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      Pema Tseden, Pioneering Tibetan Filmmaker, Is Dead at 53

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      His films captured contemporary Tibetan life as Tibetans saw it, devoid of the stereotypes long associated with their homeland.Pema Tseden, a filmmaker and author who presented an honest look at contemporary Tibetan life despite intense scrutiny from Chinese censors, died on Monday in Tibet. He was 53.His death was announced in a statement by the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, where he was a professor. The statement did not specify a cause or say where he died.Tibet and its people have often been misrepresented with clichés. For the West, it was utopia, a fantasy based on the depiction of Shangri-La in the British author James Hilton’s 1933 novel, “Lost Horizon.” For the Communist Party of China, Tibetans were serfs or barbarians in need of rescue and rehabilitation, with propaganda films portraying Han cadres as liberators. Pema Tseden (pronounced WA-ma TSAY-ten in his native dialect), who like most Tibetans had no family name and went instead by his two given names, said that as a child, he had longed for accurate representations of his home, people and culture that existing Hollywood and Chinese films didn’t provide.“Whether it was the clothes, the customs, the manners, every element, even the smallest, was inaccurate,” he said in a 2019 interview. “Because of that, at the time, I thought that later on, if someone made films with even a little knowledge of the language of my people, the culture, the traditions of my people, it would be completely different.”In his films, Pema Tseden rarely depicted Tibet’s Chinese population, which swelled after the Red Army seized Tibet in 1951. To elude Chinese censors, he eschewed references to the Dalai Lama, who has been seen in China as supporting Tibetan independence. This allowed him to avoid overtly political critiques while still tackling broader themes, like the loss of traditions and identity in the face of modernization.Genden Phuntsok, left, and J. Jinpa in a scene from “Jinpa,” Pema Tseden’s film about a truck driver who runs over a sheep and then picks up a hitchhiker.Icarus FilmsHe was the first Tibetan filmmaker working in China to shoot a feature film entirely in the Tibetan language. He was also the first Tibetan director to graduate from the prestigious Beijing Film Academy, which cultivated the country’s leading directors. But like all artists in China exploring ethnic minorities and religion, he was subject to additional vetting from state censors and required to submit scripts in Chinese for review.“His challenge, of course, was to make films that would reflect a Tibetan sense of identity, a Tibetan cultural sensibility, while not upsetting the Chinese authorities,” Tenzing Sonam, a Tibetan filmmaker and writer living in Dharamshala, India, said by phone. “Pema Tseden navigated that fine line incredibly well.”In “The Silent Holy Stones” (2005), he depicted everyday Tibetan experiences: monks becoming engrossed with television, villagers rehearsing for a New Year’s opera performance. And in “Old Dog” (2011), images of barbed-wire fences stretching across the Tibetan grasslands examined the power of the state and the complexities of privatizing ancestral lands.Pema Tseden’s “Old Dog” (2011) examined the complexities of privatizing ancestral lands.Icarus FilmsHis movies were “not just about Tibet,” Tsering Shakya, a Tibetan historian and scholar at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, said in an interview. “This is about China and people who are left behind by China’s economic miracle.”As Pema Tseden’s clout grew, China’s film industry and its audiences began to accept Tibetan as a language used on the big screen. And by combining Tibetan traditions of oral storytelling and song with modern filmmaking formats, his movies gave rise to an entirely new genre that some called the Tibetan New Wave.“The stories his films contained — which are always meticulously framed and exquisitely modulated — speak powerful truths in the gentlest of voices,” said Shelly Kraicer, a Chinese cinema curator and researcher who wrote subtitles for some of Pema Tseden’s work. “He’s a key world filmmaker.”He sought to build a tight-knit network of Tibetan filmmakers, including Sonthar Gyal, Dukar Tserang, Lhapal Gyal and Pema Tseden’s, son, Jigme Trinley, who went on to direct their own films. Drivers, assistants and other members of the crew sometimes juggled more than one role, appearing as extras and coaching actors in regional dialects.“He created from scratch an embryonic Tibetan film circle, film industry,” Françoise Robin, a professor of Tibetan language and literature at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations in Paris who knew Pema Tseden for over two decades, said by phone. “He’s very faithful in friendship. Some people worked with him for 10 years.”“Tharlo” (2015), the story of a shepherd who travels outside his isolated village to register for a government ID, premiered at the Venice Film Festival.Tsemdo/Icarus FilmsPema Tseden was born on Dec. 3, 1969, in Qinghai Province, part of a northeastern region of Tibet traditionally known as Amdo. His parents were farmers and herders.He was raised by his grandfather, who asked him to copy out Buddhist scriptures by hand after school, a practice that instilled in him an early appreciation for Tibetan language and culture. He worked as a teacher for four years before studying Tibetan literature and translation at the Northwest University for Nationalities in Lanzhou. He then worked for several years as a civil servant in his home province.Starting in 1991, he published short stories set in Tibet, written in both Tibetan and Chinese, about individuals confronted with sweeping changes. They underscored the importance of forging a connection with nature and animals, showing “the complexity of life in the simplest language,” said Jessica Yeung, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University who knew Pema Tseden for a decade and translated his work. He later adapted some of his stories into films.After attending the Beijing Film Academy in the early 2000s, he released “The Silent Holy Stones” to critical acclaim, as well as several other films. A decade later, “Tharlo” (2015), about the journey of a shepherd who must travel outside his isolated village to register for a government ID, premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It won numerous awards, including a Golden Horse Award for best adapted screenplay in Taiwan. Among Tibetans, it also became a seminal work for aspiring filmmakers within a few years.“A Tibetan film should show Tibetan life,” Pema Tseden said in an undated interview that was recently released by Kangba TV, a Tibetan-language broadcaster. “In my case, from my first film onward, I wanted my movies to absolutely include characters who are Tibetan, who would all speak Tibetan, and whose behavior and way of thinking were Tibetan. This is what makes Tibetan films different.”Pema Tseden’s subsequent films benefited from his higher profile. “Jinpa” (2018), about a truck driver who runs over a sheep and then picks up a hitchhiker, was produced by the Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai’s Jet Tone Films and premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Orizzonti Award for best screenplay. “Balloon” (2019), about a family coping with an unexpected pregnancy amid China’s family planning laws, also premiered in Venice. A forthcoming film, “Snow Leopard,” about the tense relationship between humans and predatory animals, is currently in postproduction. At his death, he was working on another film.Information on survivors in addition to his son was not immediately available.Li You More

