Details of Mike Leigh’s new film are beginning to emerge. The title, Hard Truths, and the leading cast have been confirmed.
Mike Leigh’s new film Hard Truths will be his first new release in five years. Mike Leigh’s films have been more sporadic in recent years, but it’s very much a case of quality over quantity, from Timothy Spall’s astonishing turn as Mr Turner in 2014 to 2018’s epic historical drama Peterloo.
Known for his improvisational method of creating characters, there is no script, in fact there us often no basic idea of what the plot will be when his actors are cast. Leigh begins by having private conversations with his actors about people they know in real life followed by an in-depth period of inprovisation. Actors are then introduced to each other and over an intensive couple of weeks, even months, the characters are developed.
Mike Leigh’s new film Hard Truths will be his first new release in five years. Mike Leigh’s films have been more sporadic in recent years, but it’s very much a case of quality over quantity, from Timothy Spall’s astonishing turn as Mr Turner in 2014 to 2018’s epic historical drama Peterloo.
Known for his improvisational method of creating characters, there is no script, in fact there us often no basic idea of what the plot will be when his actors are cast. Leigh begins by having private conversations with his actors about people they know in real life followed by an in-depth period of inprovisation. Actors are then introduced to each other and over an intensive couple of weeks, even months, the characters are developed.
- 2/16/2024
- by Jake Godfrey
- Film Stories
Following 2018’s Peterloo, Mike Leigh has openly discussed how difficult it was to finance his next feature. Thankfully, he recently amassed the resources and quietly began production last year on his 23rd film, with the backing of Thin Man Films, The Mediapro Studio, co-financed by Film4 in association with Creativity Media, with Bleecker Street releasing the film in the US later this year, Studiocanal releasing in the UK, and Cornerstone Films handling international sales.
Titled Hard Truths, nothing was known about the project, but now Bleecker Street have unveiled the first image and details. Led by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who worked with Leigh on his 1996 feature Secrets & Lies and received an Oscar nomination for her performance, the film marks Leigh’s “return to the contemporary world with a tough but compassionate intimate study of family life.” The London-set film also stars Michele Austin.
Leigh was joined behind the camera by...
Titled Hard Truths, nothing was known about the project, but now Bleecker Street have unveiled the first image and details. Led by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who worked with Leigh on his 1996 feature Secrets & Lies and received an Oscar nomination for her performance, the film marks Leigh’s “return to the contemporary world with a tough but compassionate intimate study of family life.” The London-set film also stars Michele Austin.
Leigh was joined behind the camera by...
- 2/14/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The cast of “Hard Truths,” the 23rd film from legendary British director Mike Leigh, has been unveiled, along with a first look image.
The feature, which like most Leigh projects has remained under a veil of secrecy, has reunited the filmmaker with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who received an Oscar nomination for his 1996 drama “Secrets & Lies.” Michele Austin, another frequent Leigh collaborator, also stars.
“Hard Truths” was shot in London in 2023 and, following his historical epics “Mr. Turner” and “Peterloo,” sees Leigh return to the contemporary world. However, plot details are still scarce, the film’s only description being that it’s a “tough but compassionate intimate study of family life”.
Leigh was joined behind the camera by his regular crew members, including producer Georgina Lowe, cinematographer Dick Pope, costume designer Jacqueline Durran (who recently earned her 9th Oscar nomination for her work on “Barbie”), production designer Suzie Davis, composer Gary Yershon...
The feature, which like most Leigh projects has remained under a veil of secrecy, has reunited the filmmaker with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who received an Oscar nomination for his 1996 drama “Secrets & Lies.” Michele Austin, another frequent Leigh collaborator, also stars.
“Hard Truths” was shot in London in 2023 and, following his historical epics “Mr. Turner” and “Peterloo,” sees Leigh return to the contemporary world. However, plot details are still scarce, the film’s only description being that it’s a “tough but compassionate intimate study of family life”.
Leigh was joined behind the camera by his regular crew members, including producer Georgina Lowe, cinematographer Dick Pope, costume designer Jacqueline Durran (who recently earned her 9th Oscar nomination for her work on “Barbie”), production designer Suzie Davis, composer Gary Yershon...
- 2/14/2024
- by Alex Ritman
- Variety Film + TV
Mike Leigh has unveiled the first look at what will be the “Another Year” and “Secrets & Lies” director’s 23rd feature film, a new project called “Hard Truths.”
“Hard Truths” reunites Leigh with actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who starred in 1996’s “Secrets & Lies” and was Oscar-nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance in the film. You can see her looking concerned and harried while talking on the phone in the first look photo of the film above.
After last directing “Mr. Turner” and “Peterloo,” both of which were historical dramas, Leigh is back in a contemporary setting for “Hard Truths.” Specific plot details are still being kept under wraps, but the film is described as a “tough but compassionate and intimate study of family life.” Michele Austin, another of Leigh’s frequent collaborators, also stars.
Any details about “Hard Truths” were largely secret (it’s not...
“Hard Truths” reunites Leigh with actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who starred in 1996’s “Secrets & Lies” and was Oscar-nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance in the film. You can see her looking concerned and harried while talking on the phone in the first look photo of the film above.
After last directing “Mr. Turner” and “Peterloo,” both of which were historical dramas, Leigh is back in a contemporary setting for “Hard Truths.” Specific plot details are still being kept under wraps, but the film is described as a “tough but compassionate and intimate study of family life.” Michele Austin, another of Leigh’s frequent collaborators, also stars.
Any details about “Hard Truths” were largely secret (it’s not...
- 2/14/2024
- by Brian Welk
- Indiewire
Mike Leigh’s hotly-anticipated, but super-secretive, new film will see the iconoclastic British director reunite with his Secrets & Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste.
Hard Truths is Leigh’s first film since 2018’s Peterloo and will co-star frequent Leigh collaborator Michele Austin (Another Year, Secrets & Lies). After Peterloo and 2014’s Mr. Turner, both period dramas, Hard Truths will see Leigh return to the modern day, with a drama described as “a tough but compassionate intimate study of family life.”
Other Leigh regulars returning for Hard Truths include producer Georgina Lowe, cinematographer Dick Pope, costume designer Jacqueline Durran, production designer Suzie Davis, composer Gary Yershon and casting director Nina Gold.
Secrets & Lies, which premiered in Cannes in 1996, winning the Palme d’Or, featured Jean-Baptiste as a well-off Black professional who seeks out her biological mother, a poor white factory worker living in East London, played by Brenda Blethyn. Jean-Baptiste was Oscar-nominated for her performance,...
Hard Truths is Leigh’s first film since 2018’s Peterloo and will co-star frequent Leigh collaborator Michele Austin (Another Year, Secrets & Lies). After Peterloo and 2014’s Mr. Turner, both period dramas, Hard Truths will see Leigh return to the modern day, with a drama described as “a tough but compassionate intimate study of family life.”
Other Leigh regulars returning for Hard Truths include producer Georgina Lowe, cinematographer Dick Pope, costume designer Jacqueline Durran, production designer Suzie Davis, composer Gary Yershon and casting director Nina Gold.
Secrets & Lies, which premiered in Cannes in 1996, winning the Palme d’Or, featured Jean-Baptiste as a well-off Black professional who seeks out her biological mother, a poor white factory worker living in East London, played by Brenda Blethyn. Jean-Baptiste was Oscar-nominated for her performance,...
- 2/14/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Seven-time Oscar nominee Mike Leigh has reteamed with British actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who led his 1996 Oscar-nominated Secrets & Lies, on his latest feature, Hard Truths. We can share a first look at the feature above.
