• John Horn talks to FilmDistrict honcho Bob Berney about the flamboyant advertising of Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive.” [24 Frames]
• Dana Harris chats with “Albert Nobbs” stars Glenn Close and Janet McTeer. [indieWIRE]
• Oscilloscope picks up Andrea Arnold’s “Wuthering Heights” in Toronto. [Variety]
Welcome to Oscar Talk.
In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.
Today we’re back from the Telluride film fest, but Anne is up in Toronto and things are, well, kind of nuts. She’s up against the wall trying to get to a screening so we don’t get to dig in as much as we’d like. But we try. We really try. So, let’s see what’s on the docket today…
This morning’s interview with “Into the Abyss” director Werner Herzog represented my last Telluride communique (though I guess I was already home) from this year’s 38th annual festivities. Five days, 18 posts, nine movies and three interviews. It was a dense sprint to start the race, and now, with Venice still in-progress and Toronto set to raise the curtain Thursday, we find ourselves in the thick of the season’s early breaths.
Up in the Colorado mountains, the biggest takeaway was Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants.” Payne was highly visible throughout the festival, sometimes taking in six or seven movies a day, fielding compliments for his work and settling in to what has apparently become his favorite festival experience.
His film first dropped on Thursday afternoon as a special invitation screening for press and patrons. That’s where most of the early word stemmed from as critics and bloggers (yours truly among them) raced back to offer up our thoughts on the director’s first film in seven years. But that’s not the story of that film’s life at Telluride. The story was its discovery for the rest of the attendees over the next four days.
Telluride Film Festival
Actress Glenn Close has known the title character of “Albert Nobbs” for nearly 30 years. Ever since she was first asked to audition for the play “The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs” in 1982, which brought her to George Moore’s short story about a woman living as a male waiter in male-dominated 19th Century Ireland. That’s a long time for any performer to live with a role, and it takes a special breed of stick-to-it-tiveness to see the journey she’s seen for the character all the way to the big screen.
“It’s always been a little surreal,” the actress says at the Chuck Jones Theater after introducing the film to its second crowd here at Telluride. “Every morning when I would go to the set, I couldn’t believe that, something that’s been in my head so long, people were actually working on this movie.”
The role originally sparked Close’s interest because of the inherent challenges it presented. Servants in that era, she notes, were not supposed to look people in the eye. They were meant to be invisible. And here is a character, invisible in her own right by virtue of her secret, also in a profession where she must be under the radar. It wasn’t an opportunity to be emotionally expressive for much of the narrative, but Close says that was an attraction to the part.
Hats off to Glenn Close. Really. When you’ve lived with and loved a role and a story for as long as she’s hung on to “Albert Nobbs” (which she first performed as a play way back in 1982), you deserve a pat on the back.
She’s been trying to get this made as a film ever since she stumbled onto the George Moore short story, and even saw things fall apart 10 years ago when she was oh so close (no pun intended). Finally, it’s a reality, thanks to filmmaker Rodrigo Garcia. But with great passion can come, often, blinders to the flaws of a story.
The film tells the tale of Albert Nobbs, who appears to merely be a “kind little man,” a hotel waiter in 19th-century Ireland. Or so it would seem. In reality, Nobbs is an older woman posing as a man in a male-dominated society, glacially putting together the funds to live her dream: purchasing a small shop and selling, oh, tobacco will do.
On a warm Saturday afternoon in Telluride last year, I sat in the crowded Chuck Jones Cinema and felt the warmth in the room as Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech” screened for its first audience of the year. Six months later, at the end of a road with plenty of twists and turns, the film’s producers held aloft the Oscar for Best Picture.
In 2008, Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” after previewing in Telluride, screened on the very same day as Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” at the Toronto International Film Festival. Six and 18 months later respectfully, same results. In 2007, Joel and Ethan Coen’s “No Country for Old Men” started its victory march at Cannes before moving into autumn fests. In 2004, Paul Haggis’s “Crash” bowed for Toronto audiences before a summer 2005 release and an eventual Oscar win.
The obvious connection here is the festival circuit, particularly the fall festival circuit, which has become a significant launching ground for awards contenders in the last half-decade. And starting in two days with Guy’s Venice coverage, the 2011 fall festival season — and the awards potential it is sure to bring with it — officially kicks off around these parts.