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      Will the Spiraling Publicity Harm ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ at the Box Office?

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      A series of missteps on the promotional trail has raised questions about the film’s viability and its director, Olivia Wilde.It was one of the hottest projects Hollywood had seen in years. Eighteen bidders. An ascendant female director. Florence Pugh, the actress of the moment, shooting upward like a rocket. “Don’t Worry Darling” was set up to be a smash.But now, the $35 million production is being referred to around town as “Kill Your Darlings.” Over the past three weeks, the once highly anticipated movie has become a spectacle in all the wrong ways, with its director, Olivia Wilde, self-immolating on the publicity trail. Now all eyes are on the box office as the film — one of only three Warner Bros. is releasing theatrically through the remainder of the year — debuts nationally on Sept. 23.Signs of trouble began appearing in March when Wilde’s personal life became entangled with her promotional efforts on a stage in Las Vegas, where her introduction of the “Don’t Worry Darling” trailer was co-opted by a process server presenting her with custody papers from her ex-fiancé, the “Ted Lasso” actor Jason Sudeikis.That spiraled into internet gossip over Pugh’s lack of substantive promotion for the film, which led to reports of a clash between the director and the star over the rumored on-set affair between Wilde and Harry Styles, the pop star in his first major film role. (Wilde has declined to discuss the rumors other than to tell Vanity Fair that stories that she left Sudeikis for Styles were “completely inaccurate.”) Things ratcheted up when Wilde told Variety she had fired Shia LaBeouf, the actor first cast in the role that eventually went to Styles, only to have LaBeouf dispute her account with both audio and video evidence backing up his contention that he quit.The saga peaked this month in a tense news conference at the Venice Film Festival, which Pugh did not attend. When asked about the controversy, Wilde tersely replied: “The internet feeds itself. I don’t feel the need to contribute. I think it’s sufficiently well-nourished.”Wilde with some cast members of “Don’t Worry Darling” in Venice: Harry Styles, left, Gemma Chan and Chris Pine. The star, Florence Pugh, skipped the news conference.Joel C Ryan/Invision, via Associated PressWilde declined to comment for this article, canceling a long-scheduled interview last week just hours before it was to take place. A representative for Pugh also declined to comment.This scandal ranks rather low on Hollywood’s outrage meter. Stephen Galloway, the dean of the Chapman University Dodge College of Film and Media Arts and the author of “Truly, Madly,” the story of the whirlwind romance between Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier, characterized it as “a messy fling.” But the “Don’t Worry Darling” situation is high-profile enough that it could have the power to dim the excitement around Wilde’s potential ascent as Hollywood’s bright new directing talent.The film centers on Alice and Jack (Pugh and Styles), a wildly-in-love married couple whose idyllic 1950s existence belies a more sinister reality. Originally conceived by Carey and Shane Van Dyke (the grandsons of Dick Van Dyke) in a script that was featured on the Black List, a compendium of the best unproduced screenplays of the year, “Don’t Worry Darling” was rewritten by Katie Silberman (Wilde’s “Booksmart”). It became the subject of a bidding war, with the New Line division of Warner Bros. landing the title thanks in part to its commitment to releasing the film theatrically.Now “Don’t Worry Darling,” which is set to debut in more than 2,000 theaters, is in jeopardy of falling flat. Based on pre-release surveys that track consumer interest, box office experts had predicted roughly $20 million in opening-weekend ticket sales. In recent days, those estimates have cooled to about $18 million. Surveys have shown that ticket sales could be as low as $16 million. Warner Bros. declined to comment on box office projections but an insider at the studio who was not permitted to speak on the record said it had always expected about $18 million and that interest had not fluctuated.Early reviews have not been kind. Rotten Tomatoes currently has the film hovering at a 38 percent score, squarely in the rotten category. Many critics have mentioned the scandal surrounding the film. The Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang wondered whether Alice could be “a more fitting stand-in for Wilde, a talented director trying to fight her way out of a misogynistic system, one that wouldn’t blink twice at a male filmmaker in a similar position?”Styles and Pugh in the film, which is opening Sept. 23.Warner Bros.Is the reaction to the tabloid controversy misogyny at work, as Chang suggested? Male directors, after all, have a long history of both becoming combative with the press and engaging in on-set affairs. Or will this become a case of Hollywood adding Wilde, a daughter of the journalists and documentarians Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, to the life’s-too-short list, meaning that this episode will overshadow her talent? Some question, given the rift with Pugh and her dispute with LaBeouf, whether talent will want to work with Wilde in the future.“There’s some degree of sexism in this,” Galloway said. “Male directors have done this for decades and gotten away with it. A female director does it and it explodes. That’s unfair. On the other hand, what she did is wrong, just as it was wrong for all the male directors to behave like male chauvinist pigs. Part of me feels bad for her being judged by a different standard. Part of me says, ‘There is a modern standard which we should all be upholding.’”What’s next for Wilde is not clear. She was scheduled to follow “Don’t Worry Darling” with “Perfect,” about the gymnast Kerri Strug. But according to three people with knowledge of the project who were granted anonymity to discuss its status, Wilde abandoned the movie after asking for multiple rewrites from different screenwriters before walking away, believing the script was still not ready for production.“It became clear to me that this year was a time for me to be a stay-at-home mom,” she told Variety. “It was not the year for me to be on a set, which is totally all-encompassing.”She has two projects in early development: a new Marvel movie, which two people involved said was “Spider-Woman,” and an untitled holiday comedy that Universal Pictures has had in the works since 2019.Some believe the attention caused by the scandal could bring more moviegoers to theaters, following the adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.“I think that even a title like this with A-list talent attached, increased awareness in this challenging marketplace totally can help people to know that it exists, it’s out there and it’s coming soon,” said Joe Quenqua, a veteran strategic communications executive.Warner Bros. is continuing with its original marketing strategy. The studio announced last week that its Sept. 19 IMAX experience, which will include a screening of the film and a live question-and-answer session in 100 locations across the country, is the fastest-selling live event in IMAX’s history.Wilde will be in attendance. Pugh will not. More

