The Burn After Reading cast, without George, hit the Toronto Film Festival yesterday. Here’s some pics from the Promo shoot.
I’ve done a large gallery Update
Gallery Links:2001 Barbara Walters Ocean’s Eleven , 1991 Baby Talk , 2006-10-22 Madrid , 2006-10-18 Lake Como , 2006-05-17 Como , 2004-10-03 Como, Italy , 2004-07-08 Lake Como , 2004-07-08 Lake Como , Burn After Reading Poster and Stills , Solaris Posters , Out of Sight Posters , Photo Shoots Misc , Set 073 , Set 092 , Set 129 , Geneva Obama Fundraiser (Sep 2)
Actress Tilda Swinton – who was educated in Kent – has spoken about working with movie hunk George Clooney for her latest role and how she enjoys sharing make-up space with him first thing in the morning.
The pair star in the new work from cult directors and producers, Joel and Ethan Coen, called Burn After Reading.
Once again, Swinton plays a less-than-sympathetic character, something she is getting used to.
She said her character was: “Basil Fawlty with Mrs Krabappel from The Simpsons’ hairdo – and she is just so damned disappointed with pretty much everything.
“I love this galaxy of humourless people I have been playing recently. I really, really enjoy it. It’s like a secret revenge of mine against people I have met in my life. But this one I have a particular relish with.”
In the film, which also stars Brad Pitt, she plays a disillusioned wife who gets involved with Clooney.
Swinton, 47, born Katherine Matilda Swinton in London, was educated at the exclusive West Heath Girls School in Sevenoaks, alongside Princess Diana.
She won the best supporting actress Oscar and a Bafta playing a hard-nosed corporate lawyer in the Clooney movie Michael Clayton, and was nominated for a Golden Globe for the role.
She was also in The Narnia Chronicles: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and, briefly, its sequel Prince Caspian.
When asked if Clooney was her lucky charm, Swinton said: “Oh Lord, don’t tell him that. His head will swell.
“He is a very good person to see in the morning in the make-up trailer, I can tell you. It’s nice working with him.”
She said she was very keen to work with the Coen brothers, who were behind cult hits No Country for Old Men, Fargo and The Big Lebowski. Clooney starred in their offbeat comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Swinton, who now lives in Scotland, said: “The Coens could have handed me a telephone directory and I would have been perfectly happy to play the Js or something.
“There is something about the way they write characters, the small gestures and the way people choose what they say to each other which makes it really live, and I would defy anybody to make a bad film out of that script.”
Source: LINK
HBO will be airing the ” Making of Burn After Reading” tonight. Check your local listing for times. If anyone is able to record and wishes to donate it to CU please contact me.
Source: LINK
Gallery Link: 2006-02-00 Kultur Spiegel
Gallery Link: 2001-04-00 MovieStar (Thanks to Josan), 2008-07-24 People Management, 2008-08-25 In Touch , 2008-06-25 The Jakarta Post
Gallery Link: 2000-07-00 Kultur Spiegel
Gallery Link: 2007-05-10 Vanity Fair (it)
Gallery Link: 2008-08-22 Entertanment Weekly
Gallery Link: 2008-08-25 The Hollywood Reporter (East)
Gallery Link: 2008-08 C’est
Gallery Link: 2008-08 Kultur Spiegel (Gr)
Gallery Link: 2008 Millionaire
Special thanks to Lilalucy for the headsup on many of these!
Revisiting Coen Country for Odd Men
By BRUCE HEADLAM
“SOMETHING just went horribly wrong,” he said.
The sound of hysterical laughter is heard.
That line of dialogue and the stage direction that follows could have plausibly been found in many of the 13 major movies created by the Coen brothers: black comedies like “Blood Simple,” “Barton Fink” or “Fargo” where invariably something does go horribly wrong.
