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Post by Andrea on Feb 1, 2010 17:36:13 GMT -5
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Post by Ace on Feb 3, 2010 18:42:02 GMT -5
www.varesesarabande.com/details.asp?pid=vsd-067-007-2Pre-orders are now being accepted. This CD will ship on or after 2/23/10. Ewan McGregor Pierce Brosnan Kim Catrall Olivia Williams The New Film From Roman Polanski THE GHOST WRITER tells the story of a former British Prime Minister, Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), who is holed up on an island off the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. in midwinter, writing his memoirs. When his long-standing aide drowns, a professional ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) is sent out to help him finish the book. The anonymous ghost writer is quickly drawn into a political and sexual intrigue involving Lang’s wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams) and his aide (Kim Cattrall). Hanging over Lang is the threat of a war crimes trial and a mysterious secret from his past that threatens to jeopardize international relations. The cast also includes Jim Belushi, Robert Pugh and Tom Wilkinson. THE GHOST WRITER is based on the novel The Ghost written by best-selling author Robert Harris. It won the International Thriller Writers’ Award for best novel of 2008. Harris joined director Roman Polanski in adapting the book for the big screen. Academy Award nominee Alexandre Desplat (The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button) has created a suspenseful and captivating work, which recalls the classic thriller scores of the legendary Bernard Herrmann. Summit Entertainment opens THE GHOST WRITER nationwide on February 19. Varèse Sarabande Catalog #: 302 067 007 2 Release Date: 02/23/10 1. The Ghost Writer (1:41) 2. Rhinehart Publishing (:58) 3. Travel To The Island (2:28) 4. Lang’s Memoirs (1:43) 5. Chase on the Ferry (2:31) 6. Suspicion (2:49) 7. Investigation (2:07) 8. Hidden Documents (2:09) 9. The Old Man (1:17) 10. In The Woods (3:40) 11. Prints (1:45) 12. The Predecessor (2:28) 13. Pr Paul Emmett (5:39) 14. Bicycle Ride (1:52) 15. Lang And The CIA (2:21) 16. The Truth About Ruth (4:55) 17. The Ghost Writer (Reprise) (1:49) There are 4 track samples are available
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Post by Ace on Feb 7, 2010 21:09:50 GMT -5
wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/Wiadomosci/1,80276,7536047,Polanski_to_twardy_gosc.html Conversation with Paul Edelman, the Cinematographer of the new film by Roman Polanski "The Ghost Writer". Paul T. Felis: What - you think - is the film "From Spectrum" ( "Ghost Writer"), Roman Polanski? Pawel Edelman: The ordinary man in the street, that coincidence of various circumstances, falls into the trap. Is enmeshed in a dangerous plot that touches on the highest levels of government - the intrigue it seduces, fascinates, but also surpassed: he had hired to play the role of the writer, and becomes a victim of the hunt. I think that it is interested in Roman - follow you as our hero, trying with him, with some fragments and scraps, make a story together. And this is a universal story that applies to both the place where we live, and the whole world. History of the English pro-American policy which sanctioned the torture of political prisoners, and that the case is governed by our election? - About one and other. If you chose to book Roman Robert Harris zekranizować, it's also because they take the important political issues - for example, raises questions about how to fight terrorism, the limits of freedom, etc. The film goes further, because it allows you to look at, but in general is a policy How are taken behind the scenes of the most important decisions. And for me, politics is particularly tempting - so I made earlier pictures in the "king of all men." Not everyone aware of this, how much power corrupts, and there is little morality in politics and good intentions, that is - in short - to whom we so recklessly their destiny into their hands. It is difficult to expect a literal adaptation of Roman Polanski, but whether it is a lot of changes to the novel? - I have a bit blurred, which is the scenario, and what in the book - read it quite a long time. Of course, adaptation of the novel is primarily throwing what is the point of view, the film is redundant or unnecessary - work Romana and Harris, who together wrote the screenplay, then mainly consisted of the elimination and condensation. Moreover, they did a fantastic job - when I first read the script, I had the impression that all elements are preserved, but the whole is even smoother and faster on the principle: action and reaction. Change is so many things, but they do not touch the kernel. It seems to me that only the ending is different, but will not say more. In the book, Harris' case the victim is primarily hired a writer - the chameleon man who calls himself a "spirit" because "for a short time can enjoy the freedom that comes from being someone else." - And why is so interesting character - ambiguous, some bright and some dark and, above all, very ordinary. This is normal, young guy who sometimes comes with shock, and sometimes the opposite. And suddenly it is trapped. Ewan McGregor perfect fit for this role, because not only is a fantastic actor, able to take to bring all the nuances of the characters, but it also has the kind of smile and look at things from the place arouse sympathy. "It was not any old politician, only hottest of all - by the turn of Adam Harris Lang. Pierce Brosnan is certainly fashionable, but there was no doubt that lifts this role? - I have to admit that Roman had never had any doubt about it. Lang is a character that is hard to play, is somewhat negative character, but nevertheless gives rise to our sympathy, and his arguments to a point quite convince us. Thanks Brosnan and his charm nieodpartemu Lang is a character more human and less Machiavellian. In addition, we have seen the plan that Pierce is not only a terribly nice man, but also a very talented actor - especially if it is so well directed, as time as the Roman. I think that what is shown in the "author Spectrum," will be a surprise to many. What this method of working with actors is Roman Polanski? - Roman does not come with a plan naszkicowanymi earlier, pre-wykoncypowanymi solutions - These solutions are born during the tests. Every morning, Roman met with the actors - no costumes, no makeup, without a set light. This morning test is mainly based on deep analysis of the text: where it's at a character as to retain, how he thinks. What exactly does this inside, how it is related to what happened before, and what only has to happen. When the trial ends and the scene takes on the shape of the material, the most difficult moments are completely natural, because due to the nature of the characters. Then we wonder with Roman, as filmed. You said once about Polanski that is difficult, in collaboration director, he has a strong vision of what it wants to achieve in the movie, and room for maneuver for the operator is small. - After taking with him already so many films seem to me that I understand exactly how Roman is directed, what is the language of film, as well as approaches to the scenario and how it translates the text to images. Roman on the plan we always try to use the simplest solution. We choose a point of view from which one can best describe the entire situation, and sometimes what is most important in the scene, we stress the plan or the traffic closer to the camera. In his films is never zawijasów style - there are only measures which result in an organic way of what is happening between the characters. And if his films are in the unprecedented intensity and truth, because in them only what is necessary. Besides the Roman minimalism has long caught me very much - I took over from him unless the principle that no udziwniać, but the easiest way to tell how. "On the island there are several ways, one intersection with traffic lights and several long sandy paths - Harris writes about the island of Martha's Vineyard. Is the Baltic