Authors: Margaret Helfgott
At the time, Gillian’s words reassured me a great deal—perhaps, after all, the film would turn out be a tribute to Dad’s enormous
role in David’s development as a pianist. Filming was to begin in April 1995. I wrote back to Gillian asking whether the film
would use our real names. I also again told her of the family’s concerns and said I would like to see the script for myself,
especially since I had heard that I would be portrayed in the film. I said that “once the film will have the wholehearted
blessing of the Helfgott family, it can only be a source of pride for all of us, and for all who have the honor to know David
and appreciate his genius.” Gillian never replied to my question about whether real or fictional names would be used.
In February 1995, Scott Hicks brought the script to Perth. His intention was to allow some of the family to see it, but only
under very restricted circumstances. My mother wasn’t given access to the script. I was told by my family that Hicks refused
to send me the script because of its “confidentiality.” He also insisted on being present during the entire time Leslie, Suzie,
and Louise read it.
“I couldn’t possibly read and absorb an 111-page script in the time I was given, and I am sure Hicks knew this,” Leslie told
me. “Hicks said he could come round to my house at 7:00 a.m. He said we would have two hours to read the script as he had
to be somewhere else at 9:30, and we couldn’t hold on to a copy. With my young children running around, it was impossible
for me properly to take the script in. Although I did not have time to finish reading the whole script, I did manage to make
several objections, for example over the burning of press clippings. Hicks said it was ‘symbolic’ I replied ‘nothing like
this ever happened, Scott. It’s not the kind of thing my father would have done.’ Then Hicks said he had to go.”
Louise, too, objected to some scenes. Suzie said she found the fact that we were called by our real names “rather scary.”
I now realize that the claim that the script was too confidential for the family to read properly—or, in the case of my mother
and me, to see at all—was patently untrue. I have discovered that nonfamily members were allowed to keep copies of the script
for many days. For example, Rabbi Ronnie Figdor of Adelaide, the advisor on Jewish content for the film, says he was given
a copy to retain on February 3.
I phoned Hicks several times asking to see a copy of the script, leaving messages on his answering machine. I asked him to
please call me back. He didn’t. On May 13, 1995, when filming was already well under way, I sent him a telegram in which I
said I would be “grateful to hear what arrangements there were for me to see the script. With thanks.” Again he did not reply.
Now that I know that the screenplay attributes to my character such repulsive lines as “This house is like a concentration
camp” (scene 54), I realize why he was doing everything he could to avoid me.
Gillian then called me on May 17, 1995, telling me that there were “problems” with regard to the book Kirsty Cockburn was
writing and that she had in due course asked another writer, Beverley Eley, instead. Eley, whose first biography of the Australian
writer Ion Idriess was widely praised, was later also to fall out with Gillian. In marked contrast to Hicks’s approach, during
the course of her writing she looked into the information she had been supplied by Gillian and David, and found that in many
cases she had been misled. But although she managed to make a number of last-minute changes to her book, in many instances
it was too late. She had been given a very short time to write The Book of David, published by HarperCollins, and as it was
hitting the bookstores, she realized that many parts of it were still inaccurate and misleading.
Since then, others—such as the Reverend Fairman—have been in touch with her to put right more aspects of her account. Beverley
Eley has in fact decided to undertake the not inconsiderable task of rewriting the whole book. Eley told Who Weekly (December
9, 1996) that: “I could find no evidence that this man (Peter Helfgott) deserves any of this portrayal at all (in
Shine
). More than a third of the film is spent building up this picture of Peter Helfgott as a monster. It’s not the way it was.”
She has also had the decency to apologize to me and others.
Nevertheless, Eley had managed to correct a number of errors before publication, and as a result there were wide discrepancies
between The Book of David—which was published at the same time as
Shine
was released — and the film’s version of David’s life. Gillian was furious. Eley claims that Gillian contacted bookshops
and journalists to try to persuade them that her book should not be sold. Gillian even told one Melbourne newspaper that Eley
was “bitchy.” Eley is now considering whether to instigate court proceedings against Gillian. “I have endured emotional suffering
and distress by Gillian Helfgott falsely and erroneously telling others that my biography was inaccurate, unprofessional and
deficient,” an extremely angry Eley told me.
