Don McCullin biopic to be directed by Angelina Jolie

(Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Don McCullin, 85, best known for his traumatic black and white images taken in 20th century conflicts whilst working for The Sunday Times and The Observer, is the subject of a new biopic starring Tom Hardy to be directed by Angelina Jolie. 

McCullin would often risk his life to take these images. As he once insisted, ‘Things happen very fast. People die in front of you. People scream. People claw at you to help them. There’s no need to go around arranging still life on the battlefield.” Though there is no need to properly compose images of war, he once made an exception with an image of a dead young North Vietnamese soldier. McCullin slightly arranged the image in order to articulate the things that the soldier was no longer able to express.

“He deserved a voice. He couldn’t speak so I was going to do it for him. I shovelled his belongings together and photographed them. That’s the only contrived picture I’ve taken in war.”

His quality of empathy and respect for his subjects will provide a fascinating backdrop for a feature film. Jolie said she “was drawn to his unique combination of fearlessness and humanity – his absolute commitment to witnessing the truth of war, and his empathy and respect for those who suffer its consequences. We hope to make a film that is as uncompromising as Don’s photography, about the extraordinary people and events he witnessed, and the rise and fall of a unique era in journalism.”

In 2017, Jolie adapted Loung Ung’s Khmer Rouge memoir First They Killed My Father. This was the film that apparently persuaded McCullin to collaborate with Jolie. Her film Unbroken dealt with the true story of a captured American soldier in a WW2 Japanese POW camp. 

“Having viewed Angelina’s last film on Cambodia, and having spent so much time during the war there, I was very impressed at how she made such a powerful and accurate representation of the place at that time,” he said. “I feel as if I am in safe, capable and professional hands with her.”

(Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for Disney)

The film is being adapted by ’71 screenwriter Gregory Burke from McCullin’s autobiography, Unreasonable Behaviour.