Out of Tune (32 page)

The
Shine Study Guide
even includes a paragraph about the symbolic use of water in the film—including “David’s tears,” “the menace of a dripping
bath tap before David’s father hit him,” and how David is “head above water” when he finds sanctuary in Gillian’s swimming
pool.

I found the entire guide extremely upsetting, and some parts of it actually made me feel nauseous. Children are asked to discuss
the statement: “David’s return to performance is made possible by the love and encouragement of Gillian, Sylvia, and
HER
family who nurtured David, believe in him, and tolerate his eccentricity.” In the “Musical Perspective” section, students
are directed to “the magically evocative scene that pans from [Peter’s] grave to an entire cemetery accompanied by Vivaldi’s
soaring ‘Nulla In Mundo Pax Sincera’ … [which] becomes David and Gillian’s theme.” It then asks: “Why is it such an appropriate
piece of music for the final scene?”

As if
Shine
hadn’t caused us enough distress, we now had to live with the knowledge that high school children throughout Australia would
be analyzing our family in detail and scrutinizing our early lives. For Leslie, the idea that his children would be reading
this entirely fictionalized view of their grandfather in class and then discussing it with their classmates was just too much.
My mother and sisters were equally outraged that my other nieces and nephews would be receiving these supposed insights into
their “brutal” grandfather as part of their education.

Leslie’s wife Marie had already told me that their little daughter Dorothy had been asking her mom: “I don’t understand. You
promise me that Grandpa wasn’t such a bad man, so why do they show him like that in the film if it’s not true?” Imagine how
their young son, Peter, named after his grandfather, was going to feel.

The use of study guides and “teaching through film” has become widespread in recent years. Such guides include those for Kenneth
Branagh’s
Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Gorillas in the Mist
, and
Gulliver’s Travels
. If this is the only way in today’s television age of encouraging students to familiarize themselves with otherwise difficult
classics, so be it. But to the best of my knowledge, the study guide for
Shine
is unique in that it is the only one accompanying a film passing itself off as fact when it is nothing of the sort. None
of the other guides submitted as part of the school curriculum use real people with their real names, most of whom are still
alive.

No one had bothered to inform us, let alone ask our permission about what can only be described as a gross violation of the
Helfgott family’s privacy, going beyond all bounds of sensitivity and decency.

Research by marketing companies indicates that guides are more likely to be used if sent to teachers directly, thus bypassing
the school bureaucracy. Some packs had already been sent to schools, but widespread distribution throughout Australia was
due to begin in early 1997. Realizing that there was no time to waste, Leslie, aided by his wife, leaped into action. He immediately
called Andrew Pike of Ronin Films, and pleaded with him to withdraw the
Shine Study Guide
from schools. He explained to Pike everything that was wrong with
Shine
and why the Helfgott family found it so offensive. Shocked at what he heard, Pike was sympathetic to our plight from the very
beginning. He said he would look into the problem and see if it could be resolved.

Leslie then contacted ATOM, but was told they couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do anything to stop the study kit going to schools. In
desperation, he next turned to the superintendent of the Education Department, but was told that they, too, were unable to
stop the study guide’s distribution.

Leslie and Marie, who were spending sleepless nights worrying about what could be done, then contacted Barbara Hocking of
SANE (the Schizophrenia Australia Foundation). “We were amazed that such a study guide concerning a well-known mentally ill
person was being distributed without professional review and approval by SANE or a similar mental health organization,” Barbara
told me on the telephone a short while later. “We were concerned that while there was much discussion about parenting styles,
with the clear implication that these were the cause of David’s ‘psychological setback,’ there was no mention that David has
schizo-affective disorder. A whole generation of school students were to be misinformed about the causes of psychotic illness.”

Hocking contacted Ronin Films and told them in no uncertain terms that all SANE’s work would go to waste if inaccurate information
about mental illness was issued to school children ignorant of the issues.

Leslie and Marie’s task was not confined to Australia. We heard that the
Shine Study Guide
was to be distributed in other countries, too. Margaret Leggatt, president of the World Schizophrenia Fellowship, who lives
in Australia, wrote to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), in Arlington, Virginia, and to schizophrenia support
groups in Canada and England, saying that she was gravely concerned that “the guide for school students … perpetuates the
idea of the father’s brutality causing the schizo-affective breakdown.” Dr. Fuller Torrey of NAMI, author of
Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual
, replied that they would do “whatever we can to correct the grossly mistaken etiological implications of
Shine
.”

In January, there was the first sign that the campaign was making some headway. Andrew Pike told Leslie that he had read Gillian’s
book and that it would be removed from the study guide. The other materials, however, would remain.

Leslie and Marie intensified their efforts, managing to speak to a member of parliament about their anxieties. Meanwhile,
SANE prepared a special flier for insertion into the
Shine Study Guide
, giving factual explanations about the nature and causes of mental illness. They attempted to get hold of a list of schools
that had already received copies of the guide, in order to send them the fliers and counteract the damage done.

Throughout this time, SANE not only did valuable work but, in marked contrast to the makers of Shine, they kept in constant
touch with the Helfgott family, including myself, keeping us informed of any developments and offering reassuring and sympathetic
words. These were of great comfort. At that time we really felt that it was us against the world: the film industry, the media,
and the publishing industry.