island of Sylt and Usedom well, "pretending" the East Coast of the United States? - Take the movie is always a matter of choices, sometimes compromising. Perhaps there are other islands that have more to suit us, but for reasons we chose the place of production, which was closest to. Because we shot mostly in Berlin and we had a studio in Babelsberg, we chose two sites in Germany, which - as the result of our documentation - the most reminiscent of Martha's Vineyard. Found on the island of Usedom, forest roads, and on Sylt - beaches, dunes, and the ferry, which was filmed at the beginning of the film and a few other scenes. The biggest problem was the weather - the production had to be so arranged that we should actually be able to shoot in cold, rainy days. But the most difficult to predict the weather, so we had to frequently move from place to place, flip the plan of studies in the open air and back. Some logistical gymnastics required by the system itself or photos - those that were implemented in London and close to Boston, Polanski was unable to direct themselves. - But be prepared very carefully on trying even in Berlin and had a preview of the camera images on the Internet - was not so with this big problem. The challenge was for the pictures in Germany, which had to pretend to America - and sometimes it was easy, and sometimes complicated, we had to prepare such special recognition, which we used as background sequences car and then assemble them so that there was no doubt that we United States. How team responded when Polanski was arrested? - At the beginning we were obviously devastated - it all seemed quite unreal. Well, there was a concern whether or not this movie finished. But the information came from the Roman and producers that do not renounce, and try to close the predetermined dates. Breathed a sigh of relief, because if we could help the Roman, in some way support him, is only one way: everyone wanted to do the best job for which he can do. Especially that it was only an afterthought, we realized how much the situation described by Lang's Harris points out that, in the part of the Roman - that the human condition contained in his house, osaczonego by the media and the hysteria that accompanies him. Also, because this film and its premiere fast seem to me very important. What was so post-production? - We had a lot of luck so that Roman had to finish all the essential work in person - when he was arrested, the film was actually mounted: Mounting other recent decisions that have already been taken at a distance. What we had to do it themselves, is the final cut image and acceptance of computer effects, which despite appearances is a lot here. But it went surprisingly smoothly. You spoke recently with Roman Polanski? - Yes, we are in constant contact. Of course, as can easily imagine, is not it a little. But Roman is really a lot has already passed in my life - is a tough guy and does not belong to those who break easily. Take care. Source: Gazeta Wyborcza
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Post by Ace on Feb 7, 2010 23:20:13 GMT -5
www.variety.com/article/VR1118014706.html?categoryId=3934&cs=1Berlin's world embrace Topper Kosslick defends Polanski and his fest's slateBy ED MEZA It's not easy for fest directors to escape controversy, and this year promises plenty for the Berlinale's Dieter Kosslick as "The Ghost Writer," the latest film from Roman Polanski, unspools in the Palast as one of the centerpiece films of the fest's 60th edition. With Polanski currently under house arrest at his Alpine chalet in Switzerland and awaiting the Swiss government's decision on whether or not to extradite him to the U.S., the director's fate, past transgressions and standing in the international film community will no doubt be hotly debated. The Berlinale was among the many institutions, companies and personalities to offer their public support to Polanski following his Sept. 26 arrest in Zurich. The fest issued a statement protesting what it called "the arbitrary treatment of one of the world's most outstanding film directors" and demanded his "immediate release." While Berlinale topper Kosslick is careful not to comment directly on the case, he does offer his assessment of the director's arrest, which he says was the basis for the Berlinale's original statement. "It's really bizarre when someone has had a house in the Swiss Alps for years and then, when he's on his way to Zurich he's suddenly told, 'We've been looking for you for 20 years. Come with us!' "For us the main issue surrounding Roman Polanski is that we have a very good film with great actors. A very explosive film, a very current film and a very big film." Kosslick adds that "the Berlinale has had a long relationship with Polanski -- long before I was here." As part of the fest's 60th anniversary celebration, the helmer's psychosexual thriller "Repulsion," which won a Silver Bear at the Berlinale in 1965, unspools in this year's Retrospective sidebar. Since taking the reins at the Berlinale in 2001, Kosslick has walked a fine line between Hollywood and the rest of the world. He has championed cinema from regions long ignored on the international stage and even helped to bolster film industries in new and emerging territories, from Latin America and the Middle East to Africa and Central and Southeast Asia. Not surprisingly, Kosslick has never been able to please everyone and has often drawn the scorn of critics who complain that the fest has become too focused on commercially challenged world cinema at the expense of the high-profile films that once characterized Germany's high-profile showcase. Kosslick admits that the Berlinale has broadened its scope under his watch -- a move he defends by stressing that the Berlinale is "an international film festival." In selecting an international lineup, Kosslick says there is much from which to choose. "As an A-level film festival, we are committed to presenting world cinema. We have 20 slots for that, and in these 20 slots we have to represent filmmaking from as many countries as possible," he says. "Last year the Berlinale was visited by people from 134 countries; there are only 194! That's a lot of countries that are represented here in some way. The demands out there are huge, so I can't just show four French, four Spanish, four Italian, four German and the rest American films. That's impossible. Then we are no longer a world film festival." Regardless of the festival's direction, there will always be discontent among some, Kosslick says. "This criticism has existed for ages, but it used to be exactly the contrary -- that there were far too many Hollywood films and that world cinema was underrepresented here." "Everyone loves big films, also festival directors, otherwise we wouldn't have 'Shutter Island' and 'The Ghost Writer' and other big films this year," notes the fest topper. At the same time, Kosslick makes it clear that international film festivals are not just marketing tools for Tinseltown. "The Berlinale does not have to become part of the global film financing machinery; those things already exist." The size of the Berlinale has also come under fire. In addition to the main competition, the fest offers Forum, Panorama, Generations, Perspektive Deutsches Kino, Culinary Cinema and Generations, among other sidebars. "We have 10 sections -- that's gigantic and diverse," says Kosslick, who dismisses criticism that the festival has grown too large and unwieldy. "There is only one indicator whether it's too much or not, and that's not the film critic. For critics, if they can't see it all, then it's too much. We can't use them as indicators. The real indicator is the public. As long as we're sold out, it's difficult to say that we are doing too much." Indeed, the Berlinale's success with the public remains unabated. Last year it sold nearly 275,000 admissions, making it the festival with the largest audience in the world. "For a cultural event, that's a real sensation. If that's not a great promotional campaign for cinema, I don't know what is. Promoting cinema is part of our mission, and all kinds of cinema, not just one."