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      ‘All the Beauty and the Bloodshed’ Wins Best Film at Venice Film Festival

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      The director, Laura Poitras, praised Nan Goldin, the photographer and subject of her film, in her acceptance speech.“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” directed by Laura Poitras, was awarded the Golden Lion for best film at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on Saturday by a competition jury led by Julianne Moore. The film, about the photographer Nan Goldin, was the rare documentary to win the Golden Lion and won over strong competitors.“I’ve never met anyone like Nan,” Poitras said in her acceptance speech, praising Goldin as “courageous” in her protests against the Sackler family, whom Poitras described as “ruthless.” The film examines Goldin’s art, life and her activism in protesting the family and Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, for their roles in the opioid crisis. Poitras, whose 2014 film “Citizenfour” won the Oscar for best documentary, thanked the festival for recognizing that “documentary is cinema.”Poitras also called for the release of Jafar Panahi, the imprisoned Iranian director who directed “No Bears,” which premiered at the festival, and encouraged “all of us to do whatever we can.” She also spoke of the memory of the late influential documentary executive, Diane Weyermann.The 79th edition of the festival opened with Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise,” an adaptation of the Don DeLillo novel, starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig. Other prominent films included “The Whale,” “Blonde,” “Tár,” “Bones and All,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Un Couple,” “Bardo,” “The Son” and “The Eternal Daughter.”Unlike many other festivals, the Venice Film Festival continued in person during the past two years, despite the pandemic. But this year, the Venice event especially thrived. Stars like Timothée Chalamet and Ana de Armas enthralled the robust crowds, and critical debate and red-carpet buzz were never in short supply. (Still, Covid remained a presence: Absent at the ceremony was one competition jury member, the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who Moore explained had tested positive.)The Silver Lion Grand Jury prize went to Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer,” her feature about a novelist who becomes engrossed in the trial of a woman accused of leaving her baby on a beach to perish — a story based on a true tale. The Silver Lion award for best director went to Luca Guadagnino for “Bones and All,” the first Lion for the Italian film director.The Special Jury prize went to Panahi for “No Bears.” His award was accepted by two of the film’s actors, Mina Kavani and Reza Heydari, in his absence. The audience gave a standing ovation.The Volpi Cup for best actress was awarded to Cate Blanchett, who played the fictional famous composer at the center of “Tár,” directed by Todd Field. The best actor award went to Colin Farrell for his portrayal of an Irishman whose pal abruptly ends their friendship in Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin.” Taylor Russell won the Marcello Mastroianni Award, which recognizes an outstanding emerging actor, for her performance as a young cannibal in “Bones and All.”The best screenplay honor was given to McDonagh, who wrote and directed “The Banshees of Inisherin” and who won the same honor in 2017 for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Diop’s “Saint Omer” also received the Lion of the Future Award for best debut feature. (Diop has already directed an acclaimed feature, the documentary “We,” which won a top award at the Berlin Film Festival.)In the Orizzonti section of the awards, which runs parallel to the primary competition, the top honor was given to Iranian filmmaker Houman Seyedi’s “World War III.” The film also featured a best actor award winner in Mohsen Tanabandeh, who played the protagonist.This edition’s Golden Lions for lifetime achievement went to Paul Schrader, whose film “Master Gardener” played out of competition, and to Catherine Deneuve. A Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award went to Walter Hill, whose film “Dead for a Dollar” played out of competition. More

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      Venice: ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ Faces the Press, but Where Is Florence Pugh?

