Attention Deficit Delirium

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS.

Yesterday I submitted an essay to Moviefone about the controversial ending to the new film Remember Me, directed by Allen Coulter, written by Will Fetters and starring Robert Pattinson (Twilight) and Emilie de Ravin (Lost). A topical Moviefone story can often pull in one or two dozen comments. Some have topped 100. This one reached 300 within 12 hours of being posted. At one point last night, I was literally receiving one comment per minute, and during one hour alone, the post received 78,000 views, easily making it the post of the night and landing it a top spot on AOL’s main page.

The point of contention of the film is the ending, which takes place on September 11, 2001. (You can read about the story and how it ends there by clicking on the above link.) When the troubled main character Tyler (played by Pattinson, who also co-executive produced the movie) seems to be turning his life around — uniting his dysfunctional family and in the midst of repairing a deep rift with his girlfriend Ally (de Ravin) — he perishes in one of the Twin Towers, his diary landing amid the debris. Many critics and some audience members have found the use of the World Trade Center attacks to be offensive and exploitative, while many people (especially many of those who posted comments to my story) found the ending moving as the central themes of the films are coping with grief, making amends with those close to you, moving forward with life and learning to embrace the simple joys and to live in the moment.

And after 9/11, weren’t many of us thinking deeply about those things?

It is heartening to see so many people pouring out their thoughts about this sincere film, which has been savaged by critics, many of whom find the film’s denouement to be in bad taste. Obviously 9/11 was a traumatizing and polarizing event, and the effects of that day have been felt by Americans on different levels — political, social and personal. I feel the critical backlash to the film is undeserved, and many filmgoers agree. But the debate that my essay sparked also indicates how the politicization of this tragic event — which has been used for personal gain by unscrupulous politicians since that day — has flared up people’s emotions and tied them in to other issues.

Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin in a happier moment during the melancholic "Remember Me". (Image courtesy of Summit Entertainment.)

Which is why Remember Me has struck such a chord. This cinematic tale is conceivably what one of the many personal portraits of the victims might have been like. We often hear about how many people died that day, how evil the attacks were and how it was a clarion call to fight terrorism. But honestly, we never hear enough about intimate stories like this one. 9/11 has become so politicized by Washington and the media that it is nice to see a story that uses the event to strike a personal chord rather than make any sort of political statement. Because no matter what, loss is loss, regardless of how it happens or why.

I feel that to deem references about 9/11 to be taboo for artistic purposes is akin to acting like it did not happen, even if that is not the intended reason. At the very least, it is being in a state of denial and ties in with what the film is trying to teach us: that we need to move forward and not be forever haunted and trapped by our individual pasts, no matter how painful they are. At the same time, we need to acknowledge and remember those who matter or who have mattered to us. Granted, the feelings of someone who outran the massive dust cloud in lower Manhattan or who lost someone in the Twin Towers tragedy will be very different than the rest of us, so it is understandable that they might more uncomfortable with this subject matter. But even some of those in that smaller group who posted comments to my story felt moved by what they saw in Remember Me. Perhaps it is because ultimately we need to live in hope and not despair, even when confronted with something horrible. It takes time to heal from a traumatic event — and to be honest, knowing people who have been through difficult situations in their life, I know that never fully happens — and these wounds are clearly still fresh. But often in order to move forward from something painful, we need to take a look back at where we’ve been, and that is never easy, no matter how much time has passed or how ready we may or may not be.

I think the filmmakers understood this and handled the subject matter respectfully.

What are you so afraid of, Oscar?

Prior to the Oscar telecast on Sunday night, I was bemoaning the fact that horror movies never get much respect from the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Then during the show, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner from the tween-friendly Twilight Saga: New Moon introduced a three-minute montage of memorable scary moments in film from the last 100 years. This may be the closest we’ll get to seeing Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers or Jason onstage at the Kodak Theatre. That was a pleasant surprise and nice lip service, but seriously, where are the nominations, people?

One of the ironies behind the genre being bereft of Academy accolades is the fact that horror films are usually less expensive than many of their big budget fantasy and action counterparts yet often reap big dividends at the box office, sometimes as big as the behemoths they are competing against. Don’t get me wrong — I love Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter and so forth, but I also love imaginative, low budget films that take me on a thrill ride through intense psychology, shrewd plotting and devious characterizations. Those pictures can be just as hard to pull off as a multimillion dollar extravaganza, and they deserve just as much credit.