We first broke news of the project, which was shot in London, last May. Hard Truths is described as a movie set in the “contemporary world” with a plot said to be a “tough but compassionate intimate study of family life.”
The film also stars Michele Austin and is a Thin Man Films and The Mediapro Studio co-production, co-financed by Film4 in association with Creativity Media. Bleecker Street will release the film theatrically in the US later this year, with Studiocanal releasing in the UK and Cornerstone Films handling international sales. The film will be part of the company’s upcoming European Film Market slate.
Leigh was joined behind the camera by regular crew members,...
We first broke news of the project, which was shot in London, last May. Hard Truths is described as a movie set in the “contemporary world” with a plot said to be a “tough but compassionate intimate study of family life.”
The film also stars Michele Austin and is a Thin Man Films and The Mediapro Studio co-production, co-financed by Film4 in association with Creativity Media. Bleecker Street will release the film theatrically in the US later this year, with Studiocanal releasing in the UK and Cornerstone Films handling international sales. The film will be part of the company’s upcoming European Film Market slate.
Leigh was joined behind the camera by regular crew members,...
- 2/14/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Allison Williams and Riz Ahmed did an admirable job of pronouncing names and film titles at Tuesday morning’s Academy Award nominations telecast, but there’s usually one moment in the annual list reading that gets people talking.
This year, that would be “My Year of Dicks,” the Sara Gunnarsdottir short that nabbed a best animated short nod from the film academy. Immediately after announcing the title, Ahmed giggled. It was a moment of levity reminiscent of the infamous 2014 gaffe when former Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs read best cinematography nominee Dick Pope’s name as “Dick Poop.”
But “My Year of Dicks” is supposed to make one cringe, as director Gunnarsdottir weaves a beautiful and dreamlike tale of a young girl on a mission to lose her virginity in the early ‘90s. Told in five chapters, the film is adapted from the memoir “Notes to Boys: And Other Things...
This year, that would be “My Year of Dicks,” the Sara Gunnarsdottir short that nabbed a best animated short nod from the film academy. Immediately after announcing the title, Ahmed giggled. It was a moment of levity reminiscent of the infamous 2014 gaffe when former Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs read best cinematography nominee Dick Pope’s name as “Dick Poop.”
But “My Year of Dicks” is supposed to make one cringe, as director Gunnarsdottir weaves a beautiful and dreamlike tale of a young girl on a mission to lose her virginity in the early ‘90s. Told in five chapters, the film is adapted from the memoir “Notes to Boys: And Other Things...
- 1/24/2023
- by Matt Donnelly
- Variety Film + TV
Zoey Deutch (left) stars as “Mable” and Mark Rylance (right) stars as “Leonard” in director Graham Moore’s The Outfit, a Focus Features release. Courtesy of Nick Wall / Focus Features
The stylish, entertaining, a bit bloody gangster thriller The Outfit is tailor-made for it star, the gifted Mark Rylance, and showcase Rylance does, with a clever script and strong direction from Graham Moore, who won an Oscar for his script of The Imitation Game. With a score by Alexandre Desplat, Graham Moore’s directorial debut is a modest little indie gem but one that delivers big, with a tense, twisty story and fine supporting cast, including London-trained, Nigerian-born Nikki Amuka-Bird as a rival gangster, and a thrilling performance by Mark Rylance.
Set in 1956 Chicago, the whole thing mostly takes place inside a modest shop, owned by Englishman Leonard Burling (Mark Rylance), a soft-spoken Saville Row-trained bespoke tailor, who runs the...
The stylish, entertaining, a bit bloody gangster thriller The Outfit is tailor-made for it star, the gifted Mark Rylance, and showcase Rylance does, with a clever script and strong direction from Graham Moore, who won an Oscar for his script of The Imitation Game. With a score by Alexandre Desplat, Graham Moore’s directorial debut is a modest little indie gem but one that delivers big, with a tense, twisty story and fine supporting cast, including London-trained, Nigerian-born Nikki Amuka-Bird as a rival gangster, and a thrilling performance by Mark Rylance.
Set in 1956 Chicago, the whole thing mostly takes place inside a modest shop, owned by Englishman Leonard Burling (Mark Rylance), a soft-spoken Saville Row-trained bespoke tailor, who runs the...
- 3/18/2022
- by Cate Marquis
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
On the south side of Chicago, there’s a small shop at the end of a quiet, snowy street. Its proprietor, a man named Leonard Burling (Mark Rylance), makes suits. Please don’t refer to this courtly English gentleman as a tailor, however — he spent many years apprenticing on Savile Row as a “cutter,” which is a very different skill set, indeed. When Burling eventually left his native country, he set up shop in the Windy City and made a name for himself as a provider of beautiful suits for a discerning clientele.
- 3/17/2022
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Graham Moore’s “The Outfit” funnels a sprawling 1950s gangster saga down into a single location. , it’s told through the eyes and ears of elderly Englishman Leonard Burling (Mark Rylance), tailor to the mob and the film’s delightful centerpiece, who attempts to navigate the violent family drama from its margins. However, despite Rylance’s effective work and some smart physical staging, the film is ultimately unable to overcome its “tell, don’t show — then tell again” dialogue, layered atop an increasingly busy plot. The further it gets into its 105-minute running time, the more noticeable its seams become, distracting from an otherwise finely-textured fabric.
The pristine front of Burling’s Chicago shop is managed by his assistant Mable (Zoey Deutch), a surrogate daughter of sorts, who he hopes will take over the business, though she has aspirations of her own (a dynamic that just so happens to mirror...
The pristine front of Burling’s Chicago shop is managed by his assistant Mable (Zoey Deutch), a surrogate daughter of sorts, who he hopes will take over the business, though she has aspirations of her own (a dynamic that just so happens to mirror...
- 2/14/2022
- by Siddhant Adlakha
- Indiewire
Oscar-winning actor Mark Rylance’s special gift is an appearance of unspoiled authenticity, as if someone from real life had wandered into the frame, or — considering his extensive, legend-status background — onto the stage, his very presence ready either to blend in, or to shake things up.
It’s a talent that puts him in good stead to rivet our attention in establishing his role as a dedicated tailor facing dire circumstances in Graham Moore’s “The Outfit.” But it’s not enough to offset what’s questionably designed and ill-fitting about this claustrophobic, one-night-in-one-location thriller.
Moore, who wrote the film adaptation of the Alan Turing biopic “The Imitation Game,” directs for the first time from an original screenplay (co-written with Johnathan McClain). He was inspired by the alluring family detail that a beloved doctor grandfather of Moore’s had regularly treated a New Jersey mobster. In this case, the unassuming...
It’s a talent that puts him in good stead to rivet our attention in establishing his role as a dedicated tailor facing dire circumstances in Graham Moore’s “The Outfit.” But it’s not enough to offset what’s questionably designed and ill-fitting about this claustrophobic, one-night-in-one-location thriller.
Moore, who wrote the film adaptation of the Alan Turing biopic “The Imitation Game,” directs for the first time from an original screenplay (co-written with Johnathan McClain). He was inspired by the alluring family detail that a beloved doctor grandfather of Moore’s had regularly treated a New Jersey mobster. In this case, the unassuming...
- 2/14/2022
- by Robert Abele
- The Wrap
U.K. director Mike Leigh directs films in a wide range of moods but his working-class dramas are what made his name. All or Nothing is an emotionally punishing story of everyday life on a lower rung of a stagnant economy, where nobody has dreams and pessimism is the order of the day. The bitterness and anger are most evident in the abusive attitudes and verbal brutality from one generation to the next, even with the caring, sensitive Penny (Lesley Manville) and the inoffensive Phil (Timothy Spall). Leigh’s players craft heartbreaking characters whose individual miseries can’t be dismissed. We invest heavily in the hope of a positive outcome even as everything we see says, ‘no.’ Yet the film’s honesty doesn’t want us to give up on these people.