On June 19, 1995, I again wrote to Scott Hicks pointing out that I hadn’t received a reply to my telegram, and that I had
just learned from Louise that there was a scene in the script in which my father hits my mother (scene 48). I reiterated:
“My father was not a violent man.” Hicks never replied to this letter, either. (In any event, this scene was removed from
the film, following Louise’s strenuous objections, but it remains in the official screenplay published some months after
Shine
’s release.)
There were more shocks to come. A friend sent me an article, entitled “On Location,” from the June 26, 1995, edition of Encore
magazine. I shuddered when I read that
Shine
s director of photography, Geoffrey Simpson, had said that there were scenes in the film when “David’s father beat him.” Then,
in January 1996, the young actress who plays me in the film, Rebecca Gooden, wrote me a lovely letter, which I was very touched
by. She said she was excited to be in a major film, and that she wanted to be in touch with the “real Margaret.” But she also
sent me an interview with herself from the latest issue of Disney Adventures. In it she says (in all innocence), “Margaret
is ignored by her father … There is a lot of anger, jealousy, and violence in the film.” I was stunned and upset by these
statements. Hicks had not even had the decency to reply to my letters and phone calls, yet he and the screenwriter felt it
was perfectly fine to reinvent my childhood.
After the film was completed, Hicks was eager to ensure there would be no hitches with regard to securing favorable publicity.
His attitude to the Helfgott family seems to have been one of damage limitation. In May 1996 he said he wanted to come to
Perth and show the finished product to the family and then take them out to dinner. My mother was so distraught after she
saw the film that she cried and refused to go to the restaurant. However, Leslie decided to go along, partly out of courtesy
and partly in the hope that he could persuade Hicks to insert a disclaimer stating that
Shine
was a work of fiction.
Leslie told me later: “Part of my initial reaction was that it was artistically a very good piece of cinema and Geoffrey Rush
had done a pretty good job playing David with all his quirky behavior. But I also felt very uneasy at the way Dad was portrayed.
I told Hicks some of the things that were wrong in the hope that he would insert a prominent disclaimer, but he brushed my
objections aside. He seemed eager to keep me quiet. He said: ‘You know, there will be so much publicity around the film. I
am sure you don’t want to be bothered by the press. We could arrange to install unlisted numbers for you and your mother if
you like, so you won’t be bothered.’ I, of course, refused.”
Naturally, I wanted to see the film, so I contacted the distribution company, Ronin Films, and told them that I was going
to be in London and asked to see it. The woman in charge of public relations was very cooperative and arranged a private screening
for me in London on June 26. After seeing it I felt numb; it was surreal. Here were people called Peter, David, and Margaret
Helfgott. But this was not me or my family or anyone I recognized. Of course I was happy that some of David’s genius had been
acknowledged, but I also wondered what my father had done to deserve being turned into this evil brute.
Hicks’s approach hadn’t been in the slightest bit balanced and there was no “beautiful resolution between Dad and David at
the end of the film” as Gillian had promised in her letter. The last we “see” of my father is in the highly unpleasant graveyard
scene. As the film ended, I searched for some sort of disclaimer that would inform the audience and the critics that the film
was essentially a work of fiction, but I could find none.
To my surprise, Scott Hicks, who was in London himself, had heard that I was in town and had turned up at the private screening.
It seems that he was concerned that I, like Leslie, was somewhat of a loose cannon, and he wanted to keep me from causing
any trouble. Here was the opportunity to speak to him for the first time in ten years. I had been so stunned by the film that
I couldn’t express myself properly. I told him again that my father was nothing like the way he was portrayed, but he avoided
answering me directly. When I asked him about the disclaimer, he assured me fervently that there was one but that I hadn’t
noticed it.