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      Though the movie’s star skipped the media session, director Olivia Wilde called rumors of their feud ‘endless tabloid gossip.’VENICE — Even before the talent filed in for the “Don’t Worry Darling” news conference on Monday afternoon at the Venice Film Festival, the name placards on the dais told a story.Though the filmmaker and top-billed star are typically seated next to each other, the placards for the director, Olivia Wilde, and her leading man, Harry Styles, were spaced far apart, with co-stars Chris Pine and Gemma Chan in between them, so photos of the rumored couple would be harder to snap. And there was no placard at all for the film’s star, Florence Pugh, whose no-show at the session further deepened rumors of a rift between her and Wilde.The premise of “Don’t Worry Darling” is juicy enough on its own: Pugh plays a housewife with a picture-perfect 1950s marriage who suspects that the carefully manicured world around her is a sinister illusion. But the movie’s behind-the-scenes drama has been even juicier, and after weeks of headlines and speculation, Monday’s news conference proved to be a hotter ticket than many of Venice’s major premieres.A recap of the drama thus far:Fans initially figured something was amiss when Pugh, who is normally eager to promote her projects on social media, appeared to be giving “Don’t Worry Darling” the cold shoulder. Indeed, Pugh has done notably little promo for the film whether on social media or in traditional outlets, and the usual onslaught of press junkets and interviews required for a movie and star of this scale appears to have been waived.Florence Pugh as a ’50s-style housewife in “Don’t Worry Darling.”Merrick Morton/Warner Bros., via Associated PressPugh’s reps maintained that she has been too busy filming her new role in “Dune: Part Two” to commit to obligations, including the Venice news conference, but “Dune” star Timothée Chalamet was able to clear several days to promote his romantic drama “Bones and All” in Venice. And one would presume that since Warner Bros. is distributing both “Don’t Worry Darling” and the “Dune” sequel, an accommodating schedule could have been carved out for Pugh the moment she signed on for the latter film, especially since it features a sprawling ensemble cast.Puck’s Matthew Belloni recently reported that Pugh and Wilde began feuding because of the on-set affair between Wilde and Styles, writing that Pugh “wasn’t a fan of her director disappearing so often with her leading man” between camera setups. Indeed, Wilde’s personal life has received outsized scrutiny during this promotional tour, not simply because she is dating a famous pop star but also because her ex-fiancé, the “Ted Lasso” star Jason Sudeikis, had her served with custody papers while she was onstage promoting “Don’t Worry Darling” at CinemaCon in April.It’s worth noting, too, that a significant portion of Styles’s fan base resents the presence of Wilde in his life and continually whips up social-media trending topics about her in a bid to damage her sophomore film. No matter that if “Don’t Worry Darling” tanks, it would presumably wound their pop idol’s nascent film career: The flames of passion, once fanned, blow indiscriminately in every direction.Because of all these behind-the-scenes narratives, many expected fireworks at the Venice media session. But having sat through quite a few of these, I knew that the festival press corps is tame and given to blandishments; in the early going, after Wilde, Styles, and the rest took their seats, most of the questions were simply about how Styles managed to juggle his music and movie careers.“Personally, I find them to be opposite in a lot of ways,” Styles said. “What I like about acting is the feeling that I have no idea what I’m doing.”But around the halfway mark, a journalist finally broke through the glaze and asked Wilde the big question: Would she like to clear the air about her rumored falling-out with Pugh?“Florence is a force,” Wilde replied evenly, noting that Pugh would at least walk the red carpet at the film’s Venice premiere. “We are so grateful that she is able to make it tonight despite being in production on ‘Dune.’ I know as a director how disruptive it is to lose an actor even for a day.”Wilde continued to wax rhapsodic about her leading lady — “I can’t say enough how honored I am to have her as our lead,” she said — and then pivoted: “As for all the endless tabloid gossip and noise out there, the internet feeds itself. I don’t feel the need to contribute. I think it’s sufficiently well-nourished.”At that, some friendly journalists broke into mild applause, but The Hollywood Reporter’s Alex Ritman rose with a follow-up: “I would like to ask about the noise you just mentioned.”“The question has been answered,” replied the moderator, Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan.Ritman protested that he had a separate question about Shia LaBeouf, who was initially cast as the male lead in “Don’t Worry Darling” and left the film under disputed, clearly contentious circumstances. In a recent Variety cover story, Wilde claimed she had fired LaBeouf because the actor, who has been accused of abuse by his ex-girlfriend FKA twigs, “was not conducive to the ethos that I demand in my productions.”LaBeouf replied with a statement declaring he had not been fired but instead quit the film of his own volition, supplying Variety with text messages from Wilde and a video she sent LaBeouf asking him to consider staying on “Don’t Worry Darling.” In the video, Wilde says LaBeouf’s departure could be a “wake-up call for Miss Flo.” Minutes after it leaked online, Wilde’s diminutive nickname for Pugh became a Twitter trending topic.Still, the moderator of the Venice news conference refused to allow the line of questioning. “I think this question has been answered,” D’Agnolo Vallan said firmly as the other actors on the dais stared neutrally into space. Two more questions were taken from other journalists and then the session wrapped.“It felt ridiculous,” Ritman told me later, after his inquiry to Wilde was denied. “She hadn’t already answered the question, and it seemed like it had already been carefully arranged with the moderator beforehand.”But in Venice, as in Hollywood, careful choreography is par for the course. Five minutes after Wilde was asked why Pugh had missed the news conference, her star was photographed sauntering down a deck in Venice, dressed to the nines in purple Valentino. Maybe her plane went through Newark? More

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      Brendan Fraser Mounts a Transformational Comeback With ‘The Whale’

