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Exclusive Passion
Interviews:
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Karoline Herfurth
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Karoline Herfurth posted the following message on her Facebook page this morning:
Brian De Palma's Passion has been selected as one of 18 films to compete at this year's Venice Film Festival, which runs August 29 to September 8. De Palma's film, officially a French-German production, is listed as running a lean and mean 94 minutes. Also among the selections is Terrence Malick's To The Wonder. Both films feature Rachel McAdams, who, according to the Hollywood Reporter, is expected to appear at the festival. The line-up was announced this morning, with an additional secret competition title to be announced at a later date. Many are speculating that the additional film will be Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master."In preparing Venice," said Venice Fest director Alberto Barbera at a press conference in Rome today (via Variety), "I have very much admired and envied my friend and colleague who heads the Toronto Film Festival. He has an easy job: He can take 350 movies, and therefore accept almost anything. We have chosen a much tougher path, in which, after lots of discussions, we had to say 'no' a lot. And it was very tough." The Globe And Mail further quotes Barbera: "The main recurring theme is the crisis. The economic crisis, which is having devastating social effects, but also the crisis of values, the political crisis." Passion appears to fit this theme, with its focus on the politics of the corporate business world.
Despite the crisis, Barbera wanted to showcase "a great productive ferment" in the industry, according to the Globe And Mail. "We have taken risks," Barbera is quoted telling reporters. "There are many established directors but also less famous directors and many unknown young directors from countries without cinematic traditions and without real access to the market. Festivals should revert to their original roles of exploration, of scoping out innovation, instead of relying only on the established producers.”
The jury at this year's Venice fest will be headed by Michael Mann, who will also screen his out-of-competition documentary Witness: Libya. The closing film will be the out-of-competition L'homme qui rit, Jean-Pierre Ameris' remake of Paul Leni's The Man Who Laughs, a film which factored into the plot of De Palma's The Black Dahlia. Opening the fest, also out-of-competition, will be Mira Nair's The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
Among the competition films announced are Olivier Assayas' Something In The Air, Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, and Marco Bellocchio's Dormant Beauty. Out of competition titles include Robert Redford's The Company You Keep, Spike Lee's Bad 25 (a documentary of Michael Jackson's Bad), Ariel Vromen's The Iceman, and Henry-Alex Rubin's Disconnect.
As this year marks the Venice Festival's 80th anniversary (although it is only the 69th festival), it will feature a new regular section, Venice Classics, which will screen restored versions of films that premiered at Venice. Michael Cimino is expected to attend this year's screening of the Criterion restored version of Heaven's Gate, which had its premiere at the Venice Festival in 1982. Other titles in the Classics section this year include Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard and Orson Welles' Chimes At Midnight.
Contributor Magazine's Antonia Nessen has a nice interview with Noomi Rapace, conducted as she was just beginning to film Brian De Palma's Passion. While nothing too much more about Passion is revealed than has been published before, she does go a little deeper into some of the ways in which she invests herself into her characters, Passion included. The article also provides the last name of Rapace's character, and also features some great fashion photographs of the actress, such as the shot to the left. Here is an excerpt which delves into Rapace's research and roles:In the movie a babycall monitor sets off the nerve-wrenching plot. Anna buys it to make sure nothing her 8-year-old son stays safe at night, only to find out that the babycall picks up another child crying somewhere in the apartment building.
“When we had been filming for maybe three weeks my hips started hurting. I felt like an old Labrador that couldn’t walk. I could hardly get out of bed. The doctors and chiropractors couldn’t say what it was. It didn’t get better until the day after we finished shooting. Then the pain disappeared, it was just gone. When I look back at it, it seems like my subconscious picked up on the woman’s story and then my body somehow induced the state psychosomatically. And it was beyond my control.”
Preparing for both Babycall and now Passion, Noomi has regular conversations with Dr Clara Gumpert, associate professor and Director of the Centre for Psychiatric Research in Stockholm.
“Before Babycall I tried to learn to understand what it’s like to live in a world where you know that you can slip into a psychosis that you will experience as reality. I could be sitting here being psychotic and seeing devils and demons but pretending everything is normal and be able to control them. But as soon as we log off Skype I will say to them ‘Why can’t you leave me alone when I’m sitting here talking to Antonia’.”