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Post by Ace on Feb 8, 2010 17:01:56 GMT -5
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Post by Ace on Feb 8, 2010 21:55:54 GMT -5
www.cinematical.com/2010/02/08/pierce-brosnan-on-polanski-percy-and-r-patz/Interview: Pierce Brosnan on Polanski, Percy, and R-Patzby Jenni Miller Feb 8th 2010 February is about to get really interesting for Pierce Brosnan. A mere week after his debut as a self-proclaimed "horse's ass" (aka Chiron) in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief on February 12, a much smaller and much more controversial thriller he's in will be hitting art house screens in New York and Los Angeles. Brosnan is one of the heavy-hitting stars in Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer, the movie Polanski was doing post-production on when he was arrested in Switzerland on an outstanding warrant from 1978, when he fled the US before being sentenced for having sex with a minor. (Polanski finished the film while under house arrest.) Pierce Brosnan, who plays ex-Prime Minister Adam Lang, is part of an impressive ensemble; Olivia Williams is Lang's intensely intelligent wife Ruth, while Ewan McGregor is the titular writer who reluctantly signs on to help Lang with his memoirs after the first writer turns up dead. Brosnan spoke to Cinematical about working with the legendary figure on The Ghost Writer, as well as Percy Jackson, dealing with Robert Pattinson's screaming fans on the set of Remember Me, and much more. Cinematical: How did you get involved with The Ghost Writer?Pierce Brosnan: Well, I was in London, I think wrapping up Mamma Mia! or doing something like that on that movie. My agent said, "Roman Polanski would like to meet you. He's doing a movie." And I said, "Great!" And I hopped on the train over to Paris. I was with my son who's 26, Sean, and my mother, and I said, "Do you want to come to Paris for the weekend?" And that's how it happened. I got over there on a Saturday morning, my son and my mother went off 'round the city, and he and I sat and had the most long, long, long lunch and we talked briefly about the movie and established that I wasn't doing Tony Blair, and once we established that, then we talked about everything else but the movie. Wow, what's it like to be a fly on the wall during a lunch like that?PB: We talked about life, we talked about our losses in life. We talked a little bit about Sharon [Tate], and the deep loss and the deep pain that he still... It was a very kind of man-to-man talk. [We talked] about children. We talked about movies, making movies, the economy of movies; country, travel, food. It was very delightful – most, most charming. I did go home on the train and I thought, "God, maybe he might not want me for the job! [laughs] Maybe he might change his mind!" A director told me when I was starting out, he said, "You're always going to have to test for someone." So no matter whether you've got an Oscar or two Oscars in your back pocket, there's gonna be someone, sometime that you just have to test for. But anyway, we got on very well, and then I didn't see him until my first day on the set in Berlin. I was under the impression that in the book, your character Adam Lang was supposed to be a thinly veiled version of Tony Blair. I thought yours had a twist of George W. Bush in there as well.*******SPOILER********SPOILER********SPOILERPB: Well, I certainly didn't go to Bush within it; I kept front and foremost Tony Blair and [David] Cameron and those people, and the rest was just me and my imagination – what if I were a Prime Minister and first and foremost, the great pretender, the great [performer]? And the vortex and the crisis that this man is in at this point in his life and the sham of his life and his leadership – that's what intrigued me. Once I was off the hook, and I realized that I wasn't going to be doing a Tony Blair impersonation or trying to be like Tony Blair – Michael Sheen had already done that – you know, I just had great fun with it. There was a real sense of irony to the character, and there was humor, and I'd like to think there was some heart to the man, and that his life was a bit of a sham, really, and he knows it and he knows that he's absolutely hamstrung without his wife, and to... have so little to really fight for, that's what kind of I tried to bring to the work... Once the camera starts rolling, the performance starts pouring out of him -- the populist [who] wanted to be charming, wanted to be loved and to be witty, but absolutely has no f*ckin' idea how to run a country. Absolutely none whatsoever. A total puppet. A total puppet. *******END SPOILER******** END SPOILER********END SPOILERWhat's interesting is that it's a very timely movie politically but it has an old Hollywood drama and moodiness to it from the very first shot. Did you feel that tension on set? Everything was very gloomy, and everything was very dramatic.PB: Well, you know, Roman comes with a lot of legend, and baggage with legend written all over it – as a filmmaker, as a man, as a controversial figure in life. And it was fairly palpable on the set... We wanted bad weather, we got bad weather. The style of filmmaking is a throwback – in style, in composition, in pacing -- to the '70s, maybe. He hasn't made a thriller – he's never made a political thriller – so here he is doing his first political thriller, and getting away with it beautifully. And it's evident up on the screen. It's very elegant and claustrophobic and tight. There's no wriggle room for the characters or for the audience, really. The set was a very happy one, but Roman is Roman, and he is the director, capital letters. He knows what he wants and how he wants it, and he's a great actor. In his world, he's a great actor, and he knows how to act, he knows how to put on a performance, and he does. But he was very happy, I think, in making the movie, and nothing was really discussed on a day-to-day basis. You know, it was very workmanlike. What was your reaction when you heard about Polanski's arrest? Were you concerned that the movie would never see the light of day?PB: No, I wasn't, actually. I wasn't concerned for that. I was concerned for him, as a man and as someone who had become a friend. And, you know, I hoped for closure, I still hope for closure for him and for all parties concerned. I think what happened back then was wrong in every way, and I think he certainly would like to have closure. And again, I never had discussions with him, but it's certainly adds a controversial spotlight to the movie. Do you think people will be able to see The Ghost Writer on its own terms, despite how they might feel about Mr. Polanski?PB: I don't know. It's not an easy question to answer, really. I can't tell what other people will react [to]. He is heralded in Europe as a magnificent director and very much appreciated here in America within the community of filmmakers as a fantastic, magnificent director. You know, but the media will certainly wring this for every ounce of blood that's in the story because it's very controversial. So I don't know how [people] will react. All I know is I came to this to work with one of the great directors of cinema. To shift gears a bit, speaking of media-centric figures, you're in Remember Me with Robert Pattinson, which must have been totally bizarre to try and film in New York City.PB: [laughs] It was. Well, I've seen it. I've never encountered such attention in my career. I mean, I certainly had it but on a day-to-day basis, this young man certainly acquitted himself very well. And I think he was just completely blindsided by everything. And here he was doing a drama, which he's executive producer on, and he had a heavy workload every day, and it's a hard one to be wrenched out of every time you step out of our trailer. Especially in New York.PB: And there's nowhere to hide. There's nowhere to run. You know, you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't... You have to go to emotional places