All or Nothing
Blu-ray
Severin Films
2002 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 128 min. / Street Date November 23, 2021 / Available from Amazon / 29.95
Starring: Lesley Manville,...
All or Nothing
Blu-ray
Severin Films
2002 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 128 min. / Street Date November 23, 2021 / Available from Amazon / 29.95
Starring: Lesley Manville,...
- 12/4/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Screenwriter Graham Moore, who won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 2015 for “The Imitation Game,” has enlisted Mark Rylance and Dylan O’Brien to star in his directorial debut, “The Outfit.” Set in gangster-ridden Chicago, the film is set for release by Focus Features in February. Below, find the first trailer for the film.
The Oscar-winning Rylance (“Bridge of Spies”) plays Leonard, an English tailor who used to craft bespoke suits on London’s famed Savile Row. He heads to Chicago after a personal tragedy, where he operates a tailor shop in a rough part of town, making beautiful clothes for the only people in the neighborhood who can afford them: a family of gangsters.
Also starring are O’Brien (“The Maze Runner”), Zoey Deutch (“Set It Up”), Johnny Flynn (“Emma”), Simon Russell Beale (“The Hollow Crown”), and Nikki Amuka-Bird (“Nw”).
Moore co-wrote the script with Jonathan McClain. It marks the feature screenwriting debut for McClain,...
The Oscar-winning Rylance (“Bridge of Spies”) plays Leonard, an English tailor who used to craft bespoke suits on London’s famed Savile Row. He heads to Chicago after a personal tragedy, where he operates a tailor shop in a rough part of town, making beautiful clothes for the only people in the neighborhood who can afford them: a family of gangsters.
Also starring are O’Brien (“The Maze Runner”), Zoey Deutch (“Set It Up”), Johnny Flynn (“Emma”), Simon Russell Beale (“The Hollow Crown”), and Nikki Amuka-Bird (“Nw”).
Moore co-wrote the script with Jonathan McClain. It marks the feature screenwriting debut for McClain,...
- 11/17/2021
- by Chris Lindahl
- Indiewire
Film editor who brought his brilliance to Secrets & Lies, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and Four Weddings and a Funeral
When shooting the massacre scene in my film Peterloo (2018), the cinematographer Dick Pope and I worked in our customary mode – no script, no storyboard. However, unusually for us, we used three cameras for a substantial part of the action. The quantity and complexity of the resulting footage might have been daunting for most film editors, but this was far from the case for Jon Gregory, who has died aged 77 after a short illness.
He brought to the task his unique characteristic skill, imagination, sensitivity and sophistication, while, as always, staying true to the material. As Pope said: “Jon’s editing is always incredibly sympathetic to my cinematography. Whatever I produce, he’ll make the most of it.”...
When shooting the massacre scene in my film Peterloo (2018), the cinematographer Dick Pope and I worked in our customary mode – no script, no storyboard. However, unusually for us, we used three cameras for a substantial part of the action. The quantity and complexity of the resulting footage might have been daunting for most film editors, but this was far from the case for Jon Gregory, who has died aged 77 after a short illness.
He brought to the task his unique characteristic skill, imagination, sensitivity and sophistication, while, as always, staying true to the material. As Pope said: “Jon’s editing is always incredibly sympathetic to my cinematography. Whatever I produce, he’ll make the most of it.”...
- 9/27/2021
- by Mike Leigh
- The Guardian - Film News
Director Mike Leigh’s social-personal observations of life as it is lived in the U.K. always get to me — this one may simply be a more realistic soap opera, but it’s so good that one pays no attention to technical matters, who the actors are or when they are ‘acting’ … it just ‘is,’ and it’s so involving that one becomes anxious over the smallest thing. Leigh’s most acclaimed picture is the perfect antidote for bloated event filmmaking. And unlike some of his pictures, you walk out with a smile on your face.
Secrets and Lies
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1070
1996 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 142 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 30, 2021 / 39.95
Starring: Timothy Spall, Phyllis Logan, Brenda Blethyn, Claire Rushbrook, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Elizabeth Berrington, Michelle Austin, Lee Ross, Lesley Manville, Ron Cook, Emma Amos.
Cinematography: Dick Pope
Film Editor: Jon Gregory
Production Design: Alison Chitty
Original...
Secrets and Lies
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1070
1996 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 142 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 30, 2021 / 39.95
Starring: Timothy Spall, Phyllis Logan, Brenda Blethyn, Claire Rushbrook, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Elizabeth Berrington, Michelle Austin, Lee Ross, Lesley Manville, Ron Cook, Emma Amos.
Cinematography: Dick Pope
Film Editor: Jon Gregory
Production Design: Alison Chitty
Original...
- 4/3/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
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If shelf space were unlimited, you’d find the walls of many a cinephile’s living room absolutely stacked floor to ceiling with Criterion Collection Blu-rays. Allow us to indulge your itch to add to your personal film collection with this list of some of the biggest and best upcoming Criterion Collection releases, including a massive box set of Wong Kar Wai’s films, plus new Blu-ray releases of some favorites.
“World of Wong Kar Wai”
Release Date: March 23
Buy: World of Wong Kar Wai $199.95 $159.99 Buy it
First things first: There’s plenty to admire in this collector’s set of the director’s films, which includes new 4K digital restorations of “Chungking Express,...
If shelf space were unlimited, you’d find the walls of many a cinephile’s living room absolutely stacked floor to ceiling with Criterion Collection Blu-rays. Allow us to indulge your itch to add to your personal film collection with this list of some of the biggest and best upcoming Criterion Collection releases, including a massive box set of Wong Kar Wai’s films, plus new Blu-ray releases of some favorites.
“World of Wong Kar Wai”
Release Date: March 23
Buy: World of Wong Kar Wai $199.95 $159.99 Buy it
First things first: There’s plenty to admire in this collector’s set of the director’s films, which includes new 4K digital restorations of “Chungking Express,...
- 2/24/2021
- by Jean Bentley
- Indiewire
Focus Features has acquired the worldwide rights to “The Outfit,” a crime film that will star Mark Rylance, Dylan O’Brien, Zoey Deutch and Johnny Flynn.
Graham Moore, who wrote the Oscar-nominated film “The Imitation Game,” will make his directorial debut on the drama based on a screenplay he co-wrote with “Mad Men” writer Jonathan McClain. Production is expected to begin next month in London.
The film follows Leonard (Rylance), an English tailor who used to craft suits on London’s world-famous Savile Row. But after a personal tragedy, he’s ended up in Chicago, operating a small tailor shop in a rough part of town where he makes beautiful clothes for the only people around who can afford them: a family of vicious gangsters.
Producing “The Outfit” are Scoop Wasserstein, Ben Browning and Amy Jackson. FilmNation Entertainment will finance the film and has sold rights to Focus Features to distribute the film worldwide,...
Graham Moore, who wrote the Oscar-nominated film “The Imitation Game,” will make his directorial debut on the drama based on a screenplay he co-wrote with “Mad Men” writer Jonathan McClain. Production is expected to begin next month in London.
The film follows Leonard (Rylance), an English tailor who used to craft suits on London’s world-famous Savile Row. But after a personal tragedy, he’s ended up in Chicago, operating a small tailor shop in a rough part of town where he makes beautiful clothes for the only people around who can afford them: a family of vicious gangsters.
Producing “The Outfit” are Scoop Wasserstein, Ben Browning and Amy Jackson. FilmNation Entertainment will finance the film and has sold rights to Focus Features to distribute the film worldwide,...