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      In Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale,” the onetime leading hunk is earning Oscar chatter for his role as a 600-pound recluse, though the emotional actor is wary.VENICE — For someone who became famous for playing the titular lunkheads in 1990s movies like “Encino Man” and “George of the Jungle,” Brendan Fraser speaks with a surprising delicacy.At the Venice Film Festival on Sunday to discuss his new film “The Whale,” the 53-year-old actor answered news-conference questions with a quaver in his voice and the director Darren Aronofsky’s steadying hand on his shoulder. And whenever the clearly emotional Fraser managed to make it to the end of a statement without his eyes filling with tears, the room full of journalists burst into encouraging applause.“Thank you for the warm reception,” Fraser said. “I’m looking forward to how this film makes a deep impression on everyone as much as it has on me.”Though his career faltered in the years after “The Mummy” (1999) made him a bankable leading man, “The Whale” offers Fraser a showy comeback role unlike anything he’s ever played. In Aronofsky’s film, adapted from the play by Samuel D. Hunter, Fraser dons a prosthetic bodysuit to play Charlie, a 600-pound gay man who lives in unhappy isolation following the death of his lover. Whether he’s grabbing a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken or two double-stacked slices of pizza piled with American cheese, Charlie eats so self-destructively that he doesn’t even bother to chew his food; he inhales each piece, as if hoping to choke on it.His caregiver (Hong Chau) warns Charlie that his blood pressure is so severe that if he doesn’t change his ways or go to a hospital, he’ll almost certainly die. But in the meantime, Charlie tries to draw his estranged daughter (Sadie Sink) back into his orbit, attempting to make things right with her before the ending he appears to be hurtling headlong toward.Aronofsky wanted to mount the movie for years but could never land on the right lead. “I considered everyone — all different types of actors, every single movie star on the planet — but none of it really ever clicked,” the director said. “It just didn’t move me, it didn’t feel right.”A light bulb went off when he chanced upon a trailer for “Journey to the End of the Night,” a low-budget 2006 film starring Fraser: Perhaps, like Mickey Rourke in Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” Fraser was ripe for reclamation.And, for that matter, transformation. Fraser wears prosthetic appliances to play Charlie that sometimes weighed up to 300 extra pounds. “I needed to learn to move in a new way,” Fraser said. “I developed muscles that I did not know that I had. I even felt a sense of vertigo at the end of the day when all the appliances were removed, just as you would feel stepping off the boat onto the dock here in Venice.”Oscar voters love a contender who undergoes a physical transformation, but not everybody is pleased about his movie metamorphosis: In the last year alone, actors like Sarah Paulson, Colin Farrell, Jared Leto, Emma Thompson and Renée Zellweger have all donned fat suits to play overweight characters, a practice some argue is fatphobic and exploitative.For his part, Fraser said that spending time in Charlie’s skin gave me “an appreciation for those whose bodies are similar because I learned that you need to be an incredibly strong person physically, mentally, to inhabit that physical being. And I think that is Charlie.”Many of Fraser’s early roles banked on his physical beauty and muscular frame, and one journalist recalled watching “George of the Jungle” with her children, noting, “Being very beautiful can isolate you, because people don’t see you.” Fraser, who is long past his loincloth era, nodded.“I looked different in those days,” he said. “My journey to where I am now has been to explore as many characters as I can, and this presented the biggest challenge to me.”Will that challenge lead to Fraser’s first Oscar nomination? It was clear from the supportive applause at the news conference that people were rooting for the actor, and that personal narrative of a career comeback combined with a showy role could take Fraser to the front of the pack. But when he was asked about that buzz and what it meant for the future of his career, Fraser said softly that it remained to be seen.“My crystal ball is broken,” Fraser told the journalist. “I don’t know if yours works, but meet me after the show, and we’ll take a peek together.” More

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      Venice: Noah Baumbach Finds the Music in ‘White Noise’