where you really need to [put your] head down and [look] straight ahead... It's a very dramatic movie, and it's a beautiful movie. It's a love story. I play his father. What can I say about it? I'm very proud of that. And, of course, you've also got Percy Jackson coming up. It's great how you go between these very different roles.PB: Well, I don't know. I was taught and trained and was told and learned to believe that I could do anything so I'm endeavoring to do that, having done the same thing most of my life, and I'm finally becoming a character actor, I hope. Going back to what I did in my early days before I became whatever I became. I don't know. It's just lovely right now to have the freedom to do anything, and I've said to my agent, I said, "Find the most interesting roles." I said, "They don't have to be leading roles, I don't need that. My ego is quite happy. Just the best, most interesting work that will captivate me and keep me alive and [keep my] career going." You want to be able to have as many colors on the palate as possible, and some will be purer than others, but Percy Jackson was a great joy [and] to be reunited with Chris Columbus, who I'd worked with on Mrs. Doubtfire all those years ago, was magnificent. A real joy. Sounds like it could give Harry Potter a run for his money.PB: Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's darker than Potter, and it's scary, but I saw it with my wife and children. They put a private viewing on for us at Fox the other day, and it really is a beautiful film. And Logan Lerman and Alexandra [Daddario] and Brandon [Jackson] – you know, off to the races with being movie stars! They're all three of them are fantastic. You're probably tired of hearing about this, but what is the latest on The Thomas Crown Affair 2?PB: Well, oh dear. Well, again, the studio is in such disarray at the moment. We're not sure who's going to buy it. I think someone's bought it. We have the script in; I think this is about the fourth draft. We're all very happy with it, but it still needs work. So there you go. I would like to say that come the autumn we will be ready to start shooting... There's a few other things before that, other pictures I'm signed up to do, so I still have employment... [There's] The Ghost Writer, Percy Jackson, The Greatest. The Greatest is a movie I made with Irish DreamTime [production company] and it has Susan Sarandon and Carey Mulligan. It's a family drama... I play a horse's ass, an ex-Prime Minister, and two grieving fathers. That's a fantastic cast. Carey Mulligan is wonderful.PB: Carey Mulligan is impeccable. She's quite the artist and quite the actor. She's beautiful in this film of ours, and it packs an emotional punch. We sold it at Sundance two years ago, and then the company fell apart that bought it, and then it got picked up again and it's coming out here in April. It'll have a life. It will be seen... Oh, it's a lovely family film, and I think for people who have suffered the tragedy of losing a son or a daughter, I think it will have some cathartic resonance for them and I'm very proud of it. So to wrap things up and come full circle, what's your favorite Polanski movie?PB: Chinatown. Rosemary's Baby. Knife in the Water I'd never seen until I started working with Roman, and it just blew me away. It just blew me away, that film, and anyone who's a lover of films, they must see that film by that young man all those years ago.
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Post by Ace on Feb 9, 2010 2:55:05 GMT -5
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Paola
Adventurer
Posts: 87
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Post by Paola on Feb 9, 2010 4:33:14 GMT -5
Great clip! Thanks ACE. But there is a slight problem with the first link, it points to Ghost.Writer.Clip.mpg too and not to Craig.Ferguson.Pierce.Brosnan.2.8.10.wmv could you please fix it, I'm looking forward to see it ... Thanks Ace, you did it!
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Post by Ace on Feb 10, 2010 11:27:06 GMT -5
news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/polanski-hailed-as-maestro-by-brosnan-mcgregor-20100211-nsoz.htmlPolanski hailed as 'maestro' by Brosnan, McGregor February 11, 2010 - 3:14AM Roman Polanski, whose latest fiction "The Ghost Writer" partly mirrors his own real-life detention drama, is no less than a maestro, the movie's stars, Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor, said Wednesday. "His energy is ferocious, he rules the set, keeps everyone on their toes," said former James Bond actor Brosnan at a news conference. "He has an alchemy with the camera ... He's a taskmaster. You have to know your onions." Based on British writer Robert Harris' bestseller "The Ghost", the film gets its world premiere at the Berlin film festival on Friday with Brosnan, McGregor and Harris on hand, but no Polanski. Completed by the director while under house arrest at his Swiss chalet over a 1977 case of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old, the film sees McGregor finding skeletons in the closet of a former British prime minister modelled on Tony Blair (Brosnan). In the film, the politician becomes trapped in the US to avoid arrest in another country when his past resurfaces -- a situation close to Polanski's, who may have to wait months for a final decision on whether to extradite him. Neither Brosnan nor McGregor would respond to questions on Polanski's house arrest, and Harris said: "I never discussed it with him. It was never relevant." Instead, the stars of the political thriller hailed the director as a genius, with Brosnan saying he was "absolutely enthralled and excited to work with this man" and McGregor saying "he's held in high esteem because he's an extraordinary director." "He has a command over the whole set I've never seen before. He is like a maestro, he pushes the cast and crew hard" said McGregor. "We shot 22 hours straight and he's like 76." Though the spotlight in the last weeks has been firmly focused on Blair's role in the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Brosnan said the director had told him not to play Blair. "I didn't have to imitate him, which gave me lots of liberty." Irish-born Brosnan said he became a US citizen during "the atrocity of the Bush years" to help his American wife and children "endure the hypocrisy and stupidity of the man's power." His character in the movie, he added, is a populist who doesn't even read the papers he signs. "It's hard to pin your hopes and heart on these world leaders." McGregor said he was almost entirely uninterested in politicians after losing all respect for them when he was young over corruption cases or "caught with their pants down" in brothels. © 2010 AFP
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Post by Andrea on Feb 10, 2010 14:31:39 GMT -5
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Post by Ace on Feb 10, 2010 14:49:22 GMT -5
