David Leland snaps shut the lid of the hot-water jug and shakes his head. He is disturbed by the lingering coffee aroma in what was going to be his tea water. So he calls back down to Four Seasons room service for another go at it. In the meantime the British writer/director sinks into a flowered couch in his hotel suite and contents himself with – what else? – an English muffin.
This bit of British-American friction aside, Leland remains in good spirits and is ready to talk about his new movie,”Land Girls,” now in its opening weekend in Chicago. The film explores the experiences of Britain’s counterparts to Rosie the Riveter: women who volunteered to do men’s work on English farms while the lads were off fighting World War II. The story focuses on three very different women whose lives and loves are changed forever by their collective experiences on the farm – which include sleeping with the farmer’s son.
Q. I got cold just looking at the girls holed up in those drafty houses wearing winter hats to bed. Were conditions really that bad?
A. That was the land girls’ reality because of the way in which they were billeted. We all had fuel shortages. Everything was short and they would inevitably be put into the part of the house with no heat. They would all be incredibly cold because usually the only heated room in the house would be the kitchen. And so when it was time to take a bath the kitchen would become like a Turkish bath with 20 or 30 women (in the larger houses) crammed into one room, and it created a community.
Q. When the women went out to the British farms, did they meet with a lot of resistance from the men?
A. There was a lot of chauvinism. It wasn’t like they had to prove they could do it once, but over and over again. They were going in and performing jobs that were traditionally in the male domain. Why? Because they believed women couldn’t do it. There were certain jobs that women just didn’t do. Women and school kids could pick fruit and plant and harvest potatoes, which is back-breaking work. But women wouldn’t plow the fields, they wouldn’t work with horses, they wouldn’t do those big tasks because that’s what men did. Then to see a woman driving a tractor and plowing was just unheard of. It had to do with roles and dominance.
Q. I understand the actresses underwent similar training to what the real girls went through.
A. (The real land girls’) training was incredibly short. They had four to six weeks and had very primitive equipment. We have a photograph of this contraption of four legs and a frame with a bag with four false cow teats, and they had to learn to milk with that, so they weren’t very well prepared. And when it came time for the actresses to learn, they met the same kind of prejudice. The farmers didn’t think they could do it. . . . (But) Catherine McCormack was brilliant; she not only learned how to drive a tractor but she plowed and was good at it.
Q. Taking a look at the films that you’ve either written, directed or both (including”Wish You Were Here,””Mona Lisa,” and”Personal Services”), it seems you have a penchant for creating female characters who are basically nice girls but engage in a lot of bad-girl activities. Is this conscious?
A. A lot of people ask me this, and it is very true, but it is hard to say how conscious it is. I guess I believe that these aren’t bad girls at all. They are basically good people who get involved in activities that society deems bad.