Here, however, the speaker is Joel Coen, and the laughter is provided by Ethan, his younger brother (by three years). They were responding to the question of whether their big night at the Academy Awards last February — four Oscars for “No Country for Old Men,” including best picture — changed the brothers’ outlook on the film industry, or their place in it, or in any way represented an apotheosis of their 24-year career as darlings of art-house cinema.
Apparently not. According to the Coens, who spoke by phone from their hometown, Minneapolis, where they are currently shooting their next movie, the Oscars were barely an interruption.
“It was very amusing to us,” Ethan said.
“Went right into the ‘Life is strange’ file,” Joel said.
The Coens’ “Life is strange” file must be overflowing by now. For more than two decades they have made popular movies — some loved by critics, some loathed — by following a simple formula: Typically, a slightly down-on-his luck protagonist driven by a single motivating belief (“The Dude abides,” “I’m a writer”) gets involved in a low-level criminal plot involving kidnapping or extortion, setting off a chain reaction of complications and reversals. And more often than not, somebody gets shot in the face.
Their steady progress as filmmakers contradicts the prescribed path for independent (or at least independent-minded) directors in Hollywood: Make a few small-budget movies, maybe in a genre like film noir, then climb the Hollywood pay scale until, like Bryan Singer or Christopher Nolan, you’re given the big-budget summer extravaganza.
What keeps filmmakers on this path — other than money — is the ability to make the kind of films they want. The Coens have been able to navigate their way all along, without once setting foot on a “Batman” soundstage.
“We’ve never navigated anything,” Ethan said. “We’ve been lucky.”
It’s not luck, however, that the two have been working in lockstep their whole Hollywood careers.
Sometimes Ethan, 50, is credited as the writer, and sometimes Joel, 53, as director. But in reality both conceive the film, write the screenplay and direct, and edit under the joint pseudonym Roderick Jaynes. You think your family is close? These guys finish each other’s movies.
That may work wonderfully on the set, where actors call them the Two-Headed Director. In an interview, however, the Coens are tough sledding. Like many close brothers they have developed an almost impregnable wall of in-jokes and verbal shorthand broken up by inexplicable fits of laughter, shared references and large inaudible patches when they speak over each other in a race to the next punch line.
Their new movie, “Burn After Reading,” is set in Washington, or rather in the gray area between the old file-and-dagger Washington of Allen Dulles and the creeping suburbs that surround it. Frances McDormand, Joel’s wife, plays Linda Litzke, a literally wide-eyed employee of Hardbodies Fitness gym, whose signature line, “I’m trying to reinvent myself,” underscores her belief that four expensive plastic surgeries will help her meet a better class of man on Internet dating sites.
Through a series of strained coincidences (if plots had their own Hollywood guild, “Burn After Reading” wouldn’t qualify for a union card), Linda receives a computer disk containing a draft of a memoir written by Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), an angry alcoholic relic of the C.I.A. whose wife (Tilda Swinton) is having an affair with a federal marshal and aging Lothario (George Clooney). Linda decides to trade the memoir for cash, aided by a dimwitted personal trainer played by Brad Pitt, showing again that he’s a great character actor in a leading man’s body.
With its coldly satirical tone, stylized dialogue and broadly drawn characters, “Burn” will feel like familiar territory for longtime fans, a return to Coen Country for Odd Men. Is “Burn” a deliberate return to form, a step away from being Very Important Oscar-Winning Filmmakers? “It was nothing like that,” Ethan said. “To tell you the truth, we started writing down actors we wanted to work with.”
One was Richard Jenkins, who has appeared in three Coen films, starting with “The Man Who Wasn’t There” in 2001.
“They’re incredibly consistent, absolutely the same,” said Mr. Jenkins, who has also worked with Hollywood’s other best-known brother team, Bobby and Peter Farrelly. Those filmmakers have more defined roles, he said, but the Coens are almost interchangeable on the set when working with the actors. “I can’t imagine them not being together making a movie. I can’t think of one without the other.”
