Dueling Over a Legend : Films to portray life of South African President Nelson Mandela: Showtime’s unauthorized ‘One Man, One Vote’ and a feature based on his autobiography, ‘Long Walk to Freedom’

After the real or imagined lives of Richard Nixon, Josef Stalin and other world leaders became grist for Hollywood’s mill, it was just a matter of time before Nelson Mandela got the treatment.

So now comes Mandela the movie. Two movies, in fact.

The first, tentatively titled “One Man, One Vote,” stars Sidney Poitier as Mandela, the political prisoner who became South Africa’s first black president and a global icon of freedom. Michael Caine co-stars as Frederik W. de Klerk, the hard-line Afrikaner leader who freed Mandela and ultimately handed power over to him.

Showtime Networks’ made-for-cable film combines news footage and created dialogue to focus on the tense negotiations that led to Mandela’s release from 27 years in prison in 1990, and the turmoil before South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994 finally ended minority rule and the threat of civil war.

Despite a last-minute overhaul of the script and continuing problems obtaining permission to film in Parliament and local prisons, shooting began in this elegant seaport on April 22 and is scheduled to finish at the end of this month. It will be broadcast next year.

The $5-million film is the first to look at the post-apartheid period. More importantly, perhaps, it promises to be the first motion picture that provides more than a crude caricature of South Africa, the kind of simplistic portrayal of cruel whites and God-fearing blacks that a reviewer here once described as “Adolf Hitler versus the Cosby family.”

That’s not to say that “One Man, One Vote” will be a South African version of Oliver Stone’s somber “JFK” or “Nixon.” For one thing, both Mandela and De Klerk are still very much alive. And Poitier and Caine appear star-struck.

Caine, 63, recently spent two hours with De Klerk studying his mannerisms, from how he holds his cigarettes (furtively, never smoking near a camera) to how he carries his reading glasses (in his hand, not in his jacket). De Klerk also corrected parts of the script, including how he addressed Mandela (always Mr. Mandela, never Nelson or just Mandela).

“I liked him very much,” said Caine, who requires three hours of makeup each morning to get a reasonable facsimile of De Klerk’s bald head. “I told him, ‘You can trust me. I’m not here to play tricks or get cheap laughs.’ ”

Coincidentally, both Caine and Poitier began their careers in South Africa. Caine came in 1960 to portray a colonial British officer in “Zulu.” And Poitier played a priest in the 1951 adaptation of Alan Paton’s classic novel “Cry, the Beloved Country.” As a black, he was forced to commute to the set from a farm far from whites-only Johannesburg.

Today, Poitier doesn’t hide his awe of Mandela and the changes he has helped bring about. “This incredible man has a wisdom and a compassion and a selflessness, and indeed a universality, that he appears saintly, almost godly if you will,” he said.

Sainthood aside, replicating Mandela’s stiff gait and dramatic dignity hasn’t been easy.

“No actor in the world can play Mandela better than Mandela,” said Poitier, 69. “And he has played it for all the world to see. I think the best way is to create a reflection of the essence of the man, his values and his philosophy.”

The film already has caused waves. The Performing Arts Workers’ Equity has complained bitterly about casting a foreigner as South Africa’s most famous figure. “There’s a lot of emotional feeling about this film,” explained Nicky Rebello, a union spokesman.

And Mandela has kept his distance. Although he met Poitier twice during preelection visits to Los Angeles, the president has not agreed to meet the actor during the current filming. Nor has he seen the script. Indeed, Mandela announced last month that the film has “no authorization” from him.

The reason is Mandela has given his “blessing and authorization” to another film about his life. In March, he sold the movie rights to his best-selling autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom,” for an undisclosed sum to Anant Singh, South Africa’s best-known producer.

“I want this film to be on an epic scale,” Singh said in a telephone interview from his office in Durban. “I think it can be another ‘Gandhi.’ That’s where I want this film to be.”

Singh is still interviewing for a scriptwriter and has yet to hold auditions for the cast. But whoever wins the key role may get help--and pressure--from the top.

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Mandela will be “deeply involved” as a consultant, Singh said, although exactly how isn’t clear. “My understanding of the deal is there’s not a veto power as such as long as we stay in line with the facts of his life,” he said.

Singh’s last major work was a remake of “Cry, the Beloved Country,” which starred James Earl Jones and Richard Harris. It won critical acclaim when it premiered last October in New York. But it bombed at the box office when it opened in December, grossing less than $1 million, Singh said.

The commercial failure of “Cry, the Beloved Country” has been a crushing blow to South Africa’s tiny film industry. Many had hoped a smash hit would finally attract major studios and big bucks here, just as “Breaker Morant,” “Gallipoli” and other films opened Hollywood’s eyes to Australia in the late 1970s.

Ever since the demise of apartheid, South Africans have predicted that foreign filmmakers and big-name stars would rush in to take advantage of the country’s gorgeous scenery, year-round sunshine, capable crews and modern infrastructure.

A few have come. Bruce Beresford produced the forgettable “A Good Man in Africa,” with Sean Connery. Kevin Bacon starred in “The Air Up There,” a comedy about basketball. Whoopi Goldberg helped draw audiences for Singh’s “Sarafina!,” which one critic called “ ‘West Side Story’ comes to Soweto.”

Singh is now making “Bravo Two Zero,” a British thriller about the Persian Gulf War. Arthur Penn’s promising “Inside,” a story about apartheid-era atrocities, is being screened at the Cannes Film Festival this month. And Paramount recently wrapped “The Ghost and the Darkness,” starring Michael Douglas and a pride of man-eating lions. “ ‘Jaws’ with paws” is how Douglas described the big-budget adventure flick.

But the flood of foreign filmmakers has not arrived. And the local market is too small to support big-budget films.

“How many African stories are there that the world wants to see?” asked Edgar Bold, head of Toron International, the country’s oldest production house. “And if you’re making an American movie, why come here to make it? Yes, the exchange rate is wonderful. But if you import all your top people, there isn’t a real cost savings.”

Under apartheid, the government provided generous subsidies and tax breaks for local and foreign filmmakers. The new government has canceled all that.

“Texas has eight film commissions,” complained film publicist Dezi Rorich. “We don’t have one.”

South Africa’s busiest filmmaker is Danny Lerner, head of Nu World Studio, part of Nu Image in Los Angeles. He churns out four or five low-budget, high-action flicks a year, mostly for the Asian market, on a sprawling 85-acre facility outside Johannesburg.

“We’re lucky because every film I make is sold immediately,” he explained. “Our buyers are crying for action movies.”

Lerner, who is now filming “Critical Moves,” which he calls “a ‘Navy SEALS’-’Delta Force’ kind of movie,” complains that local unions have made it more difficult for him by demanding more roles for South African actors.

“We cannot make big movies without big names,” he said. “You can’t survive without big names. The Koreans, the Japanese, they don’t care about South Africans. They want American actors who talk like Americans and walk like Americans.”

But David Wicht, line producer of “One Man, One Vote,” says some foreign filmmakers are simply afraid of working in South Africa. “It’s going to take a while for us to emerge from behind the apartheid curtain,” he said.