- 2/23/2021
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
Exclusive: In a hot under-the-radar package, we can reveal that Oscar-winner Mark Rylance (The Trial Of The Chicago 7), Maze Runner star Dylan O’Brien, Set It Up star Zoey Deutch and The Dig actor Johnny Flynn are set to star in Oscar-winning writer Graham Moore’s (The Imitation Game) directorial debut The Outfit.
Focus Features has struck a deal to pre-buy world rights to the crime-drama from FilmNation Entertainment with shoot set to begin in March in London.
The film follows Leonard (Rylance), an English tailor who used to craft suits on London’s world-famous Savile Row. But after a personal tragedy, he’s ended up in Chicago, operating a small tailor shop in a rough part of town where he makes beautiful clothes for the only people around who can afford them: a family of vicious gangsters.
Moore will direct from his own screenplay which is co-written with actor-writer...
Focus Features has struck a deal to pre-buy world rights to the crime-drama from FilmNation Entertainment with shoot set to begin in March in London.
The film follows Leonard (Rylance), an English tailor who used to craft suits on London’s world-famous Savile Row. But after a personal tragedy, he’s ended up in Chicago, operating a small tailor shop in a rough part of town where he makes beautiful clothes for the only people around who can afford them: a family of vicious gangsters.
Moore will direct from his own screenplay which is co-written with actor-writer...
- 2/23/2021
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
The sad reality of watching someone you love disappear before your eyes is rarely captured with the restraint found in “Supernova,” . Closer in spirit to the literary “Away from Her” than the sentimental “Still Alice,” “Supernova” doesn’t center on the particulars of what dementia does to the mind and body, but instead maps out the painful road ahead as the pair find meaning in their remaining time together.
The film opens with a shot that shouldn’t be so radical, but is: Sam (Firth) and Tusker (Tucci) are asleep, and naked, spooning amid tangled bedsheets, and the way Sam hangs clings to his partner telegraphs a gulf ahead. It’s so tender a moment you almost don’t want the camera to flinch. Sam, we learn, is a decorated composer, and Tusker a celebrated novelist, and to mark 20 years of being together, they’re embarking on a road trip...
The film opens with a shot that shouldn’t be so radical, but is: Sam (Firth) and Tusker (Tucci) are asleep, and naked, spooning amid tangled bedsheets, and the way Sam hangs clings to his partner telegraphs a gulf ahead. It’s so tender a moment you almost don’t want the camera to flinch. Sam, we learn, is a decorated composer, and Tusker a celebrated novelist, and to mark 20 years of being together, they’re embarking on a road trip...
- 1/29/2021
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
The new Colin Firth-Stanley Tucci drama “Supernova” deserves some credit for not milking easy tears. Unfortunately, it doesn’t milk difficult ones, either. It’s a movie that lays out a scenario rife with dramatic and poignant potential before deciding the potential was apparently enough.
There’s no question that it’s a cozily well-crafted production, from the protagonists’ sweaters to legendary cinematographer Dick Pope’s stunning images of the British countryside, but by the time the film reaches its final fade-out, there’s a sense that writer-director Harry Macqueen (“Hinterland”) left too much unspoken and unexplored.
Firth and Tucci play a longtime couple who leave London in their Rv for a long trip. Their destination is a concert, the first that celebrated pianist Sam (Firth) has performed in years. He’s put his career on hold to become caretaker to novelist Tusker (Tucci), who has spent the...
There’s no question that it’s a cozily well-crafted production, from the protagonists’ sweaters to legendary cinematographer Dick Pope’s stunning images of the British countryside, but by the time the film reaches its final fade-out, there’s a sense that writer-director Harry Macqueen (“Hinterland”) left too much unspoken and unexplored.
Firth and Tucci play a longtime couple who leave London in their Rv for a long trip. Their destination is a concert, the first that celebrated pianist Sam (Firth) has performed in years. He’s put his career on hold to become caretaker to novelist Tusker (Tucci), who has spent the...
- 1/28/2021
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
One of award season’s more gently romantic offerings is Harry Macqueen’s film Supernova, in which a middle-aged gay couple, Sam (Colin Firth) and Tusker (Stanley Tucci), take a road trip through England’s Lake District as they visit friends and come to terms with Tusker’s diagnosis with young-onset dementia.
Speaking during Deadline’s Contenders Film awards-season event alongside Tucci and cinematographer Dick Pope, Macqueen explained the genesis of the Bleecker Street project.
“It’s a very personal story,” he says, “and it started when I was working with a lady who—unbeknownst to me and her at the time—had young-onset dementia. I was working with her for a year, and over the course of that year, I watched her completely change. Unfortunately, about a year after that, she had passed away, and it had a really profound effect on me. And it made me want to...
Speaking during Deadline’s Contenders Film awards-season event alongside Tucci and cinematographer Dick Pope, Macqueen explained the genesis of the Bleecker Street project.
“It’s a very personal story,” he says, “and it started when I was working with a lady who—unbeknownst to me and her at the time—had young-onset dementia. I was working with her for a year, and over the course of that year, I watched her completely change. Unfortunately, about a year after that, she had passed away, and it had a really profound effect on me. And it made me want to...
- 1/23/2021
- by Joe Utichi
- Deadline Film + TV
The Criterion Collection’s March 2020 lineup has been unveiled, and it’s an epic one. Along with their previously announced Wong Kar Wai box set, they will also release Jacques Rivette’s masterpiece Céline and Julie Go Boating, which was long unavailable in good quality and recently debuted on The Criterion Channel.
Also arriving in March is Mike Leigh’s Palme d’Or winner Secrets & Lies, Albert Brooks’ Defending Your Life (with a new essay by Ari Aster), and, getting a solo release after its inclusion in a World Cinema Project box set, Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki, which we discussed on The Film Stage Show below.
Check out the lineup and special features below, with more details on their official site.
New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-rayAudio commentary from 2017 featuring critic Adrian MartinJacques Rivette: Le veilleur, a 1994 two-part feature documentary by Claire Denis,...
Also arriving in March is Mike Leigh’s Palme d’Or winner Secrets & Lies, Albert Brooks’ Defending Your Life (with a new essay by Ari Aster), and, getting a solo release after its inclusion in a World Cinema Project box set, Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki, which we discussed on The Film Stage Show below.
Check out the lineup and special features below, with more details on their official site.
New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-rayAudio commentary from 2017 featuring critic Adrian MartinJacques Rivette: Le veilleur, a 1994 two-part feature documentary by Claire Denis,...
- 12/16/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The label of a character actor tends to be interpreted as general audiences calling someone “that guy” in a movie. Stanley Tucci seems slightly above that description, bringing memorable and popular performances to the mainstream. From the purple-haired host Caesar Flickerman to Nigel, the lovable confidant of Miranda Priestly that gets stabbed in the back, there’s really nothing he can’t do. As Tusker, a man living with Alzheimer’s in Harry Macqueen’s “Supernova,” the actor’s actor may have found his strongest awards vehicle yet.
With Bleecker Street submitting Tucci for best supporting actor for the Academy Awards, he will compete in a category that has been very friendly to the character actors and overdue veterans. Mark Rylance (“Bridge of Spies”), J.K. Simmons (“Whiplash”), Christopher Plummer (“Beginners”) and Alan Arkin (“Little Miss Sunshine”) are the most prominent examples from the last 20 years. Despite just one Oscar nomination...
With Bleecker Street submitting Tucci for best supporting actor for the Academy Awards, he will compete in a category that has been very friendly to the character actors and overdue veterans. Mark Rylance (“Bridge of Spies”), J.K. Simmons (“Whiplash”), Christopher Plummer (“Beginners”) and Alan Arkin (“Little Miss Sunshine”) are the most prominent examples from the last 20 years. Despite just one Oscar nomination...