www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/world/news/e3i0040e099982664b6286582f829585cd1Team Polanski lifts 'Ghost' over finish line Director, under house arrest, won't see film's Berlin premiere By Scott Roxborough Feb 10, 2010, 02:08 PM ET BERLIN -- Roman Polanski won't be walking the red carpet at the Berlin International Film Festival when "The Ghost Writer" has its world premiere here Friday, but the director and his competition title are still the hottest ticket in town. While tabloid coverage is certain to focus on Polanski's arrest in Switzerland in September and his ongoing extradition trial on a decades-old sex charge, the story of how the director and his team finished "The Ghost Writer" is a tale almost as gripping, if less sensational. Polanski decided to adapt Robert Harris' political thriller in 2007. Production on "Pompeii" -- a big-budget feature based on an earlier Harris novel -- had just shut down amid fears of a U.S. actors' strike. Harris had been flying back and forth between Paris -- where he worked on the "Pompeii" script with Polanski -- and London, where he was finishing "The Ghost Writer." "When the 'Pompeii' project fell through, I sent a copy of the (unpublished) 'Ghost Writer' manuscript to Roman," Harris recalls. "I said 'why don't we do this project? There's no volcanoes, but it's good.' I meant it as a sort of joke. A few days later, he called and said, 'OK, let's make it.' " In the book, a ghostwriter, brought in to write the memoirs of a former British prime minister, discovers a global conspiracy that puts his life in danger. "Roman called me and said, 'We've found our 'Frantic,' " said Robert Benmussa, Polanski's longtime producing partner, referring to Polanski's 1988 thriller starring Harrison Ford. "After doing two big period films with 'Oliver Twist' and 'The Pianist,' he wanted to do a real thriller, return to his origins." Producers Benmussa, Alain Sarde and Polanski quickly set up the project, deciding to shoot at Studio Babelsberg, where they had made "The Pianist," and have the northern German island of Sylt double for Martha's Vineyard, where the bulk of the film's action takes place. "Financing the production was not so easy because we got the whole budget, €32 million ($45 million), out of Europe," Benmussa said. "It was tight but we succeeded." Despite some annoyingly pleasant winter in Sylt that didn't match the script's oppressive setting, the shoot went like clockwork. Starting in February 2009, the production had wrapped by May and went into post -- mainly in Paris and Polanski's chalet in Switzerland. He delivered the first rough cut by the end of August. Then, late September, Polanski was arrested in Zurich. "When I heard, I wasn't worried about my movie, I was worried about my friend," Benmussa said. "I knew the film would be delivered." Despite his incarceration, Polanski continued to work on "The Ghost Writer." Benmussa kept him informed of the details of the post-production through courier packages sent via Polanski's lawyer, to the director's jail cell. "He is a director who is involved in everything on a film," Benmussa said. "He received DVDs of the film as it was being finished. He had all the information and was able to give instructions." Alexandre Desplat, who wrote the soundtrack for the film, had to record his music while Polanski was in jail. "I couldn't speak with him but he always works with the same team -- the same producer, same music editor, the same mixer," Desplat said. "They have been so close to him for so many years, they know what he wants. ... In his absence, I think the crew became even closer, even stronger. We really wanted to show him and the world that we could deliver a fantastic film." When Polanski was released on house arrest to his Swiss chalet, he continued working, putting the last touches on film and approving the final cut. While "The Ghost Writer's" official world premiere is in Berlin on Friday, word on the film has already begun leaking out following pre-release screenings in London and L.A. Industry execs who have seen it are calling it a slick, well-paced thriller and a return to form for Polanski. "Of course it is a very unforeseen and distressing situation to offer a film to the public without its director," said Robert Harris, commenting on the Berlinale premiere of "The Ghost Writer." "This is a Polanski film and showing it without him is a bit like having Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. But in a way, it is the best riposte to just show his work. That cannot be confined or silenced. I hope people will see beyond the controversy to the film itself."
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Post by Ace on Feb 11, 2010 11:29:12 GMT -5
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Post by SecondWind on Feb 12, 2010 10:06:24 GMT -5
Berlin calling... We just saw Pierce before and after the Ghostwriter Press Conference 2 hours ago! ;D ;D ;D He was looking really handsome and he wore the nice hat from Married life. We couldn't get an autograph, but when he left he waved at us and then said sorry from the car, because they were running late. 2 p.m. is just to late for lunch We got tickets for the premiere tonight and hope to catch another glimpse of him there. Can't wait to see the movie! ;D Here are some pics: www.morgenpost.de/kultur/berlinale/article1256416/Berlinale-Tag-2.htmlCan't believe how close we were. I'm the tiny one with the striped cap on the left of pic 1
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Post by Ace on Feb 12, 2010 12:23:49 GMT -5
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Post by Ace on Feb 12, 2010 12:25:43 GMT -5
Also the UK finally has a release date of April 16. They also keep the title as THE GHOST, have their slightly different cut of the trailer and their own unique poster www.filmshaft.com/the-ghost-uk-trailer/
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Post by Ace on Feb 12, 2010 12:44:38 GMT -5
NY TIMES www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/movies/14polanski.html?hpPolanski’s Visions of Victimhood By DENNIS LIM THE GHOST WRITER,” the 18th feature by Roman Polanski, opens this week, and, not for the first time in Mr. Polanski’s career, the movie itself is likely to be overshadowed by the man who made it. Critics and viewers have long been tempted to link Mr. Polanski’s work to his life — to view one through the prism of the other — not least because the life has been so public and so uncommonly eventful. “There’s nothing about human nature that would surprise him,” the novelist Robert Harris, a co-writer of “The Ghost Writer,” said recently. “He’s a sort of walking microcosm of history.” As Mr. Harris suggests, Mr. Polanski’s biography could double as a summary of the 20th century. Born in 1933, he spent part of his boyhood scrambling to stay alive in the Krakow ghetto. He was reunited with his father after the war, but his mother died at Auschwitz. A precocious actor and street performer, he started plotting his escape from Communist Poland at a young age. His award-winning early films were his ticket out, and he arrived in London on the eve of the Swinging ’60s. He made it to the United States in time for the summer of love, only to become a tragic symbol of the end of the ’60s, when his pregnant wife, the actress Sharon Tate, and four other people were slaughtered by followers of Charles Manson. The counterculture hangover continued; one might even say it never went away. In 1977 Mr. Polanski pleaded guilty to “unlawful sexual intercourse” with a 13-year-old girl. Last September, more than 31 years after he fled Los Angeles to escape sentencing, he was arrested in Zurich by Swiss authorities pending possible extradition to the United States. While Mr. Polanski’s films are generally not self-revealing in any literal sense, he invites psychobiographical criticism because he has been, for almost his entire career, that relatively rare entity: a celebrity director. His persona is so much a part of the public imagination that it looms even over a movie as devoid of autobiographical echoes as “The Ghost Writer,” which had its premiere Friday at the Berlin International Film Festival and opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday. His filmography amounts to its own microcosm, cutting a swath through a half-century’s worth of cinematic trends. He came to prominence as part of the European art cinema of the ’60s: “Knife in the Water” (1962), his poised first feature about the triangle among a married couple and a young hitchhiker, earned an Oscar nomination for best foreign-language film. In America he directed “Chinatown,” one of the crowning achievements of Hollywood’s most recent golden age. He has a taste for potboiling Grand Guignol (“The Ninth Gate”) but won an Oscar for his most restrained film, the Holocaust drama “The Pianist” (2002). A terminal outsider — “a fugitive all my life,” as he once put it — he has navigated the tricky logistics of international co-productions, especially since his banishment from Hollywood, making