The Two-Headed Director is one way to think about the Coens. Another — to borrow a concept from the horror movies they grew up on — is that they share the same brain, one cut crosswise. Ethan, whose first reaction to almost any question is to reject the premise out of hand with “No, that’s not it” or “I don’t remember,” occupies the lower half, and Joel, who tends to pause, then provide a slightly more politic answer, occupies the other.
Together the Coens, like any divided brain, have little capacity for abstraction or intellectualism, and they resist delving into the philosophy or the processes underpinning their films. Analyzing their work, Joel says, “is just not something that interests us.” Profiles of the pair frequently mention that Ethan wrote his senior thesis at Princeton on Wittgenstein — the sort of biographical detail film-studies types love — but, when asked, Ethan said he “can’t honestly remember” what he wrote.
The sons of academics, they were raised in a heavily Jewish section in Minneapolis. But asking the Coens how growing up there affected their movies is like asking J .R. R. Tolkien how much time he spent in Middle-Earth before writing “The Hobbit.”
Their next film, which they’re working on now, is based on their childhood, but beyond that, they give no answers to how their city, its social structure or the dialect they heard as relative outsiders affected their work. “Scandinavian. That about sums it up,” Joel said.
They will cop to this: They watched a lot of television. Now in their mid-50s, they’re part of the last generation of filmmakers with a serendipitous relationship to old Hollywood, before VHS and infomercials, when being a cinephile meant watching whatever was on the late show.
“There wasn’t HBO or movies on demand. There wasn’t a lot of choice,” Joel said, adding that they watched “a lot of Hercules movies” and that they and Mr. Clooney have wanted to do a Hercules movie for years.
“The local affiliate had the entire Joseph E. Levine catalog,” Ethan said. “A lot of horror, but he also owned Fellini’s movies, so occasionally, ‘8 ½’ would be mixed in. All dubbed.”
“Badly dubbed,” Joel agreed. “Marcello sounded like Hugh Grant. Very stuttery.”
In their teens they began to make their own movies on Super 8 millimeter, starting with a short film, “Henry Kissinger, Man on the Go.” “It didn’t have a strong narrative,” Joel said. “It was really based on the fact that Ethan had a striking resemblance to Kissinger,” establishing a Coen brothers theme early: the desperate character looking for some kind of payoff.
After college — Princeton for Ethan, New York University for Joel — they had various jobs film editing before making “Blood Simple” in 1984. Since then they’ve moved with deliberateness of an airport novelist, putting out a film at least once every two years. Even “No Country,” an adaptation, was sold on the basis of their script. “The alchemy was already there on the page,” said Daniel Battsek, the chief executive of Miramax, which co-produced the film. “The only question of whether it would still be there on screen.”
One explanation for their longevity is money — the lack of it. All told, the Coens have spent an estimated $340 million, the cost of a couple of summer blockbusters.
“They control their own destiny,” said Eric Fellner, co-chairman of the British production company Working Title, which has been involved in five Coen brothers films, including “Burn After Reading.” “I’ve talked to them many times about doing something bigger, something smaller, something more commercial. It’s very hard to find anything that interests them.”
Joel said: “To be quite honest our movies have never broken any records in terms of box office. We’ve never operated at that level. We’ve never threatened the bottom line of any company that finances us. So they’re happy to finance us, because the stakes are so low.”
“Even our Hercules movie would not be terribly expensive,” he said. (The sound of laughter is again heard.)
Coen brothers films may be cheap, but they’re not small. Long before “No Country” they built large frames for their films, then filled in their themes of morality, violence and the failure of communication using everyday vernacular, like the gangster slang of “Miller’s Crossing” or the flat Minnesota accents of “Fargo.” With apologies to Ethan’s Princeton thesis adviser, that part is very Wittgenstein.
The opening scenes of “Burn After Reading,” inside C.I.A. headquarters, make it appear that the Coens are flirting with another genre, in this case the paranoid thrillers of the 1970s, like “Three Days of the Condor” or “The Parallax View.” Then the film takes a sharp twist into a gray zone without any apparent moral order — or at least the kind embodied in “No Country” by Carla Jean Moss or in “Fargo” in the final speech given by Marge, the policewoman played by Ms. McDormand.