- 11/17/2020
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
How can one begin to contemplate losing the person they love most in the world? It’s difficult to think about and often, as human beings, we put off the future realities of loss and grief until it’s too late to run from them. We are all going to die and part of life is watching it happen to the people we love, whether it’s a sudden shock or the slow process of witnessing them lose themselves. It’s the hardest thing in the world to cope with for many, harder than the prospect of our own deaths. How do you live with the knowledge that you’re going to outlive your partner?
That’s one of the main questions that Supernova, the affecting new drama from Hinderland director Harry Macqueen, poses to its audience. Death feels like an inevitability in the road trip the English director depicts here,...
That’s one of the main questions that Supernova, the affecting new drama from Hinderland director Harry Macqueen, poses to its audience. Death feels like an inevitability in the road trip the English director depicts here,...
- 10/26/2020
- by Logan Kenny
- The Film Stage
“You’re not supposed to mourn somebody when they are still alive”, contemplates Tusker (Stanley Tucci) when considering the future he has left with partner of 20 years Sam (Colin Firth) in one of Supernova’s many heart-breaking scenes. These are the kind of tragic dilemmas thrown up by Harry Macqueen’s fantastic sophomore feature which tackles the reality of early-onset dementia with grace and honesty. Revolving around the middle-aged couple’s campervan road-trip through the Lake District, Supernova soars thanks to Firth and Tucci’s authentic, heartfelt performances.
The pair’s journey sees them taking in memorable sights from their past and visiting family before a planned comeback gig for pianist Sam. While Macqueen doesn’t make Tusker’s illness immediately clear, it soon becomes apparent something is up when Sam finds a confused Tusker by the roadside after he wanders off during a service station stop. Tusker’s mental...
The pair’s journey sees them taking in memorable sights from their past and visiting family before a planned comeback gig for pianist Sam. While Macqueen doesn’t make Tusker’s illness immediately clear, it soon becomes apparent something is up when Sam finds a confused Tusker by the roadside after he wanders off during a service station stop. Tusker’s mental...
- 10/13/2020
- by Luke Channell
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Dementia is a syndrome that brings with it a unique grief: the only kind that can be shared, for a time at least, between the mourned and their mourners, until the latter are left to it themselves, awaiting a second, more sudden, farewell. Its liminal nature — blurring conceptions of life and death, self and other — is what makes it so endlessly fascinating to filmmakers and actors alike, calling on a rich range of transitory emotions, though things can easily tip into glib, sudsy melodrama if written and played with too heavy a hand. British writer-director Harry Macqueen pitches it just right in his delicately heart-crushing sophomore feature “Supernova,” thanks in no small part to the ideally matched star duo of Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci: As a longtime couple figuring out how to live — or not — under dementia’s ever-encroaching shadow, their joint thespian grace and reserve take on an undertow of raging,...
- 9/22/2020
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Supernova
Actor cum director Harry Macqueen scores a heavyweight cast and crew for his sophomore film Supernova, produced by Emily Morgan and Tristan Goligher. Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci headline the cast with Oscar nominated Dp Dick Pope serving as cinematographer. Macqueen, whose onscreen debut was as a supporting player in Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles (2008) first directed the 2014 drama Hinterland.
Gist: In a conceit familiar to The Leisure Seeker (2017), long-term couple Tusker (Tucci) and Sam (Firth) take a Rv road trip across England to visit friends and family in the second year of Tusker’s dementia diagnosis.…...
Actor cum director Harry Macqueen scores a heavyweight cast and crew for his sophomore film Supernova, produced by Emily Morgan and Tristan Goligher. Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci headline the cast with Oscar nominated Dp Dick Pope serving as cinematographer. Macqueen, whose onscreen debut was as a supporting player in Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles (2008) first directed the 2014 drama Hinterland.
Gist: In a conceit familiar to The Leisure Seeker (2017), long-term couple Tusker (Tucci) and Sam (Firth) take a Rv road trip across England to visit friends and family in the second year of Tusker’s dementia diagnosis.…...
- 12/30/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Read more from Variety’s Directors on Directors, in which filmmakers praise their favorite movies of the year, here.
“My soul was not at peace with God.” Edward Norton’s beautifully realized neo-noir, “Motherless Brooklyn,” wrestles with this condition throughout its duration. His hero is an unlikely gumshoe with Tourette’s syndrome, compelled to solve a mystery and avenge a loss, and Norton’s warm, compassionate performance brings the soul to this wonderful film.
He also wrote, produced and directed it and the piece burns with the quiet fire and emotionally all-in stakes of a real auteur passion project. It’s both gorgeous to watch and a treasure to listen to. And take it from me, as someone who has made a career performing in the thing he writes while directing the rest of the band and producing the sound too … it ain’t easy to wear all those hats...
“My soul was not at peace with God.” Edward Norton’s beautifully realized neo-noir, “Motherless Brooklyn,” wrestles with this condition throughout its duration. His hero is an unlikely gumshoe with Tourette’s syndrome, compelled to solve a mystery and avenge a loss, and Norton’s warm, compassionate performance brings the soul to this wonderful film.
He also wrote, produced and directed it and the piece burns with the quiet fire and emotionally all-in stakes of a real auteur passion project. It’s both gorgeous to watch and a treasure to listen to. And take it from me, as someone who has made a career performing in the thing he writes while directing the rest of the band and producing the sound too … it ain’t easy to wear all those hats...
- 12/18/2019
- by Bruce Springsteen
- Variety Film + TV
Camerimage, the festival in Toruń, Poland dedicated to the art of cinematography, handed out its prestigious Frog prizes this evening. The big winner was “Joker” cinematographer Lawrence Sher, who won the top prize, the Golden Frog, in addition to the Audience Prize. The Bronze Frog was awarded to “The Painted Bird” Dp Vladimír Smutný, while “The Two Popes” Dp César Charlone won the Silver Frog. A full list of winners at the end of this article.
Now in its 27th year, Camerimage has become homecoming week for cinematographers from around the globe, with a vast number of the best DPs, past and present, in attendance. From an awards perspective — considering cinematographers nominate their colleagues — it’s hard to overestimate the value of DPs presenting their work and discussing their craft with their tight-knit community during the week-long celebration.
Sher — whose “Joker” screened early in the fest, and has been in...
Now in its 27th year, Camerimage has become homecoming week for cinematographers from around the globe, with a vast number of the best DPs, past and present, in attendance. From an awards perspective — considering cinematographers nominate their colleagues — it’s hard to overestimate the value of DPs presenting their work and discussing their craft with their tight-knit community during the week-long celebration.
Sher — whose “Joker” screened early in the fest, and has been in...
- 11/16/2019
- by Chris O'Falt
- Indiewire
For nearly two decades, Edward Norton has been trying to realize his passion project — a film version of Jonathan Lethem’s landmark 1999 novel Motherless Brooklyn. Now the film is here, sporting a few signs of artistic struggle, but nonetheless an ardent and ambitious triumph for writer-producer-director-star Norton. You might think multi-hyphenate Norton would err on the side of hat-in-hand faithfulness in adapting Lethem’s bestseller about an unlikely New York private detective with Tourette syndrome. Not the case. Norton has moved the novel’s 1990s setting backwards to 1957 (yup, the...
- 10/30/2019
- by Peter Travers
- Rollingstone.com
Just when you think writer-director Edward Norton has already given you a whole lot to chew on in his neo-noir “Motherless Brooklyn,” he adds more things. And not all of them are satisfying.
