Making the magic of the "Mysterious Garden"

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

You can watch the film "Mysterious Garden" on digital platforms from September 1, 2020! The film is based on the classic novel by the British writer Frances Eliza Burnett, first published in 1911. Let's plunge into the magic of this film, remembering the place where each of us wants to escape from reality - our own mysterious garden.

Taking on a new version of Burnett's mysterious garden, the screenwriter wanted to convey the idea of symbiosis that lies at the center of the plot.

“Nature is tricky,” says screenwriter Jack Thorne. - The most wonderful thing in our garden is its pristine wildness. When our heroes find unity with nature, their souls bloom. I think that the garden can be regarded as a kind of metaphor. He helps children open their hearts to nature and to each other. The adults did not make their lives better, and the garden helped the children to do it themselves."

Manden immediately liked Thorne's idea.

“Jack described a fantastic garden,” says the director. - I wanted it to be huge, but not endless. That is, I wanted to create the impression that Mary fell into a kind of rabbit hole. After climbing over the wall, she finds herself in a completely different world. I thought the viewers would love the vastness of this garden."

Manden proposed to the production designer Grant Montgomery to implement such an ambitious idea. “Mark has repeatedly said that the garden should make an unforgettable impression on both Mary and the audience,” says Montgomery. - Indeed, there will be a sense of scale. You will be so amazed that you will not be sure if this is actually happening or just in Mary's imagination. This is how we wanted to imagine a garden that changes as the storyline develops."

However, there is really nothing fantastic about the fantastic nature of the garden. Not even exotic - all plants can be found in Britain. "Magic" is the amazing beauty of these plants. As Mary and Colin interact with the garden, he begins to answer them.

“Mary’s interaction with the garden helps the girl to wake up and open up to people like Colin,” explains Manden. - Over time, the garden begins to reciprocate. The relationship between children and the garden is very symbolic. The garden awakens and flourishes, as well as the children come to life and develop. They help each other."

The filmmakers decided to shoot mostly on location and resort to the help of computer special effects only when absolutely necessary.

Alison says:

“We aimed to find truly unique gardens, not wanting to compete with nature. However, modern technology has helped us improve some of the scenes, which the early film adaptations of the book could not boast of. From the very beginning, we knew that we would not create the entire garden in computer graphics, we just added a few colorful touches."

These touches were required, for example, for scenes in which the garden reacts to Mary and Colin. “You will see how the garden responds to the efforts of the children,” says Alison. - It symbolizes feedback from nature. We used CGI to show how the garden perceives the mood of our characters. Although the more gardens we visited, the more different locations we saw, the more we realized that nature cannot be improved. We didn't want the movie to be fake.

In fact, the filmmakers took an impressive journey through Yorkshire, North Wales, Dean Forest, Wiltshire, Dorset and Cornwall to collect all the details of the future mysterious garden.

“We looked at about 50 or 60 gardens across the country,” says Montgomery, “and then we evaluated each location more carefully and selected only a few finalists. It was a very exciting process, because each garden had its own unique atmosphere and nature."

When she first finds herself in a mysterious garden, Mary feels that she has fallen into a certain primeval forest. The scene was filmed in the Puzzlewood Forest Park in Dean Forest - lichen-covered boulders, lush vegetation, and stone corridors once hacked by iron mine workers created an amazing atmosphere. Then Mary sees a beautiful meadow dotted with flowers and a running stream. This location was found in Bodnant Gardens near the town of Conwy in North Wales. A scene with a mesmerizing laburnum arch was also filmed there.

The garden also features a playground with giant ferns and broadleaf gunners. These scenes were filmed in a subtropical exhibition of Treba Gardens in Cornwall. At the heart of the garden are the ruins of a temple that was found at Fountain Abbey in Yorkshire.

Finally, it's worth mentioning the Hanging Gardens of Harold Peto at Iford Manor in Wiltshire. According to Alison, "the lush wisterias of these gardens were the essence of what the mysterious garden was supposed to represent."

The participation of decorators was required only for the cleaning scene in the garden. According to the plot, a giant tree with a swing was supposed to appear in the frame.

“Our production designer, Grant Montgomery, found a wonderful tree and created a kind of amphitheater of flowers around it,” recalls Alison. "This scene was filmed in Hertfordshire, near Pinewood Studios."

Mary's first home and Indian Gardens were filmed in a subtropical garden in Abbotsbury, Dorset.

According to the idea of the filmmakers, in the mysterious garden, real nature should be harmoniously combined with the fantastic, and this task was entrusted to Lucinda McLean. Filmscapes, which she represents, has a wide range of films including Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) and Garden of Mystery (1993).

