Already a winner of several literary awards, including the Governor General’s Award for Fiction in 1996, Vanderhaeghe’s novel The Englishman’s Boy recently made its television debut as a critically acclaimed mini-series on CBC. It was nearly a decade in the making and originally slated to be produced as a Hollywood feature film, but the visiting English professor with St. Thomas More College says the finished product made all the rewrites, delays and political controversy worthwhile.

Vanderhaeghe said following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., several powers-that-be in Hollywood deemed his script of The Englishman’s Boy had an anti-American slant. Rather than ask him to rewrite it, however, the film’s producer and director boycotted what they felt was an artistically-oppressive environment, returned to Canada and started work on a mini-series instead.

The final product was produced by Mind’s Eye Entertainment out of Regina, directed by Canadian John Smith, and shot throughout Saskatchewan in the summer of 2006 on a budget of $11 million. Although Vanderhaeghe understood that adapting his novel to film could never result in a direct translation, he was grateful to have the mini-series produced in an open, collaborative environment.

“I like screenwriting, but one of the reasons I liked it in this instance is that I had confidence in the people I was working with. I have been asked to write films, and in just 10 minutes talking to the producer I know I either don’t want to write this film or I really don’t have confidence in the person I’m talking to,” he said.

Not only was Vanderhaeghe asked for his opinions, advice and guidance in both shooting and editing the film, he was also given a minor role as a bartender – three-and-a-half minutes of film that he says took 12 grueling hours to shoot, from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.

“I was really lucky, because in many ways I had the kind of involvement that writers almost never get,” he said.

Vanderhaeghe admits there were various challenges switching from a novelist to screenwriter, although it is a task he would embrace again given the right circumstances.

“In a novel, much of what goes on and what you understand of the characters is presented in the characters’ thoughts, or you have a narrator who can explain a situation to you. Well, you can’t do that in a film. It has to be dramatized, so emotions, thoughts and feelings have to be given a kind of physical action.”

“I like doing film work, but I also don’t want to get involved in something where for two years it feels like you’re banging your head with a hammer.”

Vanderhaeghe says he had no idea that The Englishman’s Boy would have the cultural impact and success it has enjoyed since being published in 1996, but said it proves that “going against the grain” isn’t always a bad idea.

“Some people asked me what I was doing while I was writing the novel, a Western, because I was thought of at that time as a serious writer, a literary writer. But as I like to say to my creative writing students, you have to write what interests you. If it doesn’t interest you, you don’t have a hope of interesting anybody else.”

- On Campus News, March 14-08