We all know that the Oscars are not just about acknowledging excellence but giving a financial bump to the (often deserving) winners at the box office, many of which are smaller, more modestly budgeted productions. So you’d think that horror movies would be part of that, if not just for the financial aspect but the fact that many future Hollywood stars got their break in scary movies. Getting back to the green — prior to winning six Oscars last night, The Hurt Locker grossed $14.7 million domestically (and let’s assume that take will shoot up in weeks to come, along with DVD sales). By the same token, the remake of George Romero’s The Crazies made more than that in its opening weekend. This isn’t a judgment on the artistic quality of either film, just a financial reality check. (By the way, remember when Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow made the exemplary vampire thriller Near Dark?) During a period of economic turbulence, does it not make sense to push movies that cost less and make more and are just as engaging as their more expensive cinematic cousins?

Who loves ya, baby? Why, Oscar does!

The last fear flick (and more of a thriller) to win an Oscar for Best Picture was Silence Of The Lambs in 1991; and for Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay was The Exorcist, waaaay back in 1973. The Best Make-Up category has been more horror-friendly than the others. Rick Baker’s inaugural win was for An American Werewolf In London in 1981, the first year an Oscar was ever awarded in that category, with the most recent genre triumph there coming with Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006. I’d say that perhaps the violence inherent in many genre films has been the issue for the Academy, but Quentin Tarentino’s Inglourious Basterds was nominated for eight Oscars this year, and Christoph Waltz won for Best Supporting Actor. Evidently Tarentino’s version of crazy is more acceptable than, say, George Romero’s or Neil Marshall’s.

There have been plenty of great scary films with substance over the last decade that have been worthy of some Academy love: The Ring, The Descent, 28 Days Later, Brotherhood Of The Wolf, Shaun Of The Dead and Land Of The Dead among them. While The Cell and Underworld did not have the deepest stories (far from it), they both had amazing cinematography. The Sixth Sense racked up plenty of accolades from Oscar in 1999 and should have won Best Picture over American Beauty; it got six noms, but zero wins. And hey, I know Woody Harrelson got nominated this year for The Messenger, but he was great in Zombieland as well.

Maybe one day another horror film will win one of these for Best Picture, Director, Actor or Actress?

Ultimately horror is to the movie world as heavy metal is to the music world: full of engaging art, supported by diehard followers and respected by people who actually get it and deplored by many who do not. Maybe a shower of accolades would encourage dilution of the genre and might steer us away from the uncompromising vision that many indie directors bring to the screen. Indeed part of horror’s credibility stems from the fact that the true genre pictures do not pander to the mainstream and are not at all motivated by golden statuette glory. Further, notice how big budget horror flicks with known stars are generally not nearly as successful, financially or artistically, as those with less overt marquee value.

At the end of the day, horror fans care less about awards and more about getting their fear fix satiated. Still, would it hurt to recognize some of the great talents in the genre once in awhile? Is that concept so scary, Oscar?



Ewan McGregor makes a toast as The Ghost in Roman Polanski's latest thriller.
(Photo courtesy of Summit Entertainment.)

Ewan McGregor has often gravitated towards darker, edgier film roles, from his early days in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting and Shallow Grave through more recent fare like Ron Howard’s Angels & Demons. He has also moved fluidly between the indie and studio worlds of moviemaking, taking on roles that intrigue him, regardless of budgetary concerns. His latest project, Roman Polanksi’s The Ghost Writer, feels like it straddles both worlds. It’s a production that clearly has money behind it but retains the intimate feeling of a smaller picture. In very limited release last weekend, it opens in 39 more theaters today.

The new Polanski film, based upon Robert Harris’ novel The Ghost, is the director’s first foray into political thrillers. It focuses on a successful ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) who is brought on board to finish the autobiography of Adam Lang (Brosnan), an ex-British prime minister with a mysterious past. The situation already bodes ill for The Ghost as his writing predecessor on the project died under mysterious circumstances. As he digs deeper into Lang’s past, The Ghost finds troubling information that could be hazardous not only to the project but his health.

ADD was among a small roundtable of journalists in New York who recently interviewed McGregor about The Ghost Writer. The Scottish thespian was animated and loquacious, offering in-depth answers to all of the questions posed to him. For more on Brosnan, McGregor and the new Polanski film, check out my recent Fandango feature. Further, ADD also has a story on Pierce Brosnan.



Image courtesy of Summit Entertainment.