In Brian De Palma’s drama thriller Passion, Noomi plays the lead character Isabella James, a young ambitious businesswoman who gets into a close relationship - with several intriguing turns - with her boss and mentor, played by Rachel McAdams. In preparation for the film, Noomi has practiced Bikram yoga pretty much every day, but most of all she tries to map James’ psyche, her psychological landscape:
“Now that I’m immersing myself in a new part, I try to understand each scene based on the character’s motivations and goals. How does her mind work? I have to make sure that the actions of my characters are psychologically convincing. If I don’t it becomes almost physically impossible to proceed.”
Moviefone's Drew Taylor interviewed Noomi Rapace on the junket trail of Prometheus, and, good man that he is, managed to ask her a question about working with Brian De Palma on Passion...[Noomi Rapace] Wow, yeah, that was a very different experience. I had never done anything like that. And stepping into his world, we had discussions and conversations about the script and the relationship between my character and Rachel McAdams' character. It was really interesting because it started off and we were on two different islands, me and De Palma, and when I finished, I felt we had moved into the same country and we were sharing the vision and sharing the same dream... I became really influenced and colored by my character, and she has a weird emotional life.
[Moviefone] It seems like you're kind of a lucky charm for these filmmakers returning to their favorite genres, with Ridley going back to sci-fi and De Palma returning to an erotic thriller.
[Rapace] [Laughs] Maybe!
During an interview about Prometheus with Cinema Blend's Sean O'Connell, Noomi Rapace found herself briefly discussing her character in the upcoming Passion. Near the end of the interview, O'Connell asked Rapace about her Prometheus character, Elizabeth Shaw...[Noomi Rapace] I think so. I did a movie with Brian De Palma called Passion, and my character’s spirit is so completely disturbed. She has a very weird inner landscape. Her thoughts are pretty far away from my thoughts. Elizabeth Shaw is more close to me. It’s easier for me to step into her shoes. But I always say that I have to find a way to always use myself and translate things from my own life. For example, to find the religious side of her, I really had to travel back to my own childhood to remember what I thought and how I saw things. And I believed in angels. I was always pretty sure that we have two different kinds of angels – dark angels and good angels. So a lot of time, as I tried to find Elizabeth, it was almost like I traveled back into myself. You have to use yourself. Or, that’s what I need to do. I don’t want to pretend. I don’t want to fake it. I want to live it.
Prometheus, directed by Ridley Scott, is said to have themes akin to De Palma's Mission To Mars. It opens Friday in North America. Rapace will be a guest tonight on CBS' Late Show with David Letterman.
The Hollywood Reporter's Eric J. Lyman reports today that Alberto Barbera, the newly installed artistic director of the Venice Film Festival, talked to Italian reporters over the weekend about possible directors who may be bringing their new films to the festival this year. Among those he mentioned were Brian De Palma, Terrence Malick and Paul Thomas Anderson. De Palma's two most recent films, Redacted and The Black Dahlia, each had their premieres at the Venice Film Festival. De Palma received the director's prize (the Silver Lion) for Redacted at the fest in 2007. This year's festival runs August 29-Sept. 8, which means there is a possibility Passion may have its premiere a mere three months from now.
A press screening for Ridley Scott's Prometheus was held in Paris Monday, and according to a couple of Twitter postings, Brian De Palma was in attendance. Christopher Ramoné tweeted that De Palma was there with Paris Match film critic Christine Haas. Journalist Bertrand Rocher tweeted that he was seated beside De Palma at the screening. The screening full of French critics surely provided De Palma an early sense of how Noomi Rapace will be talked about as Prometheus makes its way around the world. While early reviews from critics at the screening seem to be mixed about Prometheus, there seems to be a consensus that Rapace is very good in the film. Ecranlarge's Simon Riaux gives the film four out of five stars, and says that "Michael Fassbender quickly steals the show from the impeccable Noomi Rapace." Riaux later states in the review that while both Rapace and Fassbender are "brilliant," the rest of the cast are stuck in mechanical roles. A negative review from CloneWeb's Marc complains about cardboard characters at the script level, but says that Rapace "comes out honorably." Another blog review from a disappointed Céline at Just Cinema mentions that Rapace and Fassbender are, again, the best of the cast.