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Post by Ace on Apr 1, 2010 16:00:14 GMT -5
Times Online: Ewan McGregor on Roman Polanski (April 2, 2010)By: Kate Muir Perched on a Louis-something chair in skinny trousers, suede boots and a dark, hairy jumper, Ewan McGregor is talking non-stop — about his new home in suburban America, his old one in authoritarian Britain, the lack of bad sex on screen, and his new role in Roman Polanski’s Ghost. He has enormous energy, speeding on caffeine — it cannot be anything else since he gave up drinking nearly ten years ago, when he realised that he was “a functioning alcoholic”. What is it about the 39-year-old McGregor that made Polanski so keen to cast him as a a ghostwriter, a nameless, rootless Everyman, in his new political thriller? Certainly, McGregor is versatile: he can do soldier, gay jailbird, junkie and glossy all-singing, all-dancing leading man. He is never typecast, and perhaps it was this cheerful malleability that Polanski wanted for The Ghost. In person he is an engaging chatterbox, still amusingly boyish, but on screen McGregor is a curiously empty vessel, and one that needs to be filled with the right material. Fill him with the wrong stuff and he looks uncomfortable, as he did in his recent performance as Jim Carrey’s boyfriend in I Love You Phillip Morris. Give him the junkie Mark Renton in his breakout film, Trainspotting, and you see genius. Indeed, the more weird and sexually dark the role, the better he appears, as he did in the Scottish existentialist drama, Young Adam. McGregor’s part is central to The Ghost and the camera is all over him like a rash: his reactions mirror those of the audience. The film is based on Robert Harris’s thriller about a very familiar British prime minister, his possible war crimes and links to the CIA. McGregor is the writer drafted in to polish the political memoir, after the first ghostwriter mysteriously disappears. “Polanski wanted me to play the part!” McGregor says, still awed. “It was such an out-of-the-blue thing. I love that about my job. I must have been shooting The Men Who Stare at Goats and I remember the call with Polanski when I was in a car park in the desert in New Mexico” Working with Polanski was like moving up from the Championship to the Premier League, and required a new level of intellectual fitness. McGregor wasn’t Obi-Wan Kenobi any more. “Polanski is really hard,” he says. “He pushes the cast hard and the crew hard. He’s really a maestro. It’s his film and he is in charge. All the time he’s forcing you to look at the truth and getting rid of all your acting. He strips all that away.” As the ghost McGregor sports a rundown suede jacket and an accent with a touch of the early Michael Caine. Why not his native Scottish tones? “Yeah, I wanted to use my own voice, because I have a problem with a standard English accent — it makes me feel posh. But they wanted English,” says McGregor, who was born in Crieff, Perthshire. McGregor’s character is thrown into a mysterious modernist house on Cape Cod, where the prime minister (Pierce Brosnan) is trapped in exile with his Cherie-like wife and aides. McGregor is the only living flesh among the politically dead and dying as he searches for the truth. Of course The Ghost is a film that cannot be viewed without extraneous events altering our perception: first, that Harris’s fiction gets closer to the truth each day as the Chilcot Inquiry lumbers on, and secondly that Polanski, like the fictional PM, is incarcerated in his villa in Switzerland, under house arrest after an accusation of unlawful sex in Los Angeles 33 years ago. For fear of extradition, Polanski filmed in Berlin and on a barren island off Denmark, although The Ghost is set in Britain and America. But by the time the promotional rounds began, the 76-year-old director had an electronic tag on his ankle. “I wish he could be here. I feel like Polanski was inside my performance, which makes it even weirder that he’s not here,” says McGregor. He says he is “very fond” of Polanski, and clearly feels that his past transgressions are best forgotten. The Ghost provides stomach-churning suspense: the melancholic island landscape and the unwelcoming house provide the claustrophobia that has always been an essential part of the director’s armoury. Polanski’s Cul-de-Sac was set on the island of Lindisfarne, and “there’s something very disturbing and unsettling about that film from start to finish. Ours is similar,” McGregor says. “Polanski has people stuck in places in his films and I wonder if it goes back to the ghetto when he was a kid. The feeling of being trapped is always there.” Directed by Danny Boyle in Trainspotting, Tim Burton in Big Fish and Baz Luhrmann in Moulin Rouge, McGregor has stared down many a lens, but Polanski’s technique had the actor backed against the wall. “He doesn’t do any of that long lens stuff for close -ups. He uses only very wide lenses so he’s here, right in your face. He says it looks more like the way we see naturally, and therefore we feel more engaged in the picture.” His worship of Polanski is clear, and he is far more enthusiastic about this movie than when I last interviewed him, for Black Hawk Down (2001). “I’ve been working my arse off, but it’s been good.” When he is not travelling, McGregor lives a relatively sober suburban life in Los Angeles with his wife, a French production designer called Eve Mavrakis, and three daughters, one of whom was adopted in Mongolia after McGregor’s Long Way Round TV motorbike odyssey in 2004. He moved permanently from Primrose Hill in North London to his 1920s clapboard house in America because he “felt lighter every time I was there”. His children could hop over the fence to play next door, more like his own Scottish childhood. “When I was 5, Carol McLaren from Primary 2 would walk me to school — and she was 6. I fancied her for years. Anyway, that kind of independence was totally the norm. Later, I’d just go off on my bike and come back at night and it was fine.” He also left London because of petty regulations and constant recognition. “I had a sense of freedom being lost, liberty disappearing. Cameras everywhere, you can’t park anywhere and you’re not allowed to hang around in a group. One day I parked in an empty motorcycle bay in Soho and when I came back I had a ticket, and I thought, ‘F**k this, I’ve got to pay to park a motorbike? Enough.’ So I left.” He’s kidding, but not entirely. There was also the speeding ticket for doing “about 73mph” on the M40 in his Prius. British politics were not part of his reason for leaving, but McGregor was increasingly amazed as Harris’s script for The Ghost seemed to be coming true, with talk of CIA “torture flights”. Of Chilcot he says: “I’m so happy that Blair had to explain himself. I think that idea that people in power don’t have to explain is wrong. But I don’t know whether it will make any difference to the world, or to people who have kids out there in the war.” He is furious that George Bush will never account for himself: “I just see him waltzing out the back door of the White House, into his helicopter, giving a wave, flying down to the golf course in Texas — all those soldiers aned civilians are dead in Iraq and he’s doing 18 holes a day.” McGregor’s next films are less political: a Steven Soderbergh thriller called Knockout and The Last Word, a love story made in Glasgow with the Young Adam director David Mackenzie. And he has just finished the low-budget Beginners, directed by Mike Mills. “I got paid less than I did for Lipstick on Your Collar,” says McGregor, referring to his television debut years ago. In Beginners Christopher Plummer plays McGregor’s dying father, who has just come out of the closet. The cast also includes the French actress Melanie Laurent, with whom McGregor was recently photographed promenading in Paris. “Melanie’s a fantastic natural actor with no sense of performance about her,” he says. “Quite a unique actress to work with.” He pauses. “And I just fell in love with Plummer. He’s a beautifully old-school leading man, but he’s also absolutely contemporary. I’d quite like to be him when I grow up.” Perhaps Polanski also employed McGregor for his well-known appetites. In The Ghost, he is trapped in close quarters with two women — Kim Cattrall, of Sex and the City fame, who plays a senior assistant, and Williams, the prime minister’s wife. Cattrall carries amusing nymphomaniac baggage from the television series. “Hmmm,” says McGregor. “I’ve seen as much of Sex and the City as the next man, which isn’t necessarily an awful lot, and I didn’t feel like that. I think the Ghost is flirty with Kim right from the word go and she’s got quite a sexual quiet confidence. In this case she was just telling him, keep it in your trousers, you’re not getting away with that with me.” McGregor is famously relaxed, even enthusiastic, about getting his kit off on camera. His courageous bed (and boat) scenes in Phillip Morris are a fine example of his varied technique, as was The Pillow Book and the grim canalside sex with Tilda Swinton in Young Adam. In The Ghost there is one of the more depressing, and hilarious, bedroom scenes filmed, when the PM’s wife virtually forces herself on the younger man. The morning after, with both characters in matching brown bathrobes, is agonising. McGregor agrees that there are not enough truly bad or just mediocre sex scenes in films. “Awwgh,” he says. “Terrible scene, isn’t it? There should be more like it. Everyone always comes together in movies, don’t they? Doesn’t happen to me very often.” The Ghost is released on April 16;
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Post by Ace on Apr 2, 2010 17:43:20 GMT -5
www.venicemag.com/news-article/olivia-williams-experiencing-the-nuances-of-polanski-s-noir/183OLIVIA WILLIAMS Experiencing the Nuances of Polanski's NoirBY SUSAN MICHALS, March 2010 www.venicemag.com/content/users/image/MARCH%202010/FEATURES/olivia%20williams/olivia%20williams%20lead.jpgOlivia Williams is undoubtedly the epitome of graciousness, but it’s clear that she’s been run a bit ragged of late when we catch up with her at home in Los Angeles, in between a whirlwind of travel. She’s just returned from Berlin, where she was promoting her latest film, The Ghost Writer, followed by a trip to London for the BAFTAs to celebrate the nominations of two of her other films, Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll and An Education (which honored Carey Mulligan with the Leading Actress award). While not nominated, Williams made quite a fashion statement at the ceremony, wearing a Catherine Walker gown that artfully left little to the imagination in regard to her flawless backside. Tomorrow she leaves Los Angeles again, this time for New York, to promote The Ghost Writer, the brilliant, suspenseful, pensive tale directed by Roman Polanski. “Polanski can’t talk about his own work, so it was important for the actors to talk about their contribution,” states the eloquent Williams, about her director and the upcoming rounds of interviews she is about to face. Talking with the British actress is something of a challenge, at least at first. Not because she’s difficult, because she’s not, but because she’s so smart and engaging, you can only hope to keep up with her. With no makeup and admittedly exhausted from her travels, she looks quite exquisite, like one of John Singer Sargent’s painterly creations. An actress for nearly twenty years, Williams got her big break when Kevin Costner handpicked her to co-star with him in The Postman. Subsequently, she found herself stuck between two men vying for her affections (Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore), the wife of a man who thinks he’s still alive (Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense), and now as Ruth, the unsettled, frustrated wife of a former Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan in The Ghost Writer). The film is a suspenseful tale shuttered in the bleak environs of an East Coast island in the dead of winter. Obviously influenced by Hitchcock, Polanski allows his tale to breathe and reveal itself slowly, with great trepidation and calculated hidden agendas. Ewan McGregor plays The Ghost, an author hired to ghostwrite the memoirs of the aforementioned former Prime Minister, Adam Lang (Brosnan). Fortunately for him, or maybe it is unfortunately, the last ghost writer traveled to the great beyond, though how he got there is unclear. So The Ghost finds himself trapped in this monstrous shell of a home with a small but motley crew: Lang, his wife Ruth, secretary Amelia (Kim Cattrall), and a few very quiet servants. Despite the fact the previously written memoirs are a mess and need to be rewritten pronto, The Ghost realizes quickly that his subject is not exactly the most forthcoming of men. The Ghost Writer is nothing if not subtle, but therein lies the most masterful