|
 Based on the book by John
Preston, the Netflix film, released on Friday,
recounts the 1939 Sutton Hoo archaeological
discovery, described by Britain's National Trust
as a find that "would revolutionise our
understanding of early England".
Set at the onset of World War Two, it follows
Edith Pretty, a widowed landowner in the eastern
county of Suffolk, as she employs amateur
archaeologist Basil Brown, played by Fiennes, to
excavate mounds on her property both suspect are
Viking burial grounds.
Instead, Brown unearthed the shape of a 27-metre
long Anglo-Saxon ship with a burial chamber
filled with treasures.
Mulligan, known for "Far From the Madding Crowd"
and "The Great Gatsby", said she had not been
looking for another period drama role but was
moved by the script and keen to work with
"Schindler's List" actor Fiennes.
That came with great responsibility. In one
scene, Brown is buried under thick mud when a
trench he is excavating collapses. Pretty,
played by Mulligan, uses her bare hands to dig
him out.
"(I felt) terror. Ralph didn't want to use a
stuntman, which I totally get, but it just did
leave me with the terrible task of trying to
stop him from suffocating," Mulligan told
Reuters.
"I was in charge of his face. I felt like if I'd
been in charge of any other part of his body, I
would have been fine. But I kept on saying to
(director) Simon (Stone), please don't put me in
charge of his mouth ... I'm going to mess it up
and he's not going to be able to breathe. So it
was really stressful."
[to top of second column]
|
 Fiennes came out unscathed.
Adding a sense of authenticity, Stone asked the
crew to bury mock-up treasures to replicate the
excitement around the original discovery.
"We buried the treasure that they find and we
hid it from them ... And so they went on a
treasure hunt," he said. "It took hours and we
were just rolling and rolling and rolling and
sometimes there'd be long periods where no one
found anything."
Fiennes actually unearthed some medieval pottery
while digging on set outside London.
"It was like a bit of clay," he said, adding he
hoped audiences would be inspired by the film's
small details.
"We live in a world of mass production ... some
of these (Sutton Hoo) treasures ... are stunning
pieces of craftsmanship. And that is a cause for
wonder."
(Reporting by Hanna Rantala, Writing by
Marie-Louise Gumuchian; editing by Emelia
Sithole-Matarise)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content
 |