“All the gardens we worked in are very well maintained and that was very important,” says McLean. - At the same time, each of them had a sense of virgin nature, and Mark wanted to see this in the frame. These gardens are very large, so there really is a sense of vastness, and it's easy to find nooks and crannies in them."

According to McLean, the Gunners played a special role in the filming, since it was these plants that helped make the transition from one location to another imperceptible, as if it were the same world.

“When we moved from one garden to another, there was always a transition point,” explains McLean. "The Gunners were very important for these transitions, although it was not without difficulties - we found out that these plants are extremely reluctant to tolerate travel."

According to McLean, the filmmakers tried to create a unique garden, so a wide variety of plants were included in the frame. But the main thing is that they were all designed in a single location palette. “Under the leadership of Grant Montgomery, we made a significant change to the Iford Manor garden because it was originally very modest,” recalls McLean. "It had white and purple flowers, and we wanted to add more color."

Since color plays a significant role in the film, the filmmakers decided to build their own version of the famous 55-meter yellow laburnum arch, which can be seen in the spring in the Bodnant Garden.

“We set up the scenery for the entrance to the arch next to the gate to the mysterious garden in Hertfordshire,” says McLean, “because the passage under the laburnum had to connect to the decorative wall and gate of our garden. In addition, at the time of filming, the arch was not in bloom, so the scenes in which the branches are strewn with colorful flowers, we filmed earlier, in the spring, and then filmed the scenes in which the children first push Colin into the mysterious garden."

“We only used artificial flowers to create the decorative arch,” she continues.“We had artificial white wisterias that hang from the branches just like laburnum flowers, and we spent a few days painting the flowers yellow. It was a very painstaking task, but the result was wonderful. Our decoration was like two drops of water similar to the famous arch in Bodnant."

Visual effects were needed to enhance the natural beauty of the garden. Heyday has already built an effective partnership with Framestore on the Harry Potter and Paddington Adventures franchises. The unusual creative challenges associated with the interactive garden were handled by Framestore's visual effects supervisors Glen Pratt and Andy Kind on The Secret Garden.

Visual effects were needed to create a sense of magical realism in the world generated by the child's consciousness, for example, in the scene when the branches help Mary to climb the garden wall, or in the scene when the children were sad, and the gunner stalks lean towards them, as if hugging.

Children cannot but rejoice at the arrival of spring, and the flowers seem to bloom at their touch. This scene was filmed in Helmsley Gardens in North York Moors National Park. The running children were filmed in the spring, when the flowers were just beginning to appear. The film crew returned to the garden closer to summer, when there were much more flowers.

Through the efforts of Framestore's specialists, flowers bloomed when children ran past them. Some of the visuals were combined with puppet effects (by Robin Gever and Tom Wilton). When Colin bathes in the creek, the bushes begin to shake, as if they are cold too. When the boy relaxes, so do the plants.

Framestore also created the robin that played such a fateful role in the original story. The role of Jemima's dog (later - Hector) was played by a very friendly dog Fozzie. He gladly ran around the gardens with the child actors.

Misselthwaite Estate

In addition to the garden, the Misselthwaite mansion itself and the surrounding area became a key location. The panoramic scenes were filmed at the Dunkom Park estate in Yorkshire.

“Mark described Dunkom Park as 'an amazingly disgusting place,'” says Alison. “The estate was surrounded by endless wastelands, and the backyard was pretty overgrown. We filmed all the scenes in the peat bogs there, too. It is in this place that Mary meets the Deacon for the first time.

The front of the house was filmed at the Harlakston estate in Lincolnshire. The Jacobite architecture of the 1837 mansion combined elements of the styles of the Jacob I and Elizabeth I periods with symmetrical Baroque compositions. In fact, this mansion is one of the few surviving works of architecture of that time.

Scenes in Archibald's office and one of the "closets" were filmed at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, and some scenes were filmed at a diner in Osterley Park. All other interiors were built in the pavilions of the Pinewood studio.

“We wanted Mary to see Misselthwaite as a huge, devastated, ghostly, lethargic place,” says Manden. - Descriptions of such mansions can be found in the novels "Jane Eyre" and "Rebecca." It seems to me that Jack was inspired by these very works when he described Misselthwaite. He very accurately managed to describe what I wanted to see later on the screen."

“The 1940s film Mysterious Garden had similar sets, and they were all the rage back then,” the director continues. - I wanted to create something similar on our set. At the same time, I tried not to descend to the cliché of a gothic, gloomy, dark house. The mansion was supposed to become more and more colorful as the plot unfolds."