I now know why I hadn’t noticed it. It must be one of the hardest-to-spot disclaimers in the history of cinema. It appears
several minutes after the film has ended, stays on the screen for a very short time, and is in type so small as to be barely
legible. (At a showing a friend of mine went to in a Tel Aviv movie theater, the projector was shut off as the disclaimer
appeared.) On the other hand, 279 names of cast and crew members appear in much larger type at the end of the film and stay
on screen for much longer. For example, the credit for “gaffer” stays on the screen for ten seconds.
In even larger type at the beginning of the credits are the words: “With thanks to David and Gillian Helfgott for their assistance
and cooperation in the making of this film.” This, combined with the marketing-hype and the absence of a proper disclaimer,
ensured that virtually everyone believed that what they were seeing was essentially a true story. I doubt whether more than
a tiny handful of the millions who have seen
Shine
stayed throughout the entire list of credits and were then actually able to read the disclaimer. I only managed finally to
do so by using the pause button on my video. The disclaimer reads: “While the characters David and Gillian Helfgott are actual
persons, this film also depicts characters and events which are fictional, which do not and are not intended to refer to any
real person or any actual event.”
Had this disclaimer been properly displayed, I doubt that newspapers would have dared to suggest Peter Helfgott was “gestapolike”
(Tri-City Herald, Pasco, Washington) or a “monster inside with fangs and blood intact” (
Los Angeles Times
).
Later, when the screenplay was published, I was not surprised to see that the disclaimer had been removed altogether—of course,
had it appeared on paper people would have had a far better chance of reading it. The screenplay does however find space to
devote two pages to the cast list at the beginning and a further nine pages at the end to the crew list and music credits.
Everyone from the “carpenter” to the “bar mitzvah advisor” is listed, but there seems to be no room to mention that the film
is not true.
The premiere of
Shine
took place in Adelaide, Australia, on August 2, 1996. I decided not to attend, even though I was to be in Australia that
month. My mother also refused to go. Leslie went as he wanted to gauge the audience reaction. By now he was exasperated. He
had pleaded in vain with the producer, the film company, the public relations people, and anyone else he could find, to convey
the truth about my father in the interviews and hype that was building up around
Shine
, but to no avail. He said he now felt like standing outside the official opening and holding up a huge banner saying, “My
father was not a cruel person as shown in this film.” (In any event, he did not do this.)
Since I realized that from an artistic point of view,
Shine
was a film of high quality, and would no doubt be greeted with critical acclaim, it began to dawn on me that there would
be a mass of newspaper articles about my family. Yet it still came as a shock when I started reading them. One of the first
papers to comment on
Shine
was
The Herald
, and this set the tone for 99 percent of the articles that were to follow, first in Australia and then in almost every corner
of the globe. It said: “Helfgott suffered a complete breakdown … partly as a result of his … pathologically domineering father.”
Moreover, the preview scene most commonly being used on television was one where my father beats up my brother. As I flicked
from channel to channel, this scene seemed to pop up practically everywhere I turned. It was simply bizarre. I wanted to pinch
myself, hoping that I would wake up from this nightmare. I just couldn’t believe it was happening.
Leslie and I soon started getting phone calls from journalists, asking about “the beatings” that my father administered. Naturally
we told them the truth. After that people we knew, but some of whom we hadn’t heard from for years, rang us up, expressing
distress at the film’s inaccuracies. There was the Reverend Bob Fairman from Gildercliffe Lodge, our music teachers, Frank
Arndt and Madame Carrard, David’s first wife, Claire, his close friend of eight years, Dot, and a host of former friends and
work colleagues of my father’s. One by one, I began to realize that a film had been made about my brother and yet almost none
of the people who had been closely involved with him had been interviewed or consulted—even though in some cases they had,
like myself, specifically made themselves available. Some felt the need to speak out publicly against the film. Frank Arndt,
for example, told an Australian newspaper that my father was “a very gentle and intelligent man. I got to know Peter well.
He never came across as harsh.”