To be fair, “Motherless Brooklyn” would be really great as an episodic TV series. Or perhaps if it was divided by chapter titles to punctuate the packed plot. But Norton tries, and about 50% succeeds, to adapt Jonathan Lethem’s sprawling novel of the same name into an intriguing masterwork.
It at least begins as many great noirs do — with a mysterious murder. New York City private detective Lionel Essrog (Norton) is on watch duty in a car as his superior and mentor Frank Minna (Bruce Willis) takes the lead on a sketchy new case. All of a sudden, Frank is shuffled out of view and killed. A grief-stricken Lionel makes it his mission to find out who killed his friend,...
To be fair, “Motherless Brooklyn” would be really great as an episodic TV series. Or perhaps if it was divided by chapter titles to punctuate the packed plot. But Norton tries, and about 50% succeeds, to adapt Jonathan Lethem’s sprawling novel of the same name into an intriguing masterwork.
It at least begins as many great noirs do — with a mysterious murder. New York City private detective Lionel Essrog (Norton) is on watch duty in a car as his superior and mentor Frank Minna (Bruce Willis) takes the lead on a sketchy new case. All of a sudden, Frank is shuffled out of view and killed. A grief-stricken Lionel makes it his mission to find out who killed his friend,...
- 10/30/2019
- by Candice Frederick
- The Wrap
There’s an admirable quality to the earnestness with which Edward Norton has tackled this adaptation of Motherless Brooklyn. A supposedly unfilmable novel, Norton has opted to make it his sophomore directorial outing. Bold move. Unfortunately, also a bit of folly on his part. For numerous reasons, this is a big time misfire, without too many redeeming qualities. It looks good, at least, but too much of what’s happening is of little interest. What could have been an epic noir instead is a tremendous letdown. Opening this week, it’s far from an Academy Award contender and likely will disappoint most who seek it out. The movie is, as mentioned above, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Jonathan Lethem. Set in 1950s New York City, we follow private detective Lionel Essrog (Norton), a lonely man struggling with Tourette’s Syndrome. Most see him as a freak,...
- 10/29/2019
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), a lonely private detective living with Tourette Syndrome, ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). Armed only with a few clues and the engine of his obsessive mind, Lionel unravels closely guarded secrets that hold the fate of New York in the balance. In a mystery that carries him from gin-soaked jazz clubs in Harlem to the hard-edged slums of Brooklyn and, finally, into the gilded halls of New York’s power brokers, Lionel contends with thugs, corruption and the most dangerous man in the city to honor his friend and save the woman who might be his own salvation.
Oscar nominee Edward Norton directed, wrote, produced and stars in “Motherless Brooklyn.” The film’s journey to the screen began in 1999 when Norton saw the cinematic potential in Jonathan Lethem’s novel Motherless Brooklyn and its unforgettable central character.
Oscar nominee Edward Norton directed, wrote, produced and stars in “Motherless Brooklyn.” The film’s journey to the screen began in 1999 when Norton saw the cinematic potential in Jonathan Lethem’s novel Motherless Brooklyn and its unforgettable central character.
- 10/28/2019
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The drama has been filming near Keswick in the UK’s Lake District.
Harry Macqueen’s Supernova, starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci, has wrapped shooting in the Lake District.
The Bureau Sales is handling international sales and has deals in place for the UK (Studiocanal), Germany/Austria (Weltkino), Japan (Culture Entertainment), Benelux (Cineart), Taiwan (Catchplay), Scandinavia (Scanbox) and worldwide airlines (Penny Black).
The title is the second feature directed by Harry MacQueen after 2014’s Hinterland, and is produced by I Am Not A Witch producer Emily Morgan (a Screen Star Of Tomorrow) for Quiddity Films and Tristan Goligher of The Bureau.
Harry Macqueen’s Supernova, starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci, has wrapped shooting in the Lake District.
The Bureau Sales is handling international sales and has deals in place for the UK (Studiocanal), Germany/Austria (Weltkino), Japan (Culture Entertainment), Benelux (Cineart), Taiwan (Catchplay), Scandinavia (Scanbox) and worldwide airlines (Penny Black).
The title is the second feature directed by Harry MacQueen after 2014’s Hinterland, and is produced by I Am Not A Witch producer Emily Morgan (a Screen Star Of Tomorrow) for Quiddity Films and Tristan Goligher of The Bureau.
- 10/24/2019
- by 1101184¦Orlando Parfitt¦38¦
- ScreenDaily
“Supernova,” a romance starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci as a longtime couple on a road trip, has inked a raft of early distribution deals after having just wrapped a six-week shoot in England’s scenic Lake District.
The Bureau Sales has sold Harry Macqueen’s new feature to territories including the U.K. (Studiocanal), Germany and Austria (Weltkino), Japan (Culture Entertainment), Benelux (Cineart), Taiwan (Catchplay), Penny Black (Airlines) and Scandinavia (Scanbox). The Bureau Sales will shop the film further at Afm next month.
The movie marks actor Macqueen’s second feature as a director following his highly regarded debut, “Hinterland,” in 2014. “Supernova” centers on Sam (Firth) and Tusker (Tucci), partners of 20 years, who are traveling across England in their old Rv visiting friends, family and places from their past. Since Tusker was diagnosed with early-onset dementia two years ago, their time together is the most important thing they have.
The Bureau Sales has sold Harry Macqueen’s new feature to territories including the U.K. (Studiocanal), Germany and Austria (Weltkino), Japan (Culture Entertainment), Benelux (Cineart), Taiwan (Catchplay), Penny Black (Airlines) and Scandinavia (Scanbox). The Bureau Sales will shop the film further at Afm next month.
The movie marks actor Macqueen’s second feature as a director following his highly regarded debut, “Hinterland,” in 2014. “Supernova” centers on Sam (Firth) and Tusker (Tucci), partners of 20 years, who are traveling across England in their old Rv visiting friends, family and places from their past. Since Tusker was diagnosed with early-onset dementia two years ago, their time together is the most important thing they have.
- 10/24/2019
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Edward Norton wrote, directed, produced and stars in Warner Bros.’ “Motherless Brooklyn,” but he’s quick to give credit to his behind-the-camera collaborators. Norton told Variety: “I think this is career-best work for some of these people.” The film is set in 1950s New York, and the team accomplished a lot on a budget of $26 million and a shooting schedule of 46 days.
Joe Klotz, editor
“I said to Joe, ‘I want to start things off with a bang. I want a great car chase through north Manhattan, over the bridge and into Queens. Also, you have to introduce
an unusual character, Lionel [played by Norton], and get the audience to understand a condition that they haven’t seen much of [Tourette’s syndrome]. Also, you have to set up the emotional relationship with his boss and then plant noir-style clues that will become clearer later. And we need to do all that in the first 15 minutes.
Joe Klotz, editor
“I said to Joe, ‘I want to start things off with a bang. I want a great car chase through north Manhattan, over the bridge and into Queens. Also, you have to introduce
an unusual character, Lionel [played by Norton], and get the audience to understand a condition that they haven’t seen much of [Tourette’s syndrome]. Also, you have to set up the emotional relationship with his boss and then plant noir-style clues that will become clearer later. And we need to do all that in the first 15 minutes.
- 10/23/2019
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
Camerimage, the Polish film festival dedicated to the art of cinematography, has become homecoming week for directors of photography from around the globe. And while Camerimage organizers say they have no interest in the American awards season, cinematographers nominate cinematographers for the Oscars — and the 13 films that compete for the Golden Frog for Best Cinematography have become a predictor of the Academy’s Best Cinematography nominees.
