense of
that fierce rebellion against change. To survive adolescence, you
have to relinquish control over your body, your emotions, and even
the way in which the world perceives you. In filmmaking, much of the
same applies. Stealing, for the main character, becomes a way to
regain that control and to take back something which has been lost.
Very
early on in the process, I was drawn to the idea of adolescence as
theft and I found myself asking why this character steals. It was
clear to me that she doesn’t take for herself. As she says, I only
steal that which is loved and I never keep it. It isn’t the object she
craves, so much as the experience itself. The fact that she only takes
that which is loved revealed to me that she is trying to form a
connection.
Once I knew why she stole, the focus of the film
began to take form. I found myself intrigued by the interplay between
the gender ambiguity intrinsic to the character and her compulsion to
steal. The opening shot is a violent one: here the character is trying
on different versions of herself, playing the part of the voyeur in a
way, but the process is interrupted by someone else’s perception of
what she should look like.
This character is defiant of that
trajectory. She wants to write her own rules. She doesn’t feel
compelled to inhabit a world of someone else’s making but she’s also
confused. Where is her place in the world? I wanted a certain sense
of subliminal violence to mimic the ferocity of that uncertainty. She
knows she doesn’t want to be controlled, but she’s still searching.
As
a director, I wanted to provide a sense of intimacy as we follow her
journey while also allowing for the mythical aspects to find their
place. The genre which most informed the work was that of the fairy
tale. Originally, fairy tales were meant as cautionary tales for young
women. To accomplish the lesson a mentor figured prominently. I
wanted to re-write the fairy tale and so I asked myself what if the
fairy godmother were a beautifully androgynous dyke? It was important
that the photographer identify as queer, not necessarily because the
knave is also queer but because the character would respond and
identify with that particular struggle.
Ultimately, all of the
characters in the film simply want to be loved though not all of them
are immediately able to recognize that desire.
~ sarah naomi campbell | |