Until the death of Archibald's wife and his uncontrollable plunge into the abyss of sorrow and despair, the Misselthwaite mansion was full of joy. “Now the joy is gone from this place,” explains Manden.“The mansion was bound with strong chains, and, like the grieving Archibald, was unable to break these bonds. Only frescoes and tapestries remind of the happy time. They meant a lot to me."

Production designer Grant Montgomery was responsible for the decoration of the mansion. “Mark and I looked at Orson Welles in Jane Eyre and Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, as well as a 1940s film adaptation of Mysterious Garden that was reminiscent of Jane Eyre,” he says. "We got inspiration from these films."

“We copied several locations from The Mysterious Garden, and the stairs are exactly the same as in Rebecca,” the artist continues. "However, we were planning to do a lot more sets."

Montgomery wanted the house itself to change according to how the garden changed. He drew inspiration from the work of the British artist Rex Whistler. “Regular 1940s sets would have been boring,” explains Montgomery. - Rex Whistler wrote amazing pictures and became the inspiration for Matthew Goode, who played the role of Charles Ryder in the movie "Return to Brideshead". I thought, what if Colin's mother would hire Rex Whistler to paint the landscape with Misselthwaite? If you look closely, you will see paintings on the walls depicting the garden as it was originally. In many rooms we have hung pictures (real, not reproductions) to create the appropriate atmosphere."

“Towards the end of the film, you will see the real Misselthwaite, and it will seem like heaven on earth,” adds the artist. "In the end, the regeneration is complete and the dreams come true."

The most important location in the house was Mary's room. It was very important how it changes as the plot progresses.

“When we started working on Mary’s room, I thought,“What if the garden surrounds her, but she doesn’t see it because she’s not looking?” - recalls Montgomery. - Nature teaches her love, and, finding herself in a mysterious garden, Mary learns to forgive herself, to take care of others. Over time, the walls of the garden come to life. The whole set is a metaphor. And every decorative element means something”. Stuffed animals were placed in Archibald's office and in the long hallways of the house to show how lifeless Misselthwaite had become.

Metaphor was also used in costumes, especially in Mary's wardrobes. Costume designer Michelle Clapton, who has worked on popular TV shows such as Crown and Game of Thrones, says she really enjoyed contributing to Mary's development by changing the elements of her costumes. The heroine's clothes were made in the style of a kind of magical realism.

“The garden played a key role in this story,” says the designer. - The funny thing is that we didn't use any special effects, we changed the costumes themselves. It was a real nightmare for us to decide what the next element will be, and how we will change it, but it was very interesting. With a difference of three scenes, Mary's costumes changed dramatically."

For example, moss could appear on Mary's cloak, flowers began to break out of her clothes, and at some point butterflies fluttered from her dress.

“I really liked the idea of making a dress that could come to life and turn into butterflies, or show how ivy breaks out from under a raincoat,” says Clapton. “Our hardworking and talented team even managed to create an artificial moss that covered the raincoat.”

Like many of her co-stars on the film, Clapton has watched other adaptations of The Garden of Mystery and is enthusiastic about the work of costume designer Marit Allen, who worked on the 1993 film.

“Perhaps I was interested in this project also because the action takes place in a different era, - says Clapton. - We do not just reshoot other films, but create something new that has not yet existed before us. Changing the duration allowed us to use new technologies, which is great. Now you can watch a seemingly familiar film with completely different eyes."

Speaking about Mary's everyday wardrobe, Clapton notes that the girl preferred practical, almost boyish clothes.

“The breeches and blouse were chosen with a certain intent, - explains the designer, - because in such clothes it is convenient to climb walls and wade through thickets. I wanted the heroine to dress herself, demonstrating her independence and detachment. Actually, I really like to tell a story with costumes."

Remake of "Mysterious Garden"

Different generations of viewers have admired the different versions of The Garden of Mystery, whether it's the 1949 black and white version starring Margaret O'Brien or the 1993 Agnieszka Holland film starring Kate Maberly.

“This is a very rich, interesting and instructive story,” Alison is convinced. - I like other adaptations as well, but we felt that there was much more hidden in this story. We made a picture in which imagination plays an important role, so the boundaries between Mary's fantasy world, the world of her dreams and memories, and reality are very illusory."

“The brand managed to bring together and create a unique symbiosis of the works of the cameraman, artist and costume designer,” continues the producer. - Finally, the film was watched by the composer Dario Marianelli. He wrote a very touching and lyrical soundtrack, which became the final chord of the work on the picture."

The producers are convinced: "The Secret Garden" (2020) is a film that, with its uniqueness, can attract the attention of viewers of all ages.