You’re carrying a lot of this movie and have plenty of solo scenes. How much more pressure is there on you to work on a film like this rather than an ensemble piece?
In playing a leading role like this there is that pressure of carrying the film, but at the same time it’s kind of the pressure that you’ve looked for your whole life. Leading roles like this come along every once in a while, and they’re amazing parts. It’s what you aspire to, so the pressure becomes a pleasure, especially when you’ve got somebody like Polanski at the helm and get the privilege of working alongside him every day for almost four months. You’re in good hands. The Ghost was the kind of part to underplay, so I felt like it wasn’t a very heavy weight to carry the film. There’s a ghostly quality about him. He’s just there, he’s just present asking questions and discovering things and is the kind of character that is unimpressed. There is a kind of “fuck it” quality about him that he is not that bothered by things, which allowed me to underplay it, so it was easy.

Could you talk about developing your character with Mr. Polanski and Mr. Harris?
I spoke to Robert in the first week, but I didn’t meet him. I went to Berlin and met Polanski when I got there. I hadn’t met him before. We had spoken on the phone a few times, but I was working in the States and Roman was in Switzerland, so we didn’t have the chance to meet. I would’ve just played The Ghost with my accent — I rather would’ve played him as a Scotsman — but I spoke to Robert about that, and he said that he had to be English. There is a reference in the beginning of McAra’s book — the ghost writer that I take over from — about Lang’s family coming from Scotland, and he didn’t want there to be any confusion there. So he had to be from England. I also knew he went to Cambridge. My first thought about someone that went to Cambridge is that they would have a standard English accent, like Olivia [Williams] has in the film. I find it difficult to do that accent without feeling kind of posh, and I really wanted The Ghost not to be posh. He’s out of his depth when he’s writing a book about the ex-British Prime Minister because he is used to writing about pop stars and magicians. I wanted him to feel socially out of his depth, or his class, if you like.

Uncovering the truth as "The Ghost Writer".
(Photo courtesy of Summit Entertainment.)

We were doing the wardrobe fittings, and I hadn’t read any of it with Polanski, and we only had two days to go before we started the shoot. We were trying on clothes, and Roman appeared every now and then with coffee for people. I said, “Look, Roman, when I’m finished here can we sit down and read some scenes, because if you don’t like this accent I’m going to have to think of something else quick.” He said of course. So we started that night reading some scenes, and he didn’t really pay much attention to the accent. He was really picky about how I was saying the lines. Right from the word go I would start reading and he would go, “No, no! Why would you read it like this?” And he would take my script and read it and say, “You see?” He would read the whole scene. “See?” And I went, “Oh, yeah…” I would read again and he would go, “No, no!” He took the script and kept stopping me all the time, and after about four or five times of reading it he went, “Yes! Yes! You see, you see?” I didn’t see. I had no idea what I’d done differently other than I was just a little more frightened than I was a minute ago. This is just Polanski’s way. He’s picky, picky, picky like that in rehearsal, and then when we start shooting he is much freer. But at that point I didn’t know how he worked, so I was slightly taken aback. The next morning I phoned up Harris on the way [to the set] from the back of the car and literally read him some scenes using the London accent that I gave The Ghost, just to see if he thought it was okay. Polanski is Polish and speaks German, French and English, but whether he could hear the effect that the accent had I didn’t know. So I sneakily double checked behind Roman’s back with the writer, and he said it was all right.





There’s an atmosphere of total paranoia that runs through this movie. What was it like on set?
You’re not that aware of it when you’re shooting the film because he [Roman] really makes you look at the truth of it. He pushes and pushes you to find the reality of the scene, to find the real details of it. It’s all quite performance-based in that there is only you and the other actors. There are no other great methods employed when you’re shooting it. And he does allow you to take your time, and that might make it feel suspenseful, but at the time it feels like you’re playing these scenes as they might actually happen. He doesn’t like to see any of the acting, so you drop that and you’re left with the subtleties of the real situation. I guess he is just incredibly clever with the way that’s he shooting it, which isn’t something we discussed a lot on set. He doesn’t ever use long lenses. He only really uses wide lenses. It has a strange effect on us because it’s quite similar to the human eye. Usually on a movie set for a close-up the camera would be farther away with a big, long lens, and it would make the background go out-of-focus and your face would be sharp. It’s very beautiful. It’s kind of what gives film its beauty. But he doesn’t do that. He has a 35mm lens on or a 27 mm lens, which is quite wide, and he has a camera right up in your face. It means that the world isn’t all fuzzy and beautifully out-of-focus behind us, and it makes you feel like it’s more reflective of our human vision, so perhaps that as well makes us feel slightly more tense because we feel like we’re in it, that we’re not watching the film. And then it is details. Like in The Pianist, he had such brutal little details that made us feel like we connected to it. People would walk past corpses without looking at them in the streets. It wasn’t mentioned, it wasn’t talked about, there was no dialogue about it. It’s just what we saw. During a dialogue scene you would notice a body going past that the actors didn’t look at. That kind of detail is very clever and makes an impact on us that makes us feel that we’re present or party to it somehow. And we can’t leave that without talking about the music [for The Ghost Writer] because the music is amazing. The music is 100% of the tension as well and was really beautifully composed and brilliantly used to create tension.