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      An end-credits dance scene, set to a new LCD Soundsystem song, is the talk of the fest. The director explains how it came together and what it means for “Barbie.”VENICE — Noah Baumbach is not a fan of Netflix’s “skip credits” feature. When he directed “Marriage Story” and “The Meyerowitz Stories,” Baumbach implored the streaming service not to speed viewers past the closing credits and into the next piece of content before the film has technically concluded. Still, the 52-year-old director realizes that on this front, he might be an old-school outlier.“When I’m watching a movie with my 12-year-old and it finishes, I like to decompress and watch the credits, always,” Baumbach told me Thursday at the Venice Film Festival. “And he’s like, ‘OK, what’s next?’ For him, it’s just words on a screen, but I’m like, ‘Let’s just vibe out on the fonts.’”To ensure the survival of closing credits, filmmakers now have to make something truly unskippable, and it’s here that Baumbach has delivered in spades: At the end of his new film, the Venice opener “White Noise,” he delivers a full-blown musical number starring the entire cast and set to the first new LCD Soundsystem song in five years. It’s a deliriously fun sequence that has dominated chatter in the first 24 hours of the festival and is doubly surprising because, like the movie itself, it finds Baumbach working at a scale he’s never before tried.In “White Noise,” adapted from the 1985 novel by Don DeLillo, Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig play married parents Jack and Babette Gladney: He’s a paunchy professor who blathers about his “advanced Nazism” course, she’s a pill-popper with a mighty ’80s perm. (“She has important hair,” coos Don Cheadle as one of Jack’s colleagues.) The couple’s pillow talk involves morbid debate over which of them will die first, but when a toxic spill forces their neighborhood to evacuate, our leads must confront their obsession with death in a way that hits much closer to home.The only thing that ever seems to soothe these neurotics is the local supermarket, a gleaming, jumbo-sized temple of consumerism where everything is always in the right place. With its abundance, bright-white lights and collection of familiar, beaming faces, a trip to the supermarket in “White Noise” isn’t just like going to heaven — it’s better.Driver in a scene from the film, which opened the Venice festival. Wilson Webb/NetflixThat makes it the perfect place to set the end-credits number. Don’t worry, the sequence isn’t a spoiler — it’s more of a coda, and “a visual, visceral, physical representation of what I felt like the whole movie was about,” Baumbach told me.Here, nearly every character in the movie cavorts among aisles of Hi-C, Doritos and Ritz Crackers while Driver and Gerwig pull boxes from the shelves with Busby Berkeley-level precision. Later, workers in the checkout area throw plastic bags into the air as if they were feathered fans, and a coterie of college professors — played by the likes of Cheadle, Jodie Turner-Smith, and André Benjamin — boogie in a charmingly fussy fashion.The sequence made me think of the dance-heavy curtain calls from “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai” and “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again,” though Baumbach, a more refined cineaste, was motivated by “8 ½” and “Beau Travail,” he told me.“As I arrived at the end of the script, it revealed itself to me as the thing to do,” said Baumbach, who likened it to smaller cinematic flourishes that close his previous films: “‘Frances Ha’ has no unmotivated camera until the very end, and then there’s a push in on her face — it’s very simple. ‘Meyerowitz Stories’ is all piano music and then an orchestra comes in at the end. I like trying to listen for those things.”He went to LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy, who also contributed to Baumbach’s “Greenberg” and “While We’re Young,” to craft “New Body Rhumba,” an upbeat, catchy song about death for the sequence. “I said, essentially, write the song you would have written if you were writing songs in 1985,” Baumbach said.“For me, that’s not a hard nudge,” Murphy said at the film’s premiere party. If writing ’80s-inflected songs is well in his wheelhouse, what was the greatest challenge, I asked? “Trying not to die before the song was done,” Murphy replied mordantly. (Jack and Babette could scarcely have phrased it better.)The dance sequence, choreographed by David Neumann, was shot over two days at an abandoned Ohio superstore. “It actually was as happy shooting it as it is to watch it,” Baumbach said. “It was this contagious feeling. It just felt good. And though Baumbach has flirted with making a movie musical before — he and Driver once explored the idea of adapting Stephen Sondheim’s “Company,” eventually using that show’s “Being Alive” as the climactic sung number in “Marriage Story” — making “White Noise” hasn’t fully scratched that itch.“It makes me interested in doing more of that,” said Baumbach, who also used Neumann to choreograph the movie’s chaotic family breakfasts and massive crowd scenes. “I think this whole movie opened up things for me, aspects of moviemaking that I’ve always been drawn to that the movies I’ve made haven’t needed or wanted.”And it may offer a tantalizing throughline to Baumbach’s next project: “Barbie,” a big-screen take on the iconic Mattel doll that Gerwig is directing from a script she co-wrote with Baumbach. Little is known about the plot of the movie, which stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, though co-star Simu Liu has divulged that it will feature dance sequences, and Baumbach appeared to confirm that.“‘Barbie’ definitely has that as well, that kind of choreographed naturalism. Well, it’s an artificial world, but a choreographed naturalism,” Baumbach told me.“It’s always exciting to me,” he said, “when a movie can be many things at the same time.” More

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      Venice: Can Iñárritu Beguile Oscar Voters Again With ‘Bardo’?

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      The director behind award-season favorites ‘Birdman’ and ‘The Revenant’ returns with a personal new movie, but not everyone is a fan.I love a great movie debate, and on only its second day, the Venice Film Festival has kicked off a robust one. As I walked out of the press screening for Alejandro G. Iñarritu’s lengthy new film “Bardo,” I thought I had just watched Oscar catnip, the kind of movie that awards voters typically go gaga for.Then I talked to other people.“Bar-NO,” texted one critic. “Three hours? So self-indulgent,” said a film festival programmer. And in a hotel elevator later that day, an Italian woman segued smoothly from complaining about the weather (“Horrible!”) to the movie (“Also horrible! Why does he have to copy Cuarón?”).She was implying that “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths” (to use its full title) takes more than a few cues from Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma,” and there are certainly some similarities: Like his friend Cuarón, Iñárritu is a Hollywood-venerated filmmaker who has returned to his native Mexico for a Netflix-financed autofiction teeming with long takes, digital tricks and stunning cinematography.The streaming service certainly hopes that “Bardo” can net the same Oscar nominations as the laureled “Roma” (which wound up taking three statuettes), and with Iñárritu at the helm, there’s reason to be bullish: Every film he’s made has received at least one Oscar nomination, and he’s coming off back-to-back best director wins for “The Revenant” (2015) and “Birdman” (2014), as well as a best picture victory for the latter film.So will award voters respond more favorably than that initial wave of Venice filmgoers would indicate? I think so. Certainly, the plot will resonate more with them: “Bardo” is Iñárritu’s riff on “8½”: it’s a surreal dramedy about Silverio Gama (Daniel Giménez Cacho), a documentarian making sense of his life story. Though he’s prone to dreamlike visions, Gama’s problems are the kind that middle-aged Hollywood types can relate to: Do I deserve my success, or am I a fraud? Have I spent too little time at home with my family? Will my children be spoiled and entitled?After Iñárritu shot “Amores Perros” in Mexico in 2000, he and his family moved to Los Angeles to pursue mainstream Hollywood success, just as the “Bardo” protagonist did. In many ways, Gama is a thinly veiled Iñárritu stand-in: He’s attired just like his creator and haunted by an old collaborator who now shuns him, which may be a reference to the rancorous professional breakup between Iñárritu and the co-writer of his early films, Guillermo Arriaga.But though the film acknowledges Gama’s flaws, it doesn’t really examine them. Characters tell Gama that he’s too self-involved, too bougie, too fake, and we have to take their word for it, since Gama just shrugs and moves on. Giménez Cacho is appealing but passive in the role, which may inhibit a robust awards run, but the film can definitely rack up several technical nominations: Darius Khondji’s cinematography is superb, and all of Gama’s visions — apartments flooded with sand, subways steeped in fish-tank water — are brought to incredible life by the production designer Eugenio Caballero (who also worked on “Roma”).Past that, we’ll see how well the film connects with the Hollywood types it’s portraying, and whether Netflix is willing to push it as hard (and as expensively) as it did “Roma.” Certainly, “Bardo” implies that streaming services have the coin for it: One of the movie’s most successful jokes is that in the world of “Bardo,” Amazon is about to complete its successful purchase not of a new awards contender but of the entire state of Baja California. Compared with that, what’s the cost of a few hundred for-your-consideration ads and some private planes? More

