The Making of the Feature Film Suffragette

Abstract

In this article the author, the director of the feature film Suffragette, released in the autumn of 2015, reflects on the making of the film and the years of preparation. Suffragette, which is not a documentary but historical fiction, tells the story through the eyes of an ‘ordinary’ working-class woman Maud Watts, a laundry worker in the East End of London. Maud is played by Carey Mulligan and around her are a network of female characters, including Violet Miller (a fellow laundry worker, played by Anne-Marie Duff), and Edith and Hugh Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter and Finbar Lynch), a couple who run a suffragette operation from the back room of their East London pharmacy. Romola Garai plays Alice Haughton, an upper-class woman who recruits new women to the cause. A policeman is played by Brendan Gleeson and an MP by Sam West. Ben Whishaw is Maud's husband. Two ‘real’ historical characters are introduced––Emmeline Pankhurst, played by Meryl Streep, and Emily Wilding Davison, played by Natalie Press.