The Ghost facing off against Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan, at left).
(Photo courtesy of Summit Entertainment.)

You have now done a Roman Polanski film, and director Danny Boyle has come off the myriad accolades for Slumdog Millionaire. Do you ever look back and marvel at how far you both have come?
Yes. I’m so lucky. I thank my lucky stars for the people I’ve worked with and the movies I’ve made. I’m really happy with it. Over the last couple of years I’ve worked with some really great actors and great directors, and I was lucky enough to start off with Danny. I started off with one of the best. I like Danny. We [both] work away. There’s a lot of good work there, and some is not as good as others, and every now and again there is one that spikes out and becomes a huge success and that’s really nice. I really value that I started with him. I absolutely loved working with Danny, and I think we had a very special relationship as an actor and a director. There was something quite unique about the relationship that we had, and being part of that team — Danny, Andrew [McDonald] and John [Hodge], who were the director, producer and writer of Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and A Life Less Ordinary — was the most important thing in my life at that point. It was like an identity for my acting, although in between the films I made with them I went off and worked for other people. I was always his actor, and being part of the group was who I was as an actor.

A young Ewan McGregor (r) in a deceptively cheery moment from Danny Boyle's lurid thriller "Shallow Grave".

Is Porno, the sequel to Trainspotting, going to make it to the screen?
I don’t think so. I’ve never seen a script for it. Maybe. I’d like to work with Danny again, although I don’t know if I’d want to do a sequel to Trainspotting. It’s an important movie and was important film for British cinema, and I wouldn’t want to tarnish its reputation by making a poor sequel. I wouldn’t. I don’t think the book is as good as Trainspotting — that’s not to say they couldn’t come up with a good script, because they might — but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

McGregor (center) gets his Jedi on in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy.
(Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm.)

Have you generally shied away from summer blockbusters?
I’m not really offered them. I suppose the studio system is really about figures and dollars, isn’t it? Maybe I don’t score highly enough to be a lead in those films. I don’t often get offered them. The Island was interesting. I liked that film. I think it was unfortunate because it was time to knock Michael [Bay], and it was unfortunate that I was in the film that he made when it was his time to be knocked. I think it was probably not the most knockable film that he’s made. I thought it was quite good. It’s fine, it’s doesn’t matter. It’s quite exciting going to work on a big movie like that. Black Hawk Down was very exciting, and Star Wars, The Island and Angels & Demons. There’s something quite fun about being on those big sets, and certainly on some of them working with great people and great actors. It was also nice working with David MacKenzie last year in Scotland on The Last Word, which was really low budget. Then I came back to L.A. and made a film with Mike Mills called Beginners, and that was super, super low budget. Those two films were in a way as rewarding as anything I’ve ever done. Sometimes, because there’s no budget, your filmmaking has to become much cleverer because you can’t spend a day shooting a scene from every angle. You have to shoot five scenes in a day, so the filmmaking becomes much more exciting. You have to get much more creative with the filmmaking, and that ends up on screen. There’s an energy that it produces that I really like. There are no rules to it. I’m really lucky that I’m able to dance in and out of both really.



Pierce Brosnan (l) and Ewan McGregor face off in Roman Polanski's new film, "The Ghost Writer".
(Photo courtesy of Summit Entertainment.)

Pierce Brosnan’s career has gone through three distinct phases: His Eighties tenure as the suave con man-turned-private detective Remington Steele; his nearly ten years playing world famous secret agent James Bond; and now a post-007 period of studio and indie roles that have often shed his slick image. Those latter parts notably include a hit man undergoing a midlife crisis (in The Matador), a wealthy, divorced lawyer who is emotionally estranged from his children (the forthcoming Remember Me) and a beleaguered, ex-British prime minister accused of war crimes (Roman Polanski’s new The Ghost