ShareThisBy ROBERT DENERSTEIN
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
The buzz has begun: Critics are calling Forest Whitaker a shoe-in for an Oscar nomination because of his portrayal of Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland."
Whether the 45-year-old earns a best actor nod or not, his performance should be ranked with the great screen creations. It's not too far-fetched to think of it as Lear-like in proportion, the anchor of a fictionalized story about Uganda.
The adaptation of the 1998 Giles Foden novel tells the story of a young Scottish physician (James McAvoy) who becomes Amin's personal doctor. The movie directed by Kevin Macdonald, who has directed documentaries such as "One Day in September" and "Touching the Void," examines the seductive qualities of power.
"Last King" may well introduce Whitaker to a bigger audience, even though he's appeared in movies as wide-ranging as "Fast Times At Ridgemont High," "Platoon," "The Crying Game," "Bird" and "Ghost Dog." Those who don't already know will recognize him as a major talent, a man of off-balance delivery and sudden charms.
"This took so much research and work," Whitaker said. "I had to learn an accent. I had to learn to speak Swahili. I had to play the accordion."
All of this in pursuit of the essential nature of an eccentric, brutal and often engaging dictator who was responsible, among other atrocities, for murdering somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000 of his countrymen.
"I studied a David Frost interview with him. I also studied Barbet Schroeder's documentary (1964's "General Idi Amin Dada") which is really informative. It's long, and you get to see him in different situations. You get to see him when he was nervous on a plane or when he started to get angry."
Brutal as he was, Amin _ who presided over Uganda from 1971 to 1979 _ also had a charismatic side. He engaged people and, at the beginning of his career, seemed genuinely interested in helping Uganda.
Amin's story has a familiar arc, the details of which provided the backstory for Whitaker's performance. "He rose from a poor little kid. First he became a top general in the country. He ultimately became self-appointed president of Uganda, but it's not like that happened in a week. His career in the military happened over years."
So how much of "Last King" is fact-based? Whitaker says that Amin, at one point, did have a Scottish doctor, and that he also had western advisors, notably Bob Astles, a white expatriate whose role in Uganda has been the subject of intense speculation. The character played by McAvoy represents a kind of composite.
Actors often say that they can't judge the characters they play; Whitaker echoes the sentiment.
"I didn't judge him at all. At first, I knew nothing about him except for some image of an animalistic dictator. So for me it was really a discovery. I knew about certain events. (Among other things, the movie shows how Amin gave Ugdanda's 50,000-person Indian population 90 days to leave the country. The idea supposedly came to him in a dream.)
"I was trying to understand why he would do the things that he did."
Understanding Amin, Whitaker says, means remembering that the man was a soldier.
"In the beginning, he thought he could help change Uganda. He's a soldier. He's not a politician. He doesn't have all the skills. All of a sudden he's asking England to give him weapons to protect himself from the many forces around the country that wanted to overthrow him. They said, 'No.' Just like a soldier, he thought, 'I need to destroy my enemies."'
Whitaker doesn't try to rationalize Amin's brutality. In fact, he takes a personal approach in trying to understand it.
Whitiaker was aided in his task by many Ugandans.
"I couldn't have done it the same way if it we hadn't shot in Uganda. The people around me spoke with Ugandan accents. Daniel, my assistant, was actively helping. It's not just learning the accent. It's learning the way you use the accent, a certain way you move when you speak. How you make expressions and sounds or learning the sense of humor."
When you see "Last King," you may be most impressed by the way Whitaker turns his character's emotions on a dime. He can go from charming to brutal in less time than it takes to blink.
Oscar or not, Whitaker already has reaped rewards from his work.
"It was one of the best experiences I ever had. It changed my view of the world. It was the first time I'd been to Africa. I'm African-American, so that was a big deal. The people were so kind. I feel like I have a bond. . . .
"Also, it helped me to understand the influence of the West, the detrimental influence it can have on other places in the world. Idi Amin was a product of England. He was created. They rewarded him for his brutality. . . ."That's something we need to analyze."
