Up the Sandbox
Opened December 1972
Barbra Streisand’s sixth film, her first for First Artists, would have the social significance she wanted to convey in her work. “I had wanted to have a little more input into the films I was making,” Barbra explained. “So becoming a producer, a production entity, one does have some say in what the movie looks like, what it sounds like, what it’s about and so forth. So it was a step beyond for me, rather than just being the actress ... It was the first film for my own production company, Barwood Films, Limited, and so I was able to have much more input into the content and style of this film.”
Director Irvin Kershner, during Barbra’s American Film Institute tribute, recalled that he was warned about Streisand. “‘She’ll kill you, she’s a murderess.’ That’s what people told me before I directed Up the Sandbox. Of course, they were wrong. Because I discovered working with her that I had the most joyous time of my career. [Barbra is] beautiful in any light, at any angle, as a woman and as an artist.”
(Above) A cut scene from “Up the Sandbox” in which Streisand plays a game of jacks with Ariane Heller, who portrays her daughter in the film.
Kershner elaborated on how he assembled his team in his director’s commentary for the Sandbox DVD:
Before we started I took dozens of photographs of Barbra – different lighting conditions, different angles, trying to find where she looked glamorous, where she looked ‘house-wifely’, where she looked like a love object, where she looked like a mother who’d been up all night with her babies. Well, I think we found it. I had to talk [cinematographer] Gordon Willis into doing the picture because he had heard stories about how difficult Barbra Streisand was. Well, I was a bit worried myself. But I knew that I needed Gordon Willis. I’d done a film called Loving with him and he was the best that I had worked with so far. He loved the story, he was just afraid of Barbra. Well, I showed him all the photographs I had taken, introduced them. He liked her, of course, because she has a great personality — and made him laugh, which he of course enjoyed — and finally said he would do it. And that was my essential team.
Cinematographer Gordon Willis denied any difficulty working with Streisand, too. “I had a very good time with her. She’s very bright,” he said. “Harry Stradling [Funny Girl’s cinematographer] put cross hairs in front of a woman’s face and bang, that’s where the light went. Barbra would prefer the key light right between her eyes, but you can’t always get it that way. Harry Stradling lit a movie in a certain way — I don’t light that way. If I start lighting actors one way and the movie another it looks stupid. We worked it out very well. I thought Barbra looked great and she was helpful. She will work with you.”
Streisand, in her commentary on the Sandbox DVD, discussed their approach to the fantasies in Up the Sandbox: “How do you do fantasies in movies that are very truthful and very real? We didn’t do a traditional cut or dissolve to a fantasy, and I think that confused people. Although to me, it was great—it was true. It was walking a fine line. It was dangerous ... they were so subtle and so realistic I found out the audience had a hard time knowing what was true and what was untrue. Which broke my heart because I thought they were so clever.”
The scene in which the family celebrates the parent’s 33rd anniversary was based on a real-life reunion that Streisand attended with her brother Sheldon. The woman singing “Beautiful Dreamer” in an operatic style was based on Streisand’s own mother who used to sing similar tunes. The man with the home movie camera was based on Sheldon Streisand, who also liked to photograph family events.
Two music scores were written for the film. Dave Grusin began scoring Up the Sandbox but was let go. Billy Goldenberg was the second composer brought in for the film. Kershner wanted a smaller sound for the film—less Hollywood-esque. Goldenberg achieved this by using a toy piano over the opening credits. He told Time magazine that Streisand would call him as late as 2:30 a.m. after she’d finished shooting the picture for the day and ask him to “hum me the music for tomorrow” over the phone.
(Below: “Sandbox” poster by noted artist Richard Amsel and an Italian version of the poster.)
At one point, Streisand asked Goldenberg for an end title song by 4:00 p.m. the next day. “I wrote like mad,” Goldenberg recalled. “When she called, I hummed her the tune. She liked it, and the next day we got the word writers, Marilyn and Alan Bergman, to fit it out with a lyric.” The song became “If I Close My Eyes”, the movie’s single – although the song was not used in the final film. (It was released as a 45 rpm single in January 1973, backed with an instrumental version of the song).
Dave Grusin’s song “A Child is Born”, written for Up the Sandbox, was eventually rescued and used on Streisand’s 1975 album, Lazy Afternoon. The lyrics to “A Child is Born” are by Barbra’s friends, the Bergmans.
Director Irvin Kershner took his crew on location to remote East Africa. “While I was shooting the film,” Kershner said, “Barbra said to me, ‘Where are we going to shoot the African scenes?’ And I said, ‘On a backlot at MGM. They have a very good jungle there.’ She says, ‘Will it look right? Will it look real?’ I said, ‘Well, it’ll look as real as we can make it. I’ll have to build the village for the tribe.’ She said, “Why don’t we go to Africa?’ I said, ‘You’d want to go to Africa to shoot it?’ She said, ‘Well, yeah. It’ll be so much better for the film.’ So I said, ‘Let’s talk to the producers. They’ll have to talk to the studio. It’ll be quite a bit more expensive.’ The next thing I know, a few days later, we’re going to Africa.”
(below: A cut scene from SANDBOX. Barbra's character, Margaret, imagines a trip to Africa with Dr. Beineke to search for a painless method of childbirth practiced by the African tribe.)
Kershner used Samburu tribesmen as extras, portraying the fabled Masai tribe. Streisand remembered Kenya as “quite beautiful ... I remember it being so hot. We had no air conditioner or anything, so I had a little, dinky trailer filled with flies. Flies everywhere. But I loved the people, the Samburu people, and I made very good friends with a woman of the tribe. We didn’t speak the same language, obviously, but she understood what I was trying to say to her. She showed me how to dress. Everything was held together with safety pins so nobody had to sew anything. I had the greatest outfits. You rip the fabric and you safety pin in where you want it. And then jewelry made out of telephone wires, little beads. She taught me how they put makeup on their eyes with the ground stone, blue ...”
(Below: Photos of Streisand in Africa. Barbra donned several native garments and was photographed with people of the Samburu community.)
End.
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