of intricacies. Upon viewing, you realize the film is very much like a difficult puzzle — you analyze it, do your best, and walk away. Eventually, when you revisit it, sometimes everything falls into place, and you wonder how you didn’t see it before. Williams was kind enough to sit down with us before hopping another plane, to talk about Bikram Yoga, her Jane Austen experience, and her amazing, and controversial director, Roman Polanski. Venice: I’ve read that you’re a big fan of Bikram Yoga.Olivia Williams: Yes, I am. It’s like the Catholic church — it’s the same anywhere in the world. Wherever I am, I can get my fix, which is good, because I need to be evenly stretched on both sides. In acting, sometimes you’re putting uneven stress on your body and you’re playing characters in extreme states; I take that on physically as I did very often in (the Fox television show) “Dollhouse,” and it was a matter of correcting physically the appalling things high heels do to your spine. [laughs] You have to let all of it go. Sounds like your character in The Ghost Writer. Ruth Lang is so tightly wound and pulled in so many directions…the battles she faces in this film — with other characters, with herself and, don’t worry, I’m not big on spoilers.Oh, thank God. Thank you. I remember seeing The Sixth Sense the first time and that’s what a movie experience should be — surprising, fulfilling, and entertaining! That was the pre-spoiler era.That’s so funny because more than one journalist has made that connection and said, “What extraordinary lengths did you go to to protect the story in The Sixth Sense?” And the answer was none. I had gotten my first computer during the making of that movie and was just learning how to email and it just wasn’t a problem. Now there’s just so much insanity — scripts with people’s names watermarked across them and not issuing call sheets with the character names on them… Your character in The Ghost Writer… it seems like it was a really exhausting role. You’re in this desolate, impersonal home on an island in a very strained situation, and Ewan McGregor pops in and changes everything.
Very true. But he was also a victim of happenstance. The film is so subtle in its telling and the suspense is really allowed to breathe and build. But further, wasn’t it sort of mentally exhausting working with a director like Polanski, in the sense that you want to do a really, really great job?I’m not saying it was a relaxing experience, especially when the shooting was supposed to happen on grey days and then there would be these incredible bouts of sunshine when it came to my scenes and Polanski would just be incensed! But the people I worked with — the cast, like Ewan, who is incontrovertibly a lovely guy, and Pierce is, well, just charm itself, so in essence, it wasn’t that hard. [laughs] And Kim (Cattrall) was utterly sort of opposite the screen persona we all know from Sex and the City; she was very gentle and quite vulnerable, and just as nervous as the rest of us about working with Polanski. He’s a piece of work — he is unlike any other director — but once we got to know each other — it was never easy or sort of comfortable like a pair of Uggs, but we got along and found each other’s measure, and once that happened everything fell into place. [Working with Polanski] is like having that slightly eccentric or wayward teacher; their criticism is more common than their praise, but when you actually do get that praise it’s like nectar. He thinks nothing of stopping a take and that’s a stab to the heart and the self-esteem of any actor. But when he eventually says, “Great, great,” it’s really hard-earned and appreciated. I think the cult of the sensitive actor has hampered directing… that we are sensitive creatures and any sort of bright light, or sudden movement might make us dissolve into tears. But Polanski tells you what he wants and how he wants you to do it; how you get there is entirely your business. You’re as functional as a lamp stand, and once you understand your position in the greater scheme of things, you’re a lot better off. But isn’t that frustrating?No, I just hadn’t gotten the hang of it in the beginning. I was under the delusion that he wanted some sort of contribution from me; and once you understand that’s not required, you just have to get your head around it. It’s a very different way of working. In a way it’s more complementary to the actor; you don’t need to be molly coddled; he’s not going to interfere with how you get to this point — he just wants you to do it. It’s the ultimate test. It’s so interesting to be such a pawn in the greater game — to see what you’ve brought. When you’re shooting you’re unaware of what you’re going to achieve, but for him it’s so clear. It’s pure vision. You just want to help him get it right. The house in the film is not a cozy home. It’s almost like it’s another character.It’s like I was saying: in the bigger, Polanski scheme of things, the actors are actually only a small component. I find that so hard to digest. I guess maybe that’s just the sum of its parts, but in a way the location is almost the main character.Well, there is one scene where I’m lying in bed and he spent about 20 minutes positioning me and the sheet, and smoothing the sheet and then ruffling it, over and over. He did the take, and then he did one of his most angry “No, no, no!” moments and he came at me and then slightly adjusted the pillow behind my head, and all the while I’m thinking, ‘What have I done, what have I done? I’m just lying here!’ But it was the pillow that had screwed up, and every time, he was right. Would you say it was one of the toughest films you’ve ever done?Yes, but as I said, I felt flattered by his expectations of me. I do think it’s one of our jobs [as actors] that, as unfashionable as it is to say, to transform and to realize the director’s vision — I have said this before I worked for Polanski as well — that a lot of directors don’t like it when you say to them, ‘What do you want me to do’? They want you to know it, but I could approach it from six different directions, so you kind of have to tell me. In this piece, it was really important, not to play the subtext, as it was in The Sixth Sense, because you give away the plot. I had a function to perform, and if you don’t play that function you screw it up! This is an ensemble cast, but to me, you seem to rise to the position of main character.That wasn’t evident at all while we were shooting, or in the script; it hit us all with the same amount of surprise. That’s just the way it edited out. I think it is a huge tribute to Ewan, who was playing the right sized cog in the greater machine. He played every bloke, and we all know he can grandstand — And be naked.