films that are often defined by displacement and rootlessness (“Frantic,” “Bitter Moon”). Journalists and biographers reflexively scour Mr. Polanski’s life for clues to his art and vice versa. His “violent life and times,” Barbara Leaming argued in “Polanski: The Filmmaker as Voyeur” (1981), “form the subtext of his cinema.” Mr. Polanski is, to say the least, dismissive of this interpretive tack. In 2003 one question too many from Premiere magazine led him to cut short the interview: “Whatever happens to you changes the result of your work. Even sometimes trivial things. Now I must stop. I’ve had it.” With a new film — and new circumstances in his life — the game of connect the dots continues. Based on “The Ghost,” a best-selling 2007 novel by Mr. Harris, “The Ghost Writer” unfolds from the point of view of a ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) hired to whip into shape the memoir of a former British prime minister (Pierce Brosnan), a Tony Blair-like American ally under investigation for war crimes. Watching this twisty thriller — which for long stretches finds Mr. McGregor’s character sequestered in a Martha’s Vineyard beach house in the dead of winter, another one of Mr. Polanski’s secluded heroes in another one of his restricted locations — it is hard not to note that the film was completed by its director while confined to his own chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland. (He has been under house arrest since December.) It’s also tempting to observe that Mr. Polanski used a ghostwriter (the journalist Edward Behr) for his 1984 autobiography, “Roman by Polanski.” “The Ghost Writer” is Mr. Polanski’s first post-exile film to be largely — and pointedly — set in the United States. Since he has not set foot on American soil in more than three decades, those dune-edged beaches are not, as we’re supposed to believe, in Massachusetts. Exteriors were shot on the German coast; the palatial vacation home was built on a Berlin soundstage. But there is another way to see Mr. Polanski in his films, and that is through his authorial presence. More than half of his features are adapted from existing texts, but much of his work retains a striking unity of theme and mood. “His personality infiltrated it inevitably,” Mr. Harris said of the script for “The Ghost Writer,” which he wrote with Mr. Polanski. The film gives us a quintessentially Polanskian me-against-the-world setup, in which an isolated protagonist succumbs to increasing paranoia. In Mr. Polanski’s movies paranoia can be a symptom of madness (“Repulsion”) or the only proof of sanity in a crazy world (“Rosemary’s Baby”). Sometimes it appears to be both, as in “The Tenant” (1976). In that film, both a black comedy about French xenophobia and a split-identity psychodrama, Mr. Polanski plays the title character, a Pole who rents an apartment in Paris and comes to suspect that his neighbors are conspiring to turn him into its previous resident, a woman who threw herself out of her window. Mr. McGregor’s unnamed character in “The Ghost Writer” is also haunted by his dead predecessor: the writer he’s replacing drowned under mysterious circumstances. Mr. Polanski’s obsessions seem to have emerged fully formed. The series of short films he made in the late ’50s and early ’60s map out his universe in embryo. His first student film, “Murder,” stages in just over a minute a fatal stabbing by penknife: a killing without motive or context, rendered with startling detail and economy. Films like “Teeth Smile,” “Break Up the Dance” and “The Fat and the Lean” hint at the mind games and power plays to come. From the start Mr. Polanski was a distinctive filmmaker with a penchant for extreme situations. The aura of violence and perversity that surrounded the films suited an enfant terrible who enjoyed notoriety. But the murder of his wife, besides shattering Mr. Polanski’s life, turned this convenient master narrative into a sick joke. Describing the carnage at his rented Benedict Canyon home, the Satan worship of “Rosemary’s Baby” fresh in their minds, journalists could not refrain from comparing it to a movie — specifically a Roman Polanski movie. “It was a scene as grisly as anything depicted in Polanski’s film explorations of the dark and melancholy corners of the human character,” Time magazine declared. Roger Gunson, the prosecutor assigned to the statutory rape case, prepared for the trial that never happened by taking in a retrospective of his films. “Every Roman Polanski movie has a theme: corruption meeting innocence over water,” he says in Marina Zenovich’s 2008 documentary “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” noting that Mr. Polanski had seduced his under-age quarry in a Jacuzzi. As glib as such connections can seem, they are not always unfounded. Especially in times of distress Mr. Polanski has been drawn to material that might seem personally difficult. His first film after Ms. Tate’s death was an adaptation of “Macbeth” (1971), a blood-soaked tragedy that had many viewers fixating on the scene in which Macduff learns of the massacre of his family. Pauline Kael spoke for many critics when she wrote, “One sees the Manson murders in this ‘Macbeth’ because the director put them there.” After leaving the United States, Mr. Polanski again turned his attention to a classic that suggested parallels with real-life circumstances. The young heroine of “Tess,” his adaptation of Hardy’s “Tess of the d’Urbervilles,” is raped and cast out of society; the film starred the teenage Nastassja Kinski, who had reportedly been involved with Mr. Polanski since she was 15. Despite the provocative casting, some critics saw the film as an apology — Tess does avenge herself — and the sexual violence is shot with conspicuous, fog-shrouded discretion, in contrast to the lurid rape at the center of “Rosemary’s Baby.” The central ambiguity of “Tess” — is the director identifying with Tess or her rapist or both? — gets at the complex notion of victimhood that runs through Mr. Polanski’s cinema, and through aspects of his biography, from Holocaust survivor to grief-stricken widower to accused rapist. There are plenty of victims and victimizers in his movies, but also plenty of victims turned victimizers: Tess, Catherine Deneuve’s character in “Repulsion” and Sigourney Weaver’s in “Death and the Maiden.” Mr. Polanski’s psychobiographers might do well to keep in mind a recurring tenet of his movies: Things are not always as they seem. Many have described the confined spaces in his films — the apartments, boats, castles and islands that offer no escape — as the visions of a man who spent his childhood in the walled-in ghetto of Krakow. Mr. Polanski has a more benign explanation. In a 2001 interview with the BBC he talked about his early love for Laurence Olivier’s claustrophobic 1948 film “Hamlet,” connecting it to the intimacy of a Vermeer: “I liked films which made you feel you are actually inside an interior, feeling virtually the fourth wall behind you, like in Dutch paintings.” It is in keeping with the unpredictable turns of Mr. Polanski’s life that his current unhappy chapter should come after “The Pianist,” a stately late-career triumph that many considered a culminating work. More than a quarter century ago he wrote in “Roman by Polanski,” “I am widely regarded, I know, as an evil, profligate dwarf.” That caricature had faded away over the years, along with the stories of his brutal on-set perfectionism, replaced by a picture of a marginalized but respected industry elder whom journalists and collaborators have described as reticent and not especially prone to introspection. (He has been married for more than 20 years to the French actress Emmanuelle Seigner, with whom he has two children.) Ronald Harwood, who won an Oscar for his screenplay of “The Pianist,” has been in regular contact with Mr. Polanski by telephone these past few months. “I ask him how he is, and he says he’s fine,” Mr. Harwood said. “But I don’t know how he is. No one really does.”
