At an event for Deadline.com, ‘Mudbound’ director Dee Rees reminisces on the beginning stages of film’s development and the importance of its message in relation to today’s world:
““To the chagrin of my agent, usually I hate everything I read,” Dee Rees told the audience at Deadline’s The Contenders event, which might explain why the director has maintained a relatively low profile since her 2011 Sundance hit Pariah. All that changed when indie producer Cassian Elwes sent her a script by Virgil Williams. Adapted from Hillary Jordan’s 2008 novel of the same name, Mudbound tells the story of two families, one black and one white, struggling to get by in rural, post-war America.
“I loved this script,” said Rees, “and that’s what prompted me to go back and read Hillary’s book, to see what else I could mine from there. And so when I took this film on, I really wanted to rewrite the story and make it a story about two families, [because] the thing I was attracted to was this dark, symbiotic relationship between these two families who are tethered to each other and to the land.””
(Source: Deadline.com)
Originally published: 11/29/2017