[Laughs] And be naked. A lot! One of the most amazing things you don’t really realize at first is the fact that Ewan’s character doesn’t have a name — he’s the ghost. He is… the blank page, the impressionable surface upon which all these things are imprinted. He is the sponge. That is a very different role to play, and one that not a lot of A-List actors, would do. But Ewan is in this state of charming bewilderment and good humor and I thank God for what he brings to the film…he is wonderful amid all these unpleasant people who are being so very nasty. Again and again, he’s both cynical and naïve. And just trying to make a buck. And oh so gullible.I think the fact that you say that Ewan’s role doesn’t emerge as the starring role is the biggest compliment you can pay to him. He allowed himself to be the ghost. Let’s talk about another one of your films from the past year — An Education. I love that your character’s name is Miss Stubbs, because until Jenny (Carey Mulligan) goes to visit her at home, she sees her teacher as this sort of pinched, staid, lonely individual. Yet when we see Miss Stubbs at home, it’s a very different story. She’s a real person, not just a teacher — something that many students can look beyond.She has her independence and I think that’s a huge thing. The time period of the film — we’ll soon be going into the hippie days — and Miss Stubbs’ flat is very bohemian, compared to the starkness of her classroom.I’ve done a lot of independent British movies, and if there’s anywhere I really feel at home, it’s in that world. But I’ve been a huge Nick Hornby fan for years, so when I heard there was a small part — I did it in two days — I said, yes, even before I read it. So many people have said to me, ‘I love your character,’ and that I reminded them of that strict teacher in school that has inspired them. And I think it really affects Jenny when she sees how stupid Miss Stubbs thinks her choice is; the headmistress makes her rebellious, but Miss Stubbs makes her feel a bit queasy. She’s very much of a Jane Austen character almost. And you actually played Jane Austen!In my 20s I wanted to be Jennifer Ehle, and I was desperately sad – But you did end up as Jane Austen.Well, that was again — FINALLY — after missing two generations of remaking the entire works of Jane Austen — they have done two rounds during the course of my professional life. You did play Jane Fairfax in “Emma.”Just. I made it in there. Once. In the year there were two Emma’s! Jane Fairfax is by far one of my favorite Jane Austen characters and in many ways most similar to Jane Austen herself, so that was not accidental I ended up playing her – but – put yourself in my position. A huge Jane Austen fan, and watch the entire canon be made twice and not get the role of Elizabeth Bennett or Emma. It fucking hurt. My reward came with playing the author herself. Playing her at the age she was — or close to it — when she died; there seemed to be a justice in that. I’m glad my success is coming a bit more now — I can go out in an absurd dress that shows my ass and the nice remarks make me happy and the nasty remarks, I don’t care about it. I’ve given birth twice to an audience of medical students; I don’t care who sees my butt. That level of scrutiny in my 20s — I would’ve been under the surgeon’s knife by now. These award shows — you have to take it in the spirit it was intended and have fun. One last question. Let’s talk about the seduction of Hollywood. I love the fact you have chosen not to really live here full-time and to spend a good portion of your life in the UK.I said I wouldn’t live here when I was single and childless because it was all about work. When you’ve got small children, it doesn’t matter where on earth you are — you’re just moving from the morning routine, to the lunchtime routine, to the bedtime routine. This is a really nice place to bring up little ones at this point in my life and that just puts all the rest of it in its place. But, after a few months here you start to think, “Ooh, maybe just a little pick up around my forehead” or what have you, and that’s when it’s time to go back to London and kind of refill your reality. Most of my great roles have come out of the fact I don’t look like someone who has had their teeth done, or their eyes done, and that is where my career lies. So to fuck with that would sort of, throw away my income. That’s not the look that I have. I’m not judgmental about people that go that route; perhaps it’s what their career demands, but it’s not expected of me. ▼
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Post by Ace on Apr 4, 2010 13:21:44 GMT -5
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Post by Ace on Apr 7, 2010 13:43:44 GMT -5
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Post by Ace on Apr 9, 2010 18:46:11 GMT -5
www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/apr/10/john-patterson-roman-polanski-ghostRoman Polanski, poet of disorientation and disjuncture Until his arrest, Roman Polanski was never one to let the grass grow under his feet. Ahead of the release of The Ghost, John Patterson pays tribute to his restless artistrytribute to his restless artistry o John Patterson o The Guardian, Saturday 10 April 2010 Shaken, and stirred: Pierce Brosnan in Roman Polanski's The Ghost. Roman Polanski has never gone for the kind of consistency and repetition that makes auteurs of lesser directors. Far from it: whenever he has a success, he either moves to a new country (from communist Poland to swinging London to new Hollywood to old Paris), or picks a new project so violently different from the last, you wonder if it's a provocation or a private bet. Thus the sombre absurdism of The Pianist succeeded The Ninth Gate's occasionally risible Euro-horror, much as Chinatown, contender for best American picture of the 1970s, was preceded by the almost forgotten Italian sex comedy What? Nothing in Cul-de-sac foretold its successor, The Fearless Vampire Killers, just as Pirates gave no clue about Frantic. This gets in the way of our appreciating Polanski, but also replicates things that are going on within his movies. He is the great postwar poet of disorientation and disjuncture; he wrongfoots his audiences at least a dozen times in every movie. Consider his first movie, in fact, the first shot of his career: a stationary, unedited view of some frigid Baltic beach. A minute passes, the waves roll in – then two men emerge from the waves, fully dressed and carrying a wardrobe. If you've never seen that movie or heard its title (uh, Two Men And A Wardrobe), then I'll guarantee that you had no idea how the sentence preceding this one was going to end. That is the essence of Polanski. And so Tess follows The Tenant, and The Ghost – a political thriller in which a ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) discovers the secrets of a former British PM (Pierce Brosnan) while polishing his memoirs – is the unlikely follow-up to his Oliver Twist. Wrongfooted again. Some artists need the clean slate, while others like repetition. Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu could make the same movie a dozen times as he honed his cinema to a point of absolute distilled purity, and John Ford could saddle up one oater after another and lose no percentage of his artistry by doing so. Apparently this doesn't cut it for Polanski. He comes out of the communist Lodz Film School, and thus likely imbibed with his cinematic breast milk the central tenet of Eisensteinian montage: that each shot, for maximum effect, must obliterate its predecessor. Its not for the restless Roman to hoe the same row for longer than its season requires. Fresh fields forever await. Which brings us back to The Ghost, in which an Irishman and a Scotsman (Brosnan, McGregor) play Englishmen, while an Englishman (Tom Wilkinson) plays an American, and the German isle of Sylt plays Martha's Vineyard – to say nothing of the fact that every character has a double in real life as well as a doppelganger within the fiction. Are you feeling disoriented enough yet? Relax, Jake, it's just Romantown.
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Post by Ace on Apr 11, 2010 14:42:51 GMT -5
The Ghost and the subtle delights of first-person cinema In the hands of a good director, first-person film narrative places us seamlessly inside a protagonist's head. Will technology kill it off?www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/apr/08/first-person-narrative-the-ghostHis point of view … Ewan McGregor in The Ghost After the discovery of an abandoned car on a ferry and a shot of its driver's corpse washed up on a beach, Ewan McGregor is present in every scene of The Ghost, Roman Polanski's new film. He's the film's eyes and ears, our surrogate in the story, our entry-point into this world. The only point at which we're privy to information McGregor doesn't have is in the film's final shot. Polanski excels at this: Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, The Ninth Gate, Chinatown and The Pianist are each filmed from their protagonist's point of view so seamlessly, we might as well be inside their heads. It's as near as a film can get to the first-person voice of written fiction without resorting to voiceover narration. Alfred Hitchcock was another master of first person. We watch Rear Window from the viewpoint of James Stewart, who is watching from the apartment where he's laid up with a broken leg. In Vertigo and North by Northwest, we tag along with Stewart or Cary Grant, as mystified as they are, until, almost grudgingly, the director cuts to another point of view to explain what's going on. Part of the shock effect of Psycho, of course, is that our point of view is abruptly yanked away when our heroine takes a shower, forcing viewers to transfer allegiance to the nearest person at hand. Who happens to be Norman Bates. Naturally, when we're seeing events through a protagonist's eyes we're also prone to making their mistakes. Or hearing with a protagonist's ears, in the case of surveillance expert Gene Hackman in The Conversation, where, like him, we're nudged by sound editor Walter Murch into realising too late we've misinterpreted a vital line of dialogue. But whether we're exploring Pandora with Sam Worthington or Shutter Island with Leonardo DiCaprio, we're now so familiar with the conventions of the first person viewpoint, we take it for granted – whenever there's a close-up of a character looking at something, we assume the next shot will be of whatever they're looking at, and so on. Subjective camera that extends beyond a few moments, on the other hand, can still feel gimmicky or even disturbing. We've got used to the camera standing in for slasher-movie psychokillers, a device used to creepy effect by John Carpenter in Halloween. But the impressionistic blur of the first reel of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly traps the viewer in Jean-Dominique Bauby's locked-in syndrome so successfully that, at the screening I attended, one stricken filmgoer had to be helped from the cinema. Even more troubling are the SQUID virtual reality sequences in Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days, a film that looks startlingly prescient in view of today's voyeuristic YouTube culture. But subjective camera can also work in comedy; I love the shocked reactions to the unseen Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor as he strolls the street after drinking his potion – all leading up to the reveal that he's not a hideous Hyde-like monster after all, but an ultra-smooth Dean Martinesque lounge lizard in a snazzy suit. To date, the only commercial movie to use a subjective viewpoint throughout is Lady in the Lake, seen through the eyes of Philip Marlowe (played by the director, Robert Montgomery, who can occasionally be glimpsed in mirrors) and in which the camera gets punched, blows cigarette smoke into a cop's face or turns to ogle a dame. "You play the starring role!" trumpeted the trailer in a foreshadowing of today's interactive video games. The only memorable sequence in Doom is when the ho-hum action temporarily switches to the sort of first-person shooter on which the film was based, but so far, no one has dared to extend this conceit to 90 minutes. Or maybe they've just concluded that gamers would rather play than watch. But what with HD and Imax attempting to suck viewers into the action as never before, and everyone having to watch blockbusters through 3D specs, you can be sure that someone, somewhere, is plotting to replace the subtle first-person techniques of Polanski and Hitchcock with SQUID headsets.
