It’s wintertime and, thanks to this news, the livin’ is still easy. Dee Rees is writing and directing a big screen adaptation of the Gershwins’ “Porgy and Bess” for MGM, Deadline reports. The Oscar-nominated filmmaker and producer Irwin Winkler reportedly “worked closely” with the Gershwin Estate to acquire the rights to the iconic musical.
Based on DuBose Heyward’s 1925 novel, “Porgy and Bess” was written as an opera by the author with George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin. George Gershwin composed the music, and Ira Gershwin and Heyward penned the libretto. The production was first performed in Boston in 1935 and moved to Broadway later that year. “‘Porgy and Bess’ is a tale set in the slums of Charleston, SC,” the source describes. “There in Catfish Row, a disabled beggar named Porgy tries to rescue Bess from her violent lover Crown, and drug dealer Sportin’ Life.”
The musical produced hits such as “Summertime,” “My Man’s Gone Now,” “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” and “Bess, You Is My Woman Now.” “Summertime” has been covered by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Janis Joplin.
“Porgy and Bess” has been revived onstage many times and has won multiple Tony Awards. Dorothy Dandridge and Sidney Poitier portrayed the titular characters in the Oscar-winning 1959 film version.
“’Porgy and Bess’ is, at its core, a love story. So I’m very excited to take on the challenge of this highly venerated, iconic material and lift the architecture of this unlikely love story and re-site it at a place and moment of resistance,” Rees said. “With the help of a terrific artistic team, my vision is to invest this community with a new agency and re-locate the characters from a fictional landscape mostly viewed from the outside to a real geography with actual historical and cultural roots, relevance, and consequence and that has been built and lived from the inside.”
She continued, “By accessing the spirit of the lyrics as they’ve been conjured, reinterpreted, and rearranged by greats like Nina Simone and Billie Holiday, I’m most excited about inviting today’s brightest musical talents to lend new voice and spirit to both the joys and the frustrations of the ongoing struggle of African American citizens in this country,” Rees explained. “In this new adaptation, I’m hoping to raise the stakes for our hero and heroine, giving them full expression of existence placing emphasis not just on the circumstantial but on their rich inner lives and emotional pasts.”
“In 1986 my wife Margo and I attended Trevor Nunn’s Glyndebourne adaptation of ‘Porgy and Bess’ with Ira’s wife Leonore Gershwin and it has been my great ambition ever since to one day see it made into a feature film,” Winkler revealed. “As critic and author Margo Jefferson has said, ‘There is no one Porgy and Bess … Most importantly, Porgy and Bess has changed because history has made it change, and has made us change too.’ We approach this adaptation in that spirit and with the intent to deepen the work in a way that will resonate with today’s audiences.”
Rees broke out with her feature directorial debut, “Pariah.” The 2009 film centers on a young black lesbian struggling with her sexuality and how to come out to her conservative family. In 2018 Rees made history as the first black woman to receive an Oscar nod for Best Adapted Screenplay. She received the nomination for “Mudbound,” a drama set in post-WWII Mississippi that she also directed.
Her latest film, an adaptation of the Joan Didion novel “The Last Thing He Wanted,” hits Netflix February 21. The Anne Hathaway-starrer made its world premiere last month at Sundance. “The Kyd’s Exquisite Follies,” a musical fantasy on which she’s collaborating with Santigold, is among Rees’ upcoming projects. Her other credits include “Bessie” and “When We Rise.”