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      “Dune”: quid des Oscars et d'une deuxième partie?

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      Notre critique évalue les chances et les attentes du film à l’approche de la saison des grands prix de cinéma. Aux USA, le film sort le mois prochain à la fois en salle et en streaming.The New York Times traduit en français une sélection de ses meilleurs articles. Retrouvez-les ici.L’épice doit couler. Mais le public sera-t-il au rendez-vous ?Le film très attendu de Denis Villeneuve a été projeté en avant-première à la Mostra de Venise le 3 septembre. C’était un choix de lieu inattendu pour le lancement d’une franchise de science-fiction qui aura coûté près de 160 millions de dollars — mais “Dune” n’a rien d’une locomotive de studio ordinaire.C’est un objet cinématographique plus étrange et onirique, une oeuvre effrontément à cheval entre un film d’auteur et un blockbuster de studio, de telle façon que même après l’avoir vu, je ne peux pas prédire quel succès il rencontrera à sa sortie en salle (aux USA et sur HBO Max le 22 octobre). A l’issue de la projection, le premier critique à qui j’ai parlé était conquis. Un autre a fui la salle comme si Villeneuve y avait posé une bombe.Pourtant, après une décennie de films Marvel réalisés avec moultes prouesses techniques mais sans grand risque formel, c’est stimulant de voir un film de cette envergure prendre de tels risques artistiques. Trois questions me trottent dans la tête depuis cette séance à Venise.‘Dune’ percera-t-il au grand écran?‘Dune’ a beau être fondé sur le grand classique de science-fiction par Frank Herbert, ses adaptations sont loin d’avoir enflammé les foules. Celle de David Lynch en 1984 est un célèbre fiasco que le cinéaste lui-même a désavoué. Quant aux deux adaptations en mini-séries, elles auront plutôt marqué par les lentilles de contact bleues déjantées qu’y porte un jeune James McAvoy que pour avoir inspiré quelque réaction significative dans le monde de la pop-culture.Mais ‘Dune’ a les reins solides, et ils ont supporté beaucoup depuis la publication du roman en 1965. Il a inspiré tant de films que les gfrands traits du récit nous sont désormais familiers : un jeune homme (joué ici par Timothée Chalamet) est envoyé sur une planète exotique où l’on exploite une ressource naturelle précieuse — en l’occurrence la fameuse “épice” hallucinogène — mais décide finalement de prendre le parti des autochtones et de lutter contre leurs oppresseurs archi-militarisés.C’est à peu de choses près l’intrigue d’ “Avatar”, direz-vous… et c’est peut-être tant mieux ! “Avatar” a pulvérisé les records, et si Chalamet est novice dans ce type de rôle, Villeneuve l’a entouré d’un casting de vétérans : Jason Momoa, Dave Bautista et Josh Brolin sont des vétérans de l’univers des super-héros, Oscar Isaac est frais émoulu de la trilogie “Star Wars” et Rebecca Ferguson tient le rôle principal dans l’adaptation de “Mission : Impossible”. Si tant de films à succès ont emprunté à “Dune”, ce n’est que justice que “Dune” leur emprunte en retour.En dépit de son pedigrée, “Dune” fait cependant face à des obstacles de taille. Le tournage s’est terminé il y a plus de deux ans et la sortie programmée d’abord pour novembre 2020 a été reportée d’environ un an par Warner Bros. Ce délai réservait l’espoir que “Dune” voit le jour dans une ère post-Covid; en réalité, les ravage continus du variant Delta font trembler les studios au point de repousser à 2022 la sortie de quelques films majeurs — comme “Top Gun : Maverick”.D’une certaine manière, ce n’est peut-être pas si mal pour “Dune” : avec moins de blockbusters de marque sur le marché, le film a plus de chance de sortir du lot et d’attirer les amateurs de grand spectacle. Mais aux USA, à la consternation de Villeneuve, le film sortira sur HBO en même temps qu’il ouvrira en salles, menaçant ainsi de rogner sur les recettes du box-office et de torpiller les chances qu’une suite du film voit le jour.Cela pourrait aussi affecter le buzz de départ : le public qui verra “Dune” en salle se sentira certainement plus immergé dans le film (avec les sensations sonores et visuelles qu’il dispense), tandis que les non-initiés ou les curieux qui arrivent sur HBO Max au moyen d’un simple clic seront forcément moins sensibles à la mise en scène de Villeneuve. La première séquence d’action de taille — l’attaque d’un ver des sables géant — n’arrive qu’au bout d’une heure. Les spectateurs à domicile seront-il aussi disposés à aller jusqu’au bout du film que ceux qui ont fait l’effort de payer leur place en salle?Timothée Chalamet et Rebecca Ferguson dans “Dune.”Chiabella James/Warner Bros.Comment “Dune” sera-t-il reconnu aux Oscar?Une des choses partciulièrement frappante de “Dune” est le sens de la texture qu’a Denis