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LMGI COMPASS
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Fall 2021
So I downloaded the audio book. After four hours into it, I
realized that The Underground Railroad was not anything like I
thought it would be.
I texted the producer, "I'm in!"
THE JOURNEY BEGINS
What changed Alison's mind was Whitehead's use of fantasy,
magic realism and startling anachronisms that describe a litany
of atrocity that will all come to pass—in the future. The surreal
telling somehow manages to capture a deeper understanding of
brutal events that are related in purpose if not time. "The way
things really happened in history were interwoven into the story
but not in the same timeline. Whitehead brought in the Tuskegee
Airmen, skyscrapers from the future and all these other things. I
It's no wonder that acclaimed director Barry Jenkins was
inspired to bring this story to the screen by reimagining the novel
as a 10-part series for Amazon. It's also no surprise that it was
seasoned location manager Alison Taylor who was asked aboard.
What is surprising is that she initially had no intention of finding
locations for Jenkins' new project. "I told the producer," Taylor
recalls, 'I would love to work with him, but I don't think I want to
do a slave project. I don't feel like suffering through a bunch of
whippings and gratuitous violence. I don't feel like watching that.
All the slavery projects that have come out are just exhausting and
heavy."'
But the producer was insistent. "She told me, 'The book won a
Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. Do me a favor. Read it and
call me back.'"
Cora Randall (left) on the plantation with her mother.
Photo by Atsushi Nishijima/Amazon