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Post by Ace on Apr 11, 2010 14:46:07 GMT -5
www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/entertainment/film/778301/Blair-stitch-project.htmlThe Blair Stitch Project: Exclusive interview: Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor reveal how new hit movie puts ex-PM in the frameBy Robbie Collin, 10/04/2010 MAYBE you've imagined what it's like to meet Pierce Brosnan in the flesh. Here's the truth. It's even better than you thought possible. We're in the Mandarin Oriental hotel in London's Knightsbridge, and I'm chatting to the stars of unbelievably good new thriller The Ghost. The first film from Roman Polanski for five years (and possibly the last for quite some time, given he's just been arrested on a 33-year-old sex case), it tells the story of a disgraced British Prime Minister whose ghost writer uncovers a shady political conspiracy. Ewan McGregor, who plays the title role, is handsomely but casually dressed in a thick navy jumper and designer jeans. Olivia Williams, who plays Lang's ice queen wife, is job-interview smart. And then Pierce, who plays the PM, swans in... Wearing a razor-sharp navy suit, radioactively shiny shoes, with his hair immaculate and top two shirt buttons open like he's just been serenading Meryl Streep. Looking every inch the movie star, he bowls over to his chair, sits down, furrows his brow, and pipes up in his rich, Celtic brogue. "Do you mind if I close that window? Eeeh. It's blowing right up me jacksie." That's Pierce Brosnan for you. Matinee idol looks, mouth of your granny after one too many Baileys on Boxing Day. And he's in fine form. Pierce's role in the film - based on Robert Harris's best-selling novel of the same name - is a none-too-subtle riff on Tony Blair. And he's just heard Tone is delighted at the thought. "But I wonder how happy he'll be when he sees the film," he guffaws, in a nod to his character's more sinister moments. Pierce was always Polanski's first choice for shamed PM Adam Lang - possibly because his sculpted mug and breezy charm suggests a man who could easily smarm his way to the top of the political heap. Intriguingly, he was the only dead cert. Many other actors were linked to the other leads during the film's brief pre- production, with Tilda Swinton signed up as the wife at one stage, and Hugh Grant and Nic Cage up for the part of the ghost writer. And whatever it was about him that appealed to Polanski, it must have come naturally. Pierce was left to pretty much get on with it - while the notoriously picky director forced his co-stars through endless retakes. "We weren't as lucky as Pierce," laughs Olivia. "The scene where I come into Ewan's bed, Roman spent about 20 minutes just smoothing the duvet in the right way. "When he doesn't like something, he stops and says, 'No, no, no!' And I'm just going, 'What have I done now?' "Then Roman came over and moved the pillow like this (she moves her fingers about three centimetres) and then we had to start again." Sith Yes, that's right. Ewan McGregor's done some tough things in his career. Battling Sith Lords with light sabres. Saving the Vatican from nuclear attack. But in this film, he's got a sex scene with "Cherie Blair". "Did I ever consider I was getting into bed with Cherie?" he hoots. "Ha ha ha! No. I did not think about that." Besides, with Polanski's perfectionism to contend with, Olivia and Ewan's minds were on the job at all times. "I waited too long the first take, not long enough the second take," frets Olivia. Ewan pipes up: "But he's like that about everything. Our performances, the books on the bookshelf, the light coming from the sky. "And he's meticulous about how the lines are said, even down to how you pick up a glass. "'NO!'" he shrieks in Polanski-Polish. "'Why would you pick it up like zis? People would f***ing pick it up like ZAT!'" Getting Lang and his wife right was a tough balancing act. The characters had to be recognisably based on Tony and Cherie, without going the full-blown Rory Bremner route. Pierce studied YouTube clips on the ex-PM to capture the key parts of his personality - WITHOUT mimicking the voice or hand gestures. "I looked at Tony Blair, watched his performance as Prime Minister, to see what he did," he explains. "Michael Sheen had already done Blair impeccably in The Queen, so it was liberating to know I didn't have to do an impression. "It's difficult because I knew it was Cherie, but I didn't want to impersonate her," adds Olivia. "She's got dark hair, she's from Northern, working-class political roots, but when it came to it, I tried to take all those things at face value... and tried not to source pictures of her online." Ewan was disappointed to learn the film crew had drafted in a stuntman to do his character's chase scene. "They brought in a double for the jump," he grumbles. "He was ready to do another part where I run past a waitress and get hit by a tray, but I went, 'Oh, come on'. So I did do that bit." Meanwhile, Pierce is happy with the range of post-Bond roles. Fresh from playing a centaur in family fantasy Percy Jackson and Robert Pattinson's dad in Remember Me, he's keen to see what comes next. Plus he's always got the singing to fall back on. "Don't take the p***," he groans, with a genuinely wounded look. "I get ribbed for Mamma Mia, but there are some people who thought I sounded like Bruce Springsteen. Others thought it was more like..." Bruce Forsyth? "That's cruel and untrue," he chuckles. "But I really was intimidated by that movie." There was also the much-mooted "other Casino Royale" - which must be one of the greatest unmade movies of the last ten years. Before Daniel Craig came on the scene, Quentin Tarantino begged the 007 producers to let him reboot the franchise with Pierce as an older, gritty, B-movie Bond - which never came to pass, for better or worse. "Quentin and I sank about 12 apple martinis one night and I could hardly move off my chair," Pierce recalls. "He had a good old rant about how I was the only one for Casino Royale, but it wasn't meant to be." For both Pierce and Ewan, The Ghost is up there with the very best of their work. But the pair of them weren't above nicking some props off the set. Ewan pinched a mountain bike. "My next film I made in Scotland and I was riding it all around Glasgow," he grins. And Pierce pocketed some of the anti-Lang protestors' cardboard masks, with his face on them. "I had to," he deadpans. "Every film has its own memory, colour and shape. "These things are like a haiku of my life. "And besides, that's the kids' Halloween costumes sorted."