The Camerimage 2019 Main Competition includes: “Ford v Ferrari” (Dp Phedon Papamichael), “The Irishman” (Dp Rodrigo Prieto), “Joker” (Dp Lawrence Sher), “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” (Dp Adam Newport-Berra), “Motherless Brooklyn” (Dp Dick Pope), “The Two Popes” (Dp César Charlone), “The Painted Bird” (Dp Vladimír Smutný), “An Officer and a Spy” (Dp Paweł Edelman), “Never Look Away” (Dp Caleb Deschanel), “Mr. Jones” (Dp Tomasz Naumiuk), “Shadow” (Dp Xiaoding Zhao), “Bolden” (Dp Neal Norton), and “Amundsen” (Dp Paal Ulvik Rokseth).
IndieWire has confirmed that...
The Camerimage 2019 Main Competition includes: “Ford v Ferrari” (Dp Phedon Papamichael), “The Irishman” (Dp Rodrigo Prieto), “Joker” (Dp Lawrence Sher), “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” (Dp Adam Newport-Berra), “Motherless Brooklyn” (Dp Dick Pope), “The Two Popes” (Dp César Charlone), “The Painted Bird” (Dp Vladimír Smutný), “An Officer and a Spy” (Dp Paweł Edelman), “Never Look Away” (Dp Caleb Deschanel), “Mr. Jones” (Dp Tomasz Naumiuk), “Shadow” (Dp Xiaoding Zhao), “Bolden” (Dp Neal Norton), and “Amundsen” (Dp Paal Ulvik Rokseth).
IndieWire has confirmed that...
- 10/21/2019
- by Chris O'Falt
- Indiewire
Warner Bros presented a very eclectic but solidly awards-friendly slate at The Contenders London today, headed up by Todd Phillips’ recent Venice Golden Lion winner Joker. “Most composers have a director they work with, but I — accidentally — had an actor,” laughed Joker composer Hildur Guðnadóttir. In this case, the actor was Joaquin Phoenix, who’d played Jesus Christ in one of Guðnadóttir’s previous projects, Mary Magdalene. This time, though, the mercurial actor plays a very different kind of messiah. Taking the title role in Phillips’ controversial new release, Phoenix stars as an embattled clown who accidentally becomes the face of a violent anarchist movement in early-80s Gotham City.
Speaking to Deadline’s Andreas Wiseman, Guðnadóttir revealed that, initially, she’d been hired by Phillips simply to come back to him with some ideas rather than a full score. “Todd contacted me probably half a year before they started shooting,...
Speaking to Deadline’s Andreas Wiseman, Guðnadóttir revealed that, initially, she’d been hired by Phillips simply to come back to him with some ideas rather than a full score. “Todd contacted me probably half a year before they started shooting,...
- 10/5/2019
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
Few films come out in any given year with creative choices as baffling as the ones made by Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn. The story goes that when the novel came out in 1999 Norton was instantly struck by Jonathan Lethem’s acclaimed gumshoe neo-noir about a private detective suffering with Tourette Syndrome and began developing the project by as soon as 2002. This was a huge period for Norton, having only just burst onto the scene in 1996 by starring in Primal Fear, The People Vs. Larry Flynt, and a Woody Allen film all in the same year. By 2002 he had made his mark, stacking up on top those titles: David Fincher’s Fight Club, American History X (this time a Best Actor Oscar nomination), playing Hannibal detective Will Graham in Red Dragon, directing his first movie and accomplishing what was surely his very finest performance in Spike Lee’s devastating and impassioned 25th Hour.
- 9/13/2019
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Jonathan Lethem’s 1999 novel “Motherless Brooklyn” combined the classic potboiler ingredients of a Dashiell Hammett yarn with contemporary postmodern flourishes. For his long-gestating adaptation, Edward Norton takes the material at face value, transplanting the story to a period-appropriate ‘50s milieu, resulting in a sturdy old-fashioned detective story with a lot on its mind. Above all else, it’s carried by the actor-director’s distinctive leading role, as a wandering investigator with Tourette’s Syndrome; his affection for the material comes through with a poignant performance and a sharp, expressionistic mood. Drop the occasional Thom Yorke composition and an all-too-resonant theme about urban gentrification, and this Warner Bros. crime caper wouldn’t look too out of place in the era it takes place.
Norton’s sophomore effort behind the camera comes nearly 20 years after his 2000 romcom “Keeping the Faith,” and it couldn’t be more different. Helped along by formidable turns...
Norton’s sophomore effort behind the camera comes nearly 20 years after his 2000 romcom “Keeping the Faith,” and it couldn’t be more different. Helped along by formidable turns...
- 9/1/2019
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Julie Huntsinger, who is co-director of the Telluride Film Festival , opened Friday night’s World Premiere screening of Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn by saying that she and her co-director Tom Luddy thought it was like something they hadn’t seen in a long while and labeled it flatly a “masterpiece”. That’s a lot to live up to , but Norton’s movie is indeed an extremely impressive one , particularly since he pulled an Orson Welles and stars, directs, writes, and produces it.
This is only his second time behind the camera and it has somehow taken 19 years for the urge to kick in again . In 2000 he directed a film I loved and thought was way underrated, Keeping The Faith. What got him to commit for his sophmore effort was Jonathan Lethem’s 1999 novel of the same name, if not the same era. He read it 20 years ago and obviously...
This is only his second time behind the camera and it has somehow taken 19 years for the urge to kick in again . In 2000 he directed a film I loved and thought was way underrated, Keeping The Faith. What got him to commit for his sophmore effort was Jonathan Lethem’s 1999 novel of the same name, if not the same era. He read it 20 years ago and obviously...
- 8/31/2019
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
Watch intrigue and drama unfold in the trailer for Motherless Brooklyn, starring Writer/Director Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, with Alec Baldwin and Willem Dafoe. Only in theaters November 1.
It was announced that the movie will be the closing night selection at the 57th New York Film Festival.
https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2019/films/motherless-brooklyn/
This is Oscar/Awards season bait… for sure! We can’t wait for this one!
Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), a lonely private detective living with Tourette Syndrome, ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). Armed only with a few clues and the engine of his obsessive mind, Lionel unravels closely guarded secrets that hold the fate of New York in the balance. In a mystery that carries him from gin-soaked jazz clubs in Harlem to the hard-edged slums of Brooklyn and, finally, into the gilded halls...
It was announced that the movie will be the closing night selection at the 57th New York Film Festival.
https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2019/films/motherless-brooklyn/
This is Oscar/Awards season bait… for sure! We can’t wait for this one!
Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), a lonely private detective living with Tourette Syndrome, ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). Armed only with a few clues and the engine of his obsessive mind, Lionel unravels closely guarded secrets that hold the fate of New York in the balance. In a mystery that carries him from gin-soaked jazz clubs in Harlem to the hard-edged slums of Brooklyn and, finally, into the gilded halls...
- 8/22/2019
- by Melissa Thompson
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Stars: Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake, Neil Bell, Pearce Quigley, David Moorst, Rachel Finnegan, Tom Meredith, Simona Bitmate, Robert Wilfort, Karl Johnson, Sam Troughton, Roger Sloman, Kenneth Hadley, Tom Edward-Kane | Written and Directed by Mike Leigh
Peterloo is the latest film directed by British auteur Mike Leigh and is his second-period piece in the last five years, after his critically acclaimed epic Mr Turner, released in 2014. Premiering on what will be the 200th anniversary of the relatively unknown British tragedy of the same name, occurring in the year of 1819 in Manchester. It is a rather timely release considering only 200 years later the British people are once again in a traumatising political disposition considering the deliberating reasoning of Brexit, although I’m sure this is no coincidence on Leigh’s part. Peterloo covers the days and ultimately the harrowing event itself with a massive British ensemble with pretty much every single UK...