Villeneuve, à contrario d’autres réalisateurs de films à gros budget. Quand un personnage tombe lors d’une bataille, c’est le battement des cils du mourant qui le fascine. Durant l’assaut donné sur un retranchement, la caméra se détourne de l’action pour nous montrer de magnifiques palmiers en flammes, leurs couronnes de feuilles rayonnant de puissance destructrice.Même si les jurys des Oscars ne sont d’habitude pas très friands de films de science-fiction, je soupçonne que ce regard si particulier de Villeneuve distinguera “Dune”, car le film est indéniablement envoûtant. Il est sûr de s’attirer une tonne de nominations secondaires, dont pour la photographie de Greig Fraser et pour les décors de Patrice Vermette. La musique de Hans Zimmer, le son et le montage sont tous bien plus audacieux que ce que le genre nous offre d’habitude : les effets sonores et les plans en coupe semblent élaborés pour vous mettre en transe comme sous l’emprise de l’épice.Et je n’en suis pas encore aux costumes ! Leur design (par Jacqueline West et Bob Morgan) est étourdissant, surtout pendant la première heure du film. Avec Rebecca Ferguson en nonne de l’espace habillée de fourreaux extravagants, et Charlotte Rampling voilée en Jean-Paul Gaultier telle le Chevalier vert, “Dune” a des airs de défilé de haute-couture où passent à l’occasion des vaisseaux spatiaux — et pour moi c’est une bonne chose.“Blade Runner 2049” , le dernier film de Villeneuve, s’est vu décerner 5 nominations aux Oscars et un Academy Award mérité de longue date à son chef opérateur Roger Deakins. Mais il n’a pas pu percer dans les deux catégories d’excellence des Oscars — meilleur film et meilleur réalisateur. Est-ce que “Dune” a de meilleures chances d’y réussir?Je botte en touche et opte pour le ‘wait-and-see’. Aucun des acteurs de “Dune” ne semble avoir de chance d’être nominé, ce qui aurait accru la légitimité du film auprès des membres du jury. Ajoutons qu’une nomination pour le meilleur scénario adapté n’est pas non plus certaine. En même temps, après une année 2020 relativement confidentielle, je pense que l’Académie souhaitera voir un film de grande envergure sélectionné pour le prix du meilleur film. Et le combat qu’a mené Villeneuve pour que son film passe sur grand écran trouvera écho après des jurés réfractaires au streaming, pour lesquels son obstination est une croisade digne d’être soutenue.Le réalisateur Denis Villeneuve, au centre, à la Mostra de Venise entouré du casting de “Dune”. De gauche à droite: Javier Bardem, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac et Josh Brolin.Yara Nardi/ReutersY aura-t-il un “Dune : 2ème partie” ?Les spectateurs qui s’attendent à l’expérience complète risquent une déconvenue à la lecture du titre : il ne s’agit pas de “Dune”, mais de “Dune : 1ère partie”.Villeneuve a grosso modo coupé le roman d’Herbert en deux, avec pour conséquence que la trajectoire des personnages principaux ne s’esquisse que vers la fin du film. Et si la promotion du film suggère que Zendaya est le premier rôle féminin, c’est plutôt Rebecca Ferguson qui occupe le récit. Exceptées quelques visions d’anticipation de l’avenir, Zendaya ne contribue pas encore de façon déterminante à l’histoire.Denis Villeneuve compte bien livrer “Dune” en deux parties et travaille déjà au scénario de la suite. Mais la Warner Bros n’a toujours pas donné son feu vert. Le studio a déjà tenté l’expérience d’une adaptation en deux parties avec “Ça” de Stephen King, mais les films sont sortis à deux ans d’écart alors qu’un projet de suite pour “Dune” prendrait vraisemblablement bien plus longtemps à monter. (Le studio se soucie peut-être aussi du fait que le “Ça: Chapitre II” a rapporté, au niveau international, quelque 250 000 dollars de moins que le premier film, malgré une pléthore de stars à l’affiche.)Peut-être la Warner opte-t-elle aussi pour le ‘wait and see’, l’œil sur le box-office avant de donner le top de départ d’un second “Dune”. Mais avec la concurrence du streaming accentuée en temps de pandémie, les critères de succès ont pris une tournure nouvelle. Étant donné que HBO Max prépare une série dérivée sur les Bene Gesserit — un ordre clandestin et exclusivement féminin comptant les personnages de Charlotte Rampling et de Rebecca Ferguson — je m’étonne que le studio ne s’engage pas fermement sur une suite, ne serait-ce que pour favoriser une dynamique en amont de la sortie du film.Cela signalerait en outre clairement au public que le récit est encore inachevé à la fin de ce “Dune”, lequel passe par deux pics d’intensité avant d’atterrir en douceur pour un dénouement quelque peu amorti. Villeneuve n’est pas avare de teasing: on entrevoit beaucoup d’événements majeurs à venir, comme si le film était impatient d’entrer dans le vif du sujet. Combien de temps devra durer cette attente ? More