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Post by icy1979 on Apr 16, 2010 16:09:25 GMT -5
Pierce and Ewan at this Morning ... just awesome!
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Post by SecondWind on Apr 16, 2010 17:52:12 GMT -5
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Post by Ace on Apr 16, 2010 22:06:32 GMT -5
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Post by SecondWind on Apr 17, 2010 8:34:39 GMT -5
OMG! How could I have missed this! Yep, nothing can top that! She even asked him about his underpants.... Bold woman!
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Post by Ace on Apr 17, 2010 18:42:48 GMT -5
Poster from South Korea. Click for larger image
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Post by Ace on Apr 19, 2010 17:55:38 GMT -5
Ghost Writer, The Summit Entertainment Drama $681,271 -17 480 $1,419 $13,251,944
Down 17% from last week with about a 16% drop in theaters. Weekend theater avg went down just $36
International #s still coming in but so far about $30m in less than 15 non U.S. markets (Asia, South & Central America, Australia, Russia and several European markets etc still to come)
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Post by Ace on May 13, 2010 15:59:44 GMT -5
A month later and the films weekend theater avg still over $1,000 though it's still dropping theaters at a faster rate. This weekend it will be in 150 theaters and pass $15m in the U.S.
Worldwide it's over $50m before it opens in most markets. It opens in it's first South/Central American country today - Argentina.
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Post by Ace on Jun 3, 2010 16:11:12 GMT -5
Domestic Total: $15,344,334 Theater avg was over $1,600 this 4 day Memorial weekend, over $1,250 for the three day - higher than it was a month ago though only in 56 theaters. It's expanding this weekend to 147 theaters - most are likely second run theaters but there may be new locations where it hasn't played before so check your local listings. IMDB map where it's playing on Friday www.imdb.com/title/tt1139328/cinemashowtimes?location=map;date=2010-06-04
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Post by Ace on Jun 7, 2010 20:09:54 GMT -5
DVD release in U.S. scheduled for Aug 3.
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Post by Ace on Jun 19, 2010 15:50:50 GMT -5
From Raffaela (post moved)
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Post by Ace on Jul 1, 2010 18:45:37 GMT -5
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/01/DD6L1E67UL.DTL Mick LaSalle's mid-2010 reportMick LaSalle, Chronicle Movie Critic San Francisco Chronicle July 1, 2010 Thursday, July 1, 2010 Everybody wants to live in boom times, and just about everybody would like to live in an inspired period for movies, but those two things rarely go hand in hand. The Great Depression gave us a golden age, and so did the Vietnam-Watergate-malaise era of the late 1960s and the 1970s. By contrast, the economy was humming along for most the '80s and '90s, while those movie years were just average, with only the usual number of good and anomalously great movies. Six months ago, two things pointed to a coming third golden age of film: 1. The economy, though not quite at the brother-can-you-spare-a-dime stage, was pretty miserable; and 2. 2009 was the best year for movies so far this century. Moreover, the ways in which 2009's movies were strong - their anxiety and dystopian vision - suggested a cinema tapping into the unconscious currents of its time. Six months later, the economy is still anemic, and the movies ... well, actually, the movies of 2010 have been fairly average, with no evidence yet on the horizon of a golden age. But it's still early. After all, January and February are generally a wasteland; then things get a little better in March and April. Then comes the cultural lobotomy known as the summer season, which goes on until Labor Day. Point being, we could actually be in the midst of the greatest movie year ever and not know it, just as film critic Otis Ferguson didn't know it, when he wrote in 1939, "This film year has been about the leanest in seven." He wrote that early in 1939. Things got better. As it stands, our midterm report isn't bad. Regrets, we've had a few. "Sex and the City 2" was a disaster. "Shutter Island," a Martin Scorsese film, played more like something by M. Night Shyamalan, but without the wit. And in "The Last Song," Miley Cyrus proved that she couldn't act - though come to think of it, that wasn't exactly a disappointment. That was more, like, funny. There have also been some frustrating near misses. "The Green Zone" was almost a provocative drama about the Iraq war. "Winter's Bone," which contains a brilliant performance by newcomer Jennifer Lawrence, was earnest but rhythmically glacial. And "Robin Hood," Ridley Scott's fresh take on the green guy's origins, lacked compelling emotion. Yet to be released, but I've seen them, and I tell you everything. The Kids Are All Right (July): This film has awards written all over it. First, the movie is excellent. Second, it deals, in passing, with gay marriage, which is topical. Third, it contains a fantastic performance by Annette Bening, who has been an inevitable Oscar winner for 20 years (and has deserved to win at least twice). Expect best screenplay and best actress nominations, for sure. Also possible: best director, for Lisa Cholodenko, and best supporting actor, for Mark Ruffalo. Mademoiselle Chambon (August or September): This lovely French film, about the love between an itinerant schoolteacher (Sandrine Kiberlain) and a married construction worker (Vincent Lindon), is all but guaranteed a best foreign film nomination. It might win, too. Moreover, it's a lean year for actresses, and if the film maintains its momentum (it racked up good numbers in New York), Kiberlain could easily