Peterloo is the latest film directed by British auteur Mike Leigh and is his second-period piece in the last five years, after his critically acclaimed epic Mr Turner, released in 2014. Premiering on what will be the 200th anniversary of the relatively unknown British tragedy of the same name, occurring in the year of 1819 in Manchester. It is a rather timely release considering only 200 years later the British people are once again in a traumatising political disposition considering the deliberating reasoning of Brexit, although I’m sure this is no coincidence on Leigh’s part. Peterloo covers the days and ultimately the harrowing event itself with a massive British ensemble with pretty much every single UK...
- 5/8/2019
- by Jak-Luke Sharp
- Nerdly
The climactic massacre from “Peterloo” may well be the crowning achievement of the nearly three-decade collaboration between director Mike Leigh and cinematographer Dick Pope. Commemorating the 200th anniversary of the brutal government crackdown of the political rally in Manchester’s St. Peter’s Field, the event marked the first action sequence for Leigh and Pope, thrusting them into new cinematic territory.
The Peterloo Massacre was a massive undertaking in terms of scale and managing a cast of hundreds. The filmmakers reenacted the infamous tragedy, in which the cavalry charged a crowd of more than 60,000 gathered to demand increased parliamentary representation after the English economy was ravaged following the Napoleonic Wars. Hundreds were injured and 15 people were killed. But despite its complexity, the massacre did not deviate from Leigh’s method of shooting unscripted and workshopping the staging and performances.
“It was less a technical challenge and more a matter of...
The Peterloo Massacre was a massive undertaking in terms of scale and managing a cast of hundreds. The filmmakers reenacted the infamous tragedy, in which the cavalry charged a crowd of more than 60,000 gathered to demand increased parliamentary representation after the English economy was ravaged following the Napoleonic Wars. Hundreds were injured and 15 people were killed. But despite its complexity, the massacre did not deviate from Leigh’s method of shooting unscripted and workshopping the staging and performances.
“It was less a technical challenge and more a matter of...
- 4/11/2019
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
What possessed the British Tory government to order a military charge on horseback into a crowd of over 100,000 unarmed, working-class protesters? The place is St. Peter’s Field in Manchester, England, and the slaughter ended with 18 dead and hundreds injured as the cavalry — swords drawn — slashed through a gathering of dissenters in an enclosed space that made them ducks in a barrel. The time is August, 16, 1819, though Mike Leigh’s painstaking re-creation of the Peterloo massacre might as well be happening right now outside your window. Rest assured, there was...
- 4/4/2019
- by Peter Travers
- Rollingstone.com
Throw Dick Pope a question about cinematography and he’ll be able to answer. Even if the aspect in question isn’t an area of expertise–just as likely not a preference–something well-formed comes back to you. I learned as much when we talked about jury work in 2016, and at last fall’s EnergaCamerimage found us at it again–this time on the subject of Peterloo, both the latest in a nearly 30-year collaborations with Mike Leigh and a continuation of their experiments with digital filmmaking.
“Filmmaking” is probably Pope’s preferred, set-and-done term, though there were complications, catches, and innovations shaping this approach to an infamous massacre. Thus the inevitable set of discourses on his art’s current state, why we should be optimistic, and what, if you ask him, fetishists are getting terribly wrong.
The Film Stage: In a British Cinematographer interview, you proved very open to discussing the process.
“Filmmaking” is probably Pope’s preferred, set-and-done term, though there were complications, catches, and innovations shaping this approach to an infamous massacre. Thus the inevitable set of discourses on his art’s current state, why we should be optimistic, and what, if you ask him, fetishists are getting terribly wrong.
The Film Stage: In a British Cinematographer interview, you proved very open to discussing the process.
- 4/3/2019
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
It’s always fascinating to watch what an actor chooses to do when they make their directorial debut. For Chiwetel Ejiofor, he chose to adapt and direct a true life tale. Specifically, it’s the story of William Kamkwamba. That name may not be familiar to many, but for Ejiofor, it meant a lot. So, he set out make this his first feature filmmaking project. The end result is a well intentioned and well made drama that doesn’t quite hit the mark. The flick is damn close to be worthy of a recommendation, but it’s ever so slightly missing the bullseye. As of Friday, it’s streaming on Netflix, so it’s available to all right now, for what that’s worth. This film is, as mentioned above, a drama based on the true story of William Kamkwamba. Set in Malawi in 2001, the movie follows the boy William...
- 3/3/2019
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
Over two decades since he was cast in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad off an audition given while he was attending the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and only nineteen years old, Chiwetel Ejiofor has worked with several master filmmakers, earned an Oscar nod, and now directed a feature film. Arriving on Netflix today, The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind tells the true story of William Kamkwamba, a young boy in Malawi who saved his family and his village by building a wind turbine using bits and parts from a nearby scrapyard.
The Film Stage spoke with Ejiofor about directing and acting simultaneously, how to decide what part of a true story to focus on, and what he hopes to focus on in the future.
The Film Stage: On this one you are acting and directing. That’s a lot, especially given that it’s your feature directorial debut.
The Film Stage spoke with Ejiofor about directing and acting simultaneously, how to decide what part of a true story to focus on, and what he hopes to focus on in the future.
The Film Stage: On this one you are acting and directing. That’s a lot, especially given that it’s your feature directorial debut.
- 3/1/2019
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
A lovely and thoughtful family film, “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” is a far cry from Marvel multiplex-ity. But once viewers (of all ages) adjust to its quiet and respectful approach, they ought to be drawn to a superhero of a different sort — and one who may feel more familiar than any costumed crusader.
Several years ago, actor Chiwetel Ejiofor optioned the rights to William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer’s bestselling nonfiction book of the same name. You’d never guess that this strikingly confident adaptation is also his directorial debut.
What’s more, Ejiofor seems to have made things as challenging as possible: He directs a screenplay he wrote himself, and in an impressive, and effective, commitment to authenticity, he decided to film on location in Malawi with a mix of English and subtitled Chichewa (which he then had to learn).
Also Read: Chiwetel Ejiofor's Directorial Debut '...
Several years ago, actor Chiwetel Ejiofor optioned the rights to William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer’s bestselling nonfiction book of the same name. You’d never guess that this strikingly confident adaptation is also his directorial debut.
What’s more, Ejiofor seems to have made things as challenging as possible: He directs a screenplay he wrote himself, and in an impressive, and effective, commitment to authenticity, he decided to film on location in Malawi with a mix of English and subtitled Chichewa (which he then had to learn).
Also Read: Chiwetel Ejiofor's Directorial Debut '...
- 2/28/2019
- by Elizabeth Weitzman
- The Wrap
The phrase “important film” covers all manner of cinematic sins. If a narrative speaks to a specific issue or disenfranchisement, it can make critique a little complicated. Thankfully, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind plays more like entertainment than education while teaching its viewer something all the same. Written and directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor, adapted from the book by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, the film’s set in Wimbe, a village in the Southeast African country of Malawi. It concerns the life of a family trying their best to survive both extreme weather and a government that will offer no help.
Young William (Maxwell Simba) has been enrolled in school, his parents (Ejiofor, Aïssa Maïga) determined that their children grow up to be something more than farmers. Sadly, as heavy rains flood nearby crops only to be followed by an endless drought, the tuition cannot be paid. Still, William...
Young William (Maxwell Simba) has been enrolled in school, his parents (Ejiofor, Aïssa Maïga) determined that their children grow up to be something more than farmers. Sadly, as heavy rains flood nearby crops only to be followed by an endless drought, the tuition cannot be paid. Still, William...
- 2/27/2019
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
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