On May 15, 1997, Andrew Pike wrote to Leslie, saying that the flier prepared by SANE would be incorporated in the guides and
that a prominent disclaimer sticker would be placed on the front of the guide; this would point out that the guide was not
meant to relate to real persons or actual events. He also told Leslie how much he regretted the fact that a disclaimer had
not been put at the beginning of the film.

Although we were obviously happy that some progress had been made, we were still far from satisfied. If there had been a prominent
disclaimer at the start of the film, the whole audience would have had the opportunity to read it; teachers and school children
may well look at individual sheets and components of the guide, however, without properly registering the statement on the
cover. Our real names were still being used in the guide, and this, together with the influence of the film itself and all
the surrounding publicity, made us fear that children would still be left with the impression that the events were true. At
the very least, Leslie wanted a disclaimer on every individual sheet clearly stating that Shine was a work of fiction and
that the family portrayed in the film bore no resemblance to the real Helfgott family. “For God’s sake, have some compassion,”
he told Pike. “My mother’s still alive.”

Leslie and Marie didn’t let up, and their valiant and determined efforts finally paid off. Despite the fact that his business
was distribution, Andrew Pike came to the conclusion that the privacy of our family was being violated in a completely unacceptable
way. When he phoned Leslie in early June to tell him that the guide would be withdrawn, the whole family was overjoyed. Pike
said Ronin Films would also try to recall the guides from the more than 1,000 schools that had already received them. He confirmed
Ronin Films’s abandonment of the
Shine Study Guide
by letter to Leslie on June 16, 1997. Although it wasn’t made clear exactly what had changed his mind, we were all immensely
relieved.

Unfortunately, as I write, the
Shine Study Guide
is still available elsewhere in the world. An article in the New York Times confirmed that in the United States,
Shine Study Guides
had already been sent to “teachers of music, psychology, sociology and history.” Vincent Nebrida, senior manager for marketing
and special projects at Fine Line Features,
Shines
U.S. distributors, was quoted as saying that history teachers were included on the distribution list because “
Shine
touches on the whole Holocaust aspect.”

In addition to normal distribution channels, we also have today’s new technologies to contend with when trying to prevent
the guide’s dispersal. The guide is also available for downloading free of charge on the Internet from the Fine Line Features
web site. “ … Nor did it stop with the movie,” it says on the web site. “Download the free
Shine Study Guide
! Lifetime Learning Systems, in cooperation with Momentum Films and Fine Line Features, has created a special educational
study guide based on Shine, titled
Shine
:
The Triumph of Self-Expression
. This educational program—designed for older high school students and college students—builds upon the many themes explored
in the film, including the development of human personality, family dynamics, and the music in the film. Although the material
is copyrighted, you have permission to photocopy as many sets of the study guide as you may need for educational purposes.”

(Regrettably, there is also a “student study assignment” on the Internet for “
Love You to Bits and Pieces
,” full of nonsense about “the psychological illnesses that can come from playing the piano,” and statements such as “
Shine
took a lot of effort to make everything as accurate as possible.”)

As I write this, I am still unsure what the future position will be regarding the
Shine Study Guides
in America and other countries, but at least we now know that Peter Helfgott’s six grandchildren won’t have to sit in class
in Australia and hear teachers and fellow students discuss their grandfather and all the lies concocted about him by Scott
Hicks’s film.

A
nyone living in western society knows that the film industry and the media are extremely powerful. However, until you’ve experienced
their full weight at firsthand, it is difficult to appreciate just how much influence they wield. At times during the struggle
to present the truth over
Shine
, we felt that we were battling against the whole world. When an Oscar-winning film, backed by a massive publicity and marketing
operation, feeds myths to an eager media, it is almost impossible for private individuals with limited resources to set the
record straight. Once the “story” is picked up you feel as ineffective as a Lilliputian in the land of the giants, a tiny
voice drowned out by the surrounding clamor.

Scott Hicks is well aware of the overwhelming force of the media. This is why I find it so reprehensible that, not content
with the damage done by his film, he has decided to continue hurting the Helfgott family and perpetrating his fraud on an
unsuspecting public by making use of newspapers and television. It is no coincidence that time and again Shine is called a
“true story” in media around the world. Hicks does everything he can to suggest it is. He adds insult to injury by repeatedly
telling journalists that he has been sensitive to the feelings of the Helfgott family. He called a pre-Oscar press conference
in Los Angeles to inform the New York Times and other major newspapers and TV networks that in his “ten-year odyssey” to make
Shine, he had undertaken “meticulous research” to ensure that “everything in the film” was based on fact. And, as if to demonstrate
that he had the full support of the Helfgott family, Gillian (but not David) stood resolutely by his side.

Hicks’s claim that his film was based on testimony “not just from David’s memory but from the people who knew him” is patent
nonsense. Tom Gross and I did not have ten years to research and write this book. We had only a few weeks. Yet in that time
we managed to speak to almost all the key players in David’s life. We found that Hicks had talked to almost none of them.
They were all readily available and easy to track down. All had clear memories of David that they were more than willing to
share with us; they were, without exception, surprised, angered, and upset by the way
Shine
had misled the public.