get some best actress nominations. Mick LaSalle talks up a few on the horizon. E2 Midseason contenders What follows are 15 films released in 2010 that have some hope (or deserve to have hope) of awards consideration at the end of the year. We're not just talking about the Oscars or Golden Globes, don't forget. We're also talking about truly august groups such as the various film critics circles and associations, which now blanket the country like an epidemic: The Book of Eli (January): This futuristic, post-apocalyptic nightmare was good, not great, but Gary Oldman's performance as an opportunistic would-be dictator was perfection. Edge of Darkness (January): Crime thrillers usually don't get much respect during awards season, but if anyone cares to pay attention, Mel Gibson gave the performance of his career as an aging cop whose life is destroyed when his daughter is murdered. The Ghost Writer (March): Roman Polanski, who still isn't allowed to leave his house, won a much-deserved best director prize from the Berlin Film Festival for this film about a ghost writer who kicks over a hornet's nest while collaborating on the memoirs of a former British prime minister. Ewan McGregor, right, has a reasonable shot at best actor and Pierce Brosnan as supporting actor. But Polanski seems guaranteed to pick up some director prizes, and the film stands to be nominated for best picture.Chloe (March): Erin Cressida Wilson deserves a prize for best adapted screenplay for this film about the relationship between a middle-aged wife (Julianne Moore) and the call girl (Amanda Seyfried) she is paying to sleep with her husband. The only disadvantage Wilson has is that most people are unfamiliar with the source material, the French film, "Nathalie," from director Anne Fontaine. But anyone who bothers to look will see that Wilson took a flat story and brought out all its latent and dormant elements, to create one of the best women's films of the year. Someone should also consider Moore for best actress. Greenberg (March): American movies contain very few good supporting actress roles, which means that Greta Gerwig's charming turn as a professional nanny, left, could be acknowledged. The Girl on the Train (March): André Téchiné's film, starring Emilie Dequenne as a confused young woman who gets in trouble, is a possible best foreign film nominee. The Runaways (April): This moody, accurate exploration of 1970s angst, focusing on the rise and fall of the seminal all-girl band, could yield nominations for Kristen Stewart (Joan Jett) and Dakota Fanning (Cherie Currie). Vincere (April): Highlighted by Giovanna Mezzogiorno's on-fire performance as Mussolini's mistress, this historical drama from veteran Italian director Marco Bellocchio seems a probable best foreign film nominee. Harry Brown (April): Michael Caine incarnates the disappointment and life weariness of an old man who picks up a gun, in a vigilante thriller highlighted by Caine's searing performance. This movie will get no respect, but Caine's performance will be acknowledged. Get Him to the Greek (June): It's a longshot - comedies rarely win anything - but Nicholas Stoller's screenplay and Russell Brand's supporting performance deserve a look. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (June): It's one of the best showbiz documentaries out there, and if it doesn't pick up some best documentary prizes, something is very wrong. Cyrus (June): Marisa Tomei's warm and charming performance as a woman caught between her lover and her son could pick up some supporting actress nominations. Toy Story 3 (June): This may be the first movie with "3" in the title, as in "third installment," that qualifies as a masterpiece. Best animated film is a lock - from the lowliest critics group to the Oscars. But it's also a guaranteed best picture nominee. It should be a contender at the Oscars and will probably come in first with many critics groups.
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Post by formermi6agent on Jul 2, 2010 19:50:00 GMT -5
The Ghost Writer (March): Roman Polanski, who still isn't allowed to leave his house, won a much-deserved best director prize from the Berlin Film Festival for this film about a ghost writer who kicks over a hornet's nest while collaborating on the memoirs of a former British prime minister. Ewan McGregor, right, has a reasonable shot at best actor and Pierce Brosnan as supporting actor. But Polanski seems guaranteed to pick up some director prizes, and the film stands to be nominated for best picture. I hope this movie gets Oscar nominations, especially Best Picture.
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Post by Lauryn on Jul 10, 2010 13:06:33 GMT -5
It’s a little curious that Mick La Salle doesn’t single out Olivia Williams for a possible Best Actress nod, which I would rate as a touch more likely. I’m not getting my easily dashed hopes up on any of the prospects, brilliant as they are. With the movie released so early in the year conventional wisdom would say that the odds may be long unless there’s an effort and focus to keep the performances on the radar; Depressingly, I don’t know that Summit has either the commitment or the experience. Then, there’s the politics of Polanski’s troubles which leaves things a bit less easy to predict, though more for Best Picture, IMO, than really for the acting roles. Still, might there be a possible studio reluctance to make a big push for the film and those involved, depending on what could hit the news at the time? Who knows? I'm really overstating all that; the far greater likelihood is in their simply being forgotten / passed over.
I agree that directing still has a strong shot -- genius is genius. And with the ongoing controversy, however one feels about it, it's not like Summit needs a campaign to keep Polanski's name in the news.
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