“No character offers that kind of perspective” in “Burn,” Ethan says. Even Cox’s old superiors at the C.I.A. (played by J. K. Simmons and David Rasche), who the brothers wanted to function “like a Greek chorus,” seem bewildered by events and — like many real C.I.A. agents, one suspects — just close the file rather than dwell on how things could go so wrong.
The Coens are big Hitchcock fans, and “Burn After Reading” has a MacGuffin (the device to move the plot along), in this case Cox’s memoir. What’s striking is that this MacGuffin, unlike the suitcase in “No Country,” is worthless. “Why in God’s name would they think that’s worth anything?” the analyst’s wife says in the film.
Ethan said the choice was deliberate: “We liked that idea. There’s nothing at the center.”
It’s maybe the oddest turn, as if the audience watching “The Maltese Falcon” for the first time knew that the bird was a fake all along. But a final attempt to draw out the Coens about the meaning of “Burn After Reading” ends the interview to the evident relief of both brothers, who suddenly relax and seem ready to talk.
“Hey,” Joel said, his voice brightening, “didn’t Karl Popper go after Wittgenstein with a poker?”
Source: LINK
I’ve updated with more pictures from the days events as well as new Candids with Mariella Frostrup and some with Manuele Malenotti. Also video from the red carpet and Brad’s acceptance speech where he was asked to give George a flower.
Pictures:
Added more from the days events
Gallery Link:
65th Annual Venice Film Festival (Red Carpet) Aug 27th
65th Annual Venice Film Festival (Photo Call Arrival)
65th Annual Venice Film Festival (Ceremony) Aug 27th
65th Annual Venice Film Festival (NOOW Charity Gala) Aug 26th
George took time out from the festivities to visit with long-time friend Mariella Frostrup yesterday.
Gallery Link: 65th Annual Venice Film Festival (Candids) Aug 27
Source: LINK
George and friend Manuele Malenotti pictured here leaving after the Premiere.
Gallery Link: 65th Annual Venice Film Festival (Departure) Aug 28
Videos:
Videos added of Brad’s award moment where he was asked to give George a flower and raw footage from the Redcarpet.
George Clooney and Brad Pitt have brought a touch of Hollywood glamour to Venice on the first day of its 65th film festival
The pair are in town to promote Burn After Reading, the latest black comedy from film-making siblings Joel and Ethan Coen, which opens the festival later.
But they also found time on Tuesday to host a charity dinner in aid of their Not On Our Watch initiative to raise money for victims of natural and other disasters.
“I’m very happy to be here,” Clooney told reporters ahead of Wednesday’s premiere.
“This is one of my favourite places in the world.”
In his third collaboration with the Coens, Clooney plays a paranoid federal marshal who gets mixed up in a conspiracy involving a former CIA analyst’s missing memoirs.
Also involved are the analyst’s adulterous wife, played by Britain’s Tilda Swinton, and a couple of gormless gym instructors played by Pitt and Frances McDormand.
“I’ve been trying to get into a Coen brothers film for many years, so when they called I was very happy,” said Pitt.
“But when they said the part had been hand-written for me, I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered or insulted.”
Change of pace
“After this, George said ‘that’s it - I’ve played my last idiot,’” recalled Joel Coen, who both wrote and directed the film with his brother Ethan.
After the Oscar-winning success of their bleak thriller No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading represents a change of pace for the pair.
Joel, though, denies that was the intention. “We did a spy movie because we hadn’t done one before,” he explains.
“We could have done a dog movie or an outer space movie, but we ended up doing this. There’s no conscious pattern.”
“We started writing the movie as an exercise,” adds Ethan Coen. “We just wanted to do something with these specific people.”