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Post by Ace on Feb 12, 2010 12:51:42 GMT -5
www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ib5173b54f64bf8d2b07e979fdedd474fPolanski's spirit hovers over 'Ghost' debut Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan discuss the director By Scott Roxborough Feb 12, 2010, 12:02 PM ET Team Polanski lifts 'Ghost' over finish line BERLIN -- Roman Polanski was the ghost at the Berlin news conference Friday after the world premiere of his new film. Under house arrest at his chalet in Switzerland and facing possible extradition to the U.S. on a decades-old charge of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old, Polanski couldn't make it to the Berlin competition premiere of "The Ghost Writer." But his presence in the room was almost palpable. "That Roman Polanksi is not at the center of this podium, is something that is very strange for all of us," said the film's producer, Robert Benmussa. Rumors that Polanski would send a video message to the festival proved unfounded. Instead, the cast of the film and Robert Harris, who wrote both the novel and screenplay to "The Ghost Writer," took turns praising the director's intensity and professionalism. "He is an intense director who has lived a very intense life," said Pierce Brosnan, who plays a former British prime minister, clearly modeled on Tony Blair, who is accused of war crimes. "The red light was on every day on the set. We all knew we had to be on the top of our game for this great man." Ewan McGregor, who in the film plays a man hired to ghostwrite the prime minister's memoirs, even went so far as to say his performance in the film was "50% Polanski and 50% me." Despite the controversy surrounding the Polanski case, there was no replay in Berlin of the media circus seen after his arrest. At the news conference, most were happy to talk about the film, a tight political thriller that was strongly applauded after its press screening. Harris commented on the almost serendipitous release of "The Ghost Writer" just as pressure is growing to put the real Tony Blair on trial for war crimes. "I wrote the book two years, ago and it seems as if history is now playing out just as I had imagined it," Harris said.
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Post by Ace on Feb 12, 2010 13:24:41 GMT -5
blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/02/12/berlin-international-film-festival-2010-the-ghost-writer-premieres-polanski-less/Wall Street Journal: Berlin International Film Festival 2010: “The Ghost Writer” Premieres, Polanski-Less By Hannah Tucker February 12, 2010 In choosing the understated Chinese drama “Tuan Yuan” as its opening film, the Berlin International Film Festival seemed to purposely downplay Hollywood star power. (Last year, in contrast, the fest opened with “The International,” starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts.) But if de-emphasizing glitz was the Berlinale’s intention, that lasted a little less than 24 hours. The drama “The Ghost Writer” had its world premiere just hours ago, and to call it ‘understated’ would be, well, an understatement. With stars Pierce Brosnan, Ewan McGregor and the name of director Roman Polanski, if not the man himself, drawing a huge crowd, dozens of reporters were unable to even gain entrance to the over-attended panel and left to roam the halls of the press center. Roman Polanski’s Hitchcockian political thriller played at the Berlinale Palast, a multi-level theatre that had every one of its plush red seats filled this afternoon. In the film. a ghost writer (played by McGregor) is hired to complete the memoirs of the former British Prime Minister Adam Lang ( Brosnan) after the previous ghost scribe dies under strange circumstances. The mystery deepens when Lang is accused of war crimes, and McGregor starts to figure out that his predecessor knew more than his mediocre first draft immediately reveals. It becomes clear that the film is full of ghosts: McGregor’s character is nameless, his predecessor faceless, and the ex-Prime Minister haunts the unfolding story via his presence on television. The premiere of the film was, well, if not haunted, then at least shadowed by Polanski himself, who remains under house arrest in Switzerland. Audiences also seemed aligned to Polanski’s politics, cheering and applauding whenever the film took a jab at the United States — particularly a scene where Lang’s lawyer tells him he’s safe on American soil because the U.S doesn’t recognize the authority of the International Court of Justice and won’t care that he’s accused of war crimes. Brosnan, McGregor, Olivia Williams and Robert Harris were on hand to discuss to discuss all of this. Harris, upon whose 2007 novel the film is based, said he initially approached Polanski with the idea when the two were collaborating on “Pompeii” (also a Harris novel). After explaining the gist of “The Ghost Writer”, Polanski declared, “That’s a very boring idea.” But “Pompeii” shut down, and Polanski changed his mind. Polanski, said Harris, was intent on making a “‘Chinatown’-like movie where the plot gradually unfolds.” And while Harris’ novel was very current politically– terrorism and waterboarding and illegal wars are in the foreground– the movie’s plot is practically ripped from tomorrow’s headlines. “Events seem to have conspired almost daily to make the move seem like a documentary,” Harris said. Polanski, known for being a perfectionist, was in good form on the set of “The Ghost Writer.” “He’ll stop the camera and go, No! No! No!,” said Olivia Williams, who plays Lang’s wife. But colleague McGregor, who apparently does a spot-on impression of the director, had prepared her by imitating the occasional outbursts. For his part, McGregor said he stopped taking Polanski’s rather blunt direction personally when he saw the director grab a drill out of a prop guy’s hand and tell the man he was drilling wrong. But, said McGregor, Polanski’s less-than-understated style has only the best intentions: “He’s like your mother– annoyingly, usually right.”
