There is a book called Black Ajax about Tom Molyneaux, so you wouldn’t even have to write a screenplay, just adapt the book. The life of Molyneaux is so extraordinary, so almost deliberately EPIC, that it demands to be filmed. We’re talking about a man who fought to the death for manumission, who travelled across the world in the hope of becoming champion, who beat the champion & was robbed, who got all kinds of ladies & princesses into all kinds of trouble, who lived like a Rap Gangster over 200 years ago & who died young, of drink, in Ireland. What more does a director want?
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I’d love to make a film about Randolph Turpin but it would be slow, B&W & melancholic, for that was a sad life. The soundtrack would be swing jazz at the exciting beginning as he made his way up, but most of the film would be about his slow slide back down & the soundtrack would mostly be Mingus. I would think of the dialogue as a bit like Beckett or Pinter, by all accounts Randolph was a man of few words &, as things go wrong, how much do you need to say? There would be one spectacular scene near the beginning, when King George was hosting a banquet & kept making excuses to go down to the servant’s quarters to hear on the radio how Randolph was faring v SRR. Maybe that could be in colour & all the rest in b&w?Comment
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Then there was Battling Siki, some day I’ll write a post on that Mofo.Comment
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