‘No political intent’
With sensitive information seemingly regularly going walkabout in the UK, it is tempting to view the film as a satire on bureaucratic incompetence.
Clooney, however, said there was “no political intent” behind the film. “I just thought it was funny,” he added.
Nor is the politically-active actor tempted to follow his Venice appearance with a cameo at the Democratic Party convention in Denver.
“I like watching conventions on television,” he revealed. “I think the stars there should be the people who’ve been elected.”
Both Clooney and Pitt faced personal questions at Wednesday’s packed press conference which they fended off with ease.
“I’m so surprised to hear that question,” said Clooney wearily when asked if he had any plans to settle down.
“As it happens, I’m getting married and having children today.”
Pitt was equally dismissive when a reporter pointed out he had fathered two children since last year’s festival.
“I’ll have two more by next year,” he quipped. “I’ll be sharing them with George.”
Brad Pitt’s shining moment at Venice is interrupted when he’s asked to present a gift to George Clooney.
The Venice Film Festival is a big deal for Brad Pitt this year. As well being the location for the world premiere of his new film Burn After Reading, the Hollywood star was finally achieving recognition from his peers after winning the Best Actor trophy. Stepping up to receive his trophy, albeit a year late, for The Assassination Of Jesse James, a proud Brad thanked his fellow actors for the honour.
Mistress of ceremonies, Ksenia Rappoport said: ‘I guess you forgot something here years ago. Brad, this is yours… congratulations on your twins. Accepting his accolade, Brad said: ‘You can run but you can’t hide. It was an honour to receive this last year and it’s an honour to receive it this year. Thank you very much.’
As he clutched his impressive golden cup before the screening of his new movie, Russian actress Ksenia said she had another gift. As the father-of-six prepared to thank the Russian beauty, he was soon told it wasn’t for him, but ‘this is for your friend George’, who was sat metres away laughing in the front row.
Burn After Reading is the fifth film co-starring old friends Brad and George, who have have been hanging out together in the city of canals since Tuesday. They have previously co-starred in all three Ocean’s movies, as well as Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, which George also directed.
Before the screening last night, George - who is well known for his sense of humour - had his co-stars Brad, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton in hysterics as he larked around in the Palazzo Del Cinema. After holding his name card above Tilda’s head, George then proceeded to attempt to eat the cardboard, to the amusement of photographers.
Source: LINK
George Clooney and
Brad Pitt: Bachelor and family man.Inevitably, a news conference Wednesday promoting their new Coen brothers film, “
Burn After Reading,” turned to the birth of Pitt’s twins with partner Angelina Jolie, and whether his good friend would ever settle down.
Clooney, 47, put on a look of mock bemusement.
“I am so surprised to hear that question. That is honestly the first time I have been asked that,” Clooney said. “I am getting married and having a child today.”
Pitt, whose brood has grown to six children with the birth of twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline last month, offered to share his children with Clooney, adding deadpan: “I’ll have two more by next year.”
The movie, which premieres Wednesday at the Venice Film Festival, is a tale about idiots — and what happens when their worlds collide.
Pitt, 44, looked flustered as a Spanish TV journalist pushed her way to the front of the press conference dressed in red gym shorts similar to garb he wears as a gym trainer in the film. She asked Pitt if he would help her work out.
“It’s a movie,” Pitt reminded her.
“Would you run after me?” she asked Clooney and Pitt.
“I think we’re more likely to be running away from you,” Clooney replied to laughter.
Several times Clooney good-naturedly ran interference for Pitt, who was peppered with questions about his personal life. Asked about the infants, Clooney intervened: “The twins are fine,” then joked that he and Pitt were sitting at opposite ends of the podium because of a restraining order.
And when another questioner asked if they would rather win an Oscar or fall in love with an Italian woman in Venice, Clooney warned: “Don’t answer that, Brad.”
Source: LINK
VENICE, Italy (AP)
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Burn After Reading
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Men Who Stare at Goats
Up in The Air