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Paola
Adventurer
Posts: 87
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Post by Paola on Feb 12, 2010 14:47:37 GMT -5
Here we are, the first interview found in Internet:
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Post by Ace on Feb 12, 2010 16:04:35 GMT -5
Part article/part review www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-polanski14-2010feb14,0,4861252.story 'Ghost Writer's' real-life parallels haunt the movie and director Roman PolanskiSimilarities to former Prime Minister Tony Blair and the lead character in the upcoming film are unmistakable, as are the character's legal troubles and Polanski's.Roman Polanski By Reed Johnson February 14, 2010 As Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor describe it, there was no need for the cast of Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer" to have long, philosophical discussions about the movie's creepy real-life parallels. It wasn't necessary, for example, to dissect Brosnan's character, a hazily sinister British ex-prime minister who's a dead ringer for Tony Blair, or to over-analyze his seething, neurotic wife, played by Olivia Williams as a cross between Cherie Blair and Lady Macbeth. It was all pretty obvious and pretty amusing. Nor did the film's director have to belabor the eerie prescience of Robert Harris' novel, the movie's source material, in forecasting the ugly political fallout from the Iraq war torture scandals. Of course, it did help that the director is a well-known connoisseur of grim ironies and bizarre happenstance, even when it occurs at his own expense. This septuagenarian French-Polish auteur, according to his actors, on set fully lived up to his reputation as an obsessive craftsman, a master architect of paranoid dreamscapes, and a benevolent control freak who repays his colleagues' allegiance and hard labor by helping them attain their best. "I'm working with Polanski, I've seen everything the man's done, I know the dark controversy around his life," Brosnan recalled in a phone interview recently. "And yet he was right there. And once you know that the man works at a very high frequency, and you know that the set is his, and the camera is his, and you are his, then you have a great time." Since Polanski started directing short films in Poland, his movies often have invited (or taunted) viewers to read them partly as encrypted diary entries and partly as Kafkaesque parables about the victimization of the weak and innocent by the powerful and unprincipled (or vice versa). But none of Polanski's films has more brazenly connected this worldview to contemporary politics than "The Ghost Writer," a taut psychological drama wrapped inside a thriller with black-comic elements that opens Friday in Los Angeles. And few have been more tantalizing -- some might say "brash" -- in hinting at biographical connections between the film's story line and the checkered circumstances of the director's own life. Yet however haunted the movie is by Polanski's personal demons, the principal actors found the director to be as supportive and personable as he is notoriously demanding. "He doesn't care how long a scene is, he doesn't care how long it takes you. He pushes you to make it real," said McGregor, speaking by phone while en route to the Berlin International Film Festival, where the movie was scheduled to have its world premiere Friday. Meanwhile, Polanski, as most of the world knows, remains under house arrest in Switzerland, where he is fighting extradition to California to face sentencing after pleading guilty more than three decades ago to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. In the latest legal twist, Polanski's attorneys have said they will appeal last month's decision by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge denying his request to be sentenced in absentia. (Polanski was not available to comment for this story.) "He's a taskmaster, and he can put the fear of God into you if you're not prepared, if you don't know what you're doing as an actor," Brosnan said. "It was amazing watching him work. The camera is his alchemy chest, and the viewfinder is his kind of wand, and it's always there." The movie's premise, involving a fateful collision of politics, celebrity and media, is of a conspiratorially minded bent so severe and dramatically plausible as to make John le Carré read like "Winnie-the-Pooh." Its linchpin is the title character played by McGregor, a cynical hack and Everybloke who has landed a blockbuster contract to pen the memoirs of the controversial former P.M. Adam Lang (Brosnan). Lang, a vain, charming, born actor, is living in exile in the United States, on a remote, sublimely bleak New England island (actually shot in northern Germany) to avoid being sued in Britain for his alleged complicity in the mistreatment of prisoners in the "war on terror." (Reader, a pause is suggested here to reflect on the similar shadings of Polanski's own existence.) As Polanski turns up the flame of suspense, the ghost finds himself sucked into the vortex of the Langs' difficult marriage and global political intrigue. He also stumbles onto some unsettling signs of what really happened to his authorial predecessor, whose nasty end is depicted in the movie's opening minutes. McGregor said he immediately "got a handle" on his jaded, Fleet Street-hardened character and relished his impertinent humor. "There is mischief in him, for sure, and a lot of that comes from Polanski, because he is a mischievous chap himself," he said. The ghost and the British former first couple create a classic Polanskian dramatic triad all by themselves, locked together in their claustrophobic isolation. But they're not the only ones rattling around the Langs' swanky-spooky seaside home, which Williams describes as a "mausoleum of Modernism." The lip-smacking supporting cast includes Mr. Lang's curvaceous personal assistant ( Kim Cattrall), an enigmatic Harvard professor (Tom Wilkinson) and a mysterious neighbor played by Eli Wallach, popping up in a brief scene in his best wild-eyed mode, hissing cryptic pronouncements like a refugee from a lunatic asylum or a Harold Pinter play. As if it needed any more assistance from Tony Blair, last month "The Ghost Writer" got a mild PR boost when the ex-prime minister appeared before a British inquiry panel into the 2003 Iraq invasion, firing back at his critics and prompting angry street demonstrations -- events that the movie unnervingly foreshadows. For the actors, treading the line between the stylized theatricality of the fictional world and the troubling realities beyond the movie frame was all part of the challenge, and the fun, of making the film. The script made everything "crystal clear," in Brosnan's words, so everybody was in on the joke. Brosnan said that Polanski had given him six photos of Blair, including one that depicted the prime minister with what the actor described as a "clenched-teeth, chipmunk-style, little-boy-lost-in-the-woods, 'I didn't do it, I didn't do it' " expression. That helped Brosnan shore up his decision to play Lang as "a tragic, lost, broken man." Williams, probably best known to U.S. audiences as teacher Rosemary Cross in Wes Anderson's "Rushmore," acknowledged that her initial encounters with Polanski's directing style could be a bit nerve-racking. "He is the only person I've worked with who will stop a take and say, 'No! No! No!' It's sort of disconcerting at first," she said, laughing. Then during one scene she noticed that Polanski was sitting with his head in his hands. Uh-oh, she thought. But when she questioned him, the director told Williams that he does that whenever he's trying to remember what he saw in his mind when he envisioned the scene before filming it. Williams suggested that it was a too-rare pleasure to perform in a movie where the emotional and thematic currents are cleverly hidden in plain sight rather than announced with flashing neon. "I have a problem with a lot of modern scripts because people say what they're feeling all the time," she said. "The age of therapy has kind of killed subtext." The most prominent subtext of "The Ghost Writer" involves the possible fate of its enigmatic director, the man characterized in an HBO documentary as both "wanted and desired." Asked for her thoughts about Polanski's legal travails, Williams responded with a polite "no comment." McGregor said that he'd been "very upset" for Polanski, worried about Polanski's young children, and concerned as to whether the film would be finished. (Polanski reportedly completed the edit using DVDs brought by friends, including while he was being held in jail.) Brosnan said he and the director "spoke briefly about the loss of wives. I lost a wife, and this man lost his wife in the most barbaric fashion. He spoke tenderly and openly about the light and the love that he still carries for Sharon" [Tate]. "The only question," Brosnan said, "is why now, after all these years? Why now did they close the door and rein him in?" But not completely reined in, not yet, according to Harris, who proposed the idea of adapting "The Ghost Writer" to Polanski after a planned screen version of Harris' novel "Pompeii" fell through. Harris said that in mid-January he brought a finished copy of the "Ghost Writer" film, which Polanski hadn't seen, to the director's Swiss residence. "I took a bottle of champagne and we watched it together," Harris said. As for the latest ominous twists in the Roman Polanski saga, Harris said the director is dealing with the situation and never complains aloud. "He's tough," Harris said. "I think his view is it's not the worst thing that's happened to him." reed.johnson@latimes.com Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
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