In the grand scheme of the awards season, an honour from the high-end but small-scale San Sebastian Film Festival doesn’t mean much on its own. But seen potentially as the first stop on a tour of similar recognition, the festival’s announcement of a Lifetime Achievement Award for Glenn Close — conveniently attached to the European premiere of her film “Albert Nobbs” — suggests the shape Close’s 2011 Oscar campaign could take. From the press release:
Glenn Close, one of Hollywood’s most feted actresses, will be the film personality to receive this year’s Donostia lifetime achievement award at a ceremony on September 18th at 21:30 in the Kursaal Auditorium.
In San Sebastian, the actress will introduce the European premiere (out-of-competition) of her latest film, Albert Nobbs. Helmed by Rodrigo García, the movie is set in 19th Century Ireland, a society dominated by men where women have no opportunities and are condemned to a life of servitude. The star of the film (Close) is a woman who disguises herself as a man to get a job in a hotel and earn the money she needs to fulfill her dream.
(UPDATED: 8/29)
Now that the Toronto and Venice line-ups have been unveiled (though we have a few more Toronto announcements to come), I figured I’d take a few stabs at sussing out the Telluride crop this year. I haven’t been a good journalist and called around or anything. Just spinning my wheels.
One studio that always has a big presence at Telluride is Sony Pictures Classics, and this year, honchos Michael Barker and Tom Bernard have a full plate once again. Of that stable, David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method” is hitting both Venice and Toronto. It’s very possible, then, that it will kick things off in the Rockies.
Roman Polanski’s “Carnage,” meanwhile, was announced as a Venice play this morning. It would be easy enough for the team to bring the film there and not worry about getting the filmmaker in town (seeing as he can’t legally step foot in the country), saving his press run for Venice. (7/28 UPDATE: The film has been set for New York fest, so it seems unlikely we’ll see it in Telluride.)
As usual, there are few surprises in the newly unveiled lineup for September’s Toronto Film Festival — which is largely because, as usual, the lineup consists of pretty much everything.
We know by now to expect a cherry-picked selection of proven successes from previous festivals, including Cannes (“The Artist,” “Drive,” “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” “Melancholia”), Sundance (“Martha Marcy May Marlene,” “Tyrannosaur,” “Take Shelter”) and Berlin (“Coriolanus”). Equally, and of more interest to festival veterans, there’s the usual generous handful of prestige US premieres, many of them with an eye on awards season — including Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants,” Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball,” Rodrigo Garcia’s Glenn Close vehicle “Albert Nobbs” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “Twixt.”
Meanwhile, the Toronto lineup also offers some pointers as to what we can (and can’t) expect to see at Venice only days before. It was already in ink that George Clooney’s Lido curtain-raiser “The Ides of March” would play both fests; now, thanks to the TIFF classifying them as “North American” rather than “World” premieres, we can confirm (albeit to no raised eyebrows) that David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method,” Steve McQueen’s “Shame,” William Friedkin’s “Killer Joe,” Todd Solondz’s “Dark Horse” and Madonna’s “W.E.” will also do the double.
Welcome to Oscar Talk.
In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.
A month and a half since the last off-season podcast, we take the temperature one more time this summer, right at the year’s mid-way point. There have been some Academy rule changes and some news and notes in the interim, so let’s see what’s on the docket today…
It figures the day after I offer up my first set of Oscar predictions, a film I have an eye on as a potential awards vehicle finds distribution.
Roadside Attractions and Liddell Entertainment have picked up Rodrigo García’s “Albert Nobbs” for a fall release, and with it, you can bet a campaign for actress Glenn Close will be wind in the sails. On paper, the role seems to be the sort that could get Close that elusive first statue (much to the chagrin of Meryl Streep fans the world over, I imagine), but let’s see if the film has the goods, first.
It’s interesting to note that Close originally portrayed the character — a woman who poses as a male butler in a Dublin hotel in the 1860s — 30 years ago on Broadway in a stage adaptation of George Moore’s short story “The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs.” She won an Obie for her performance and this is a film project she’s been developing for a decade. She even co-wrote the screenplay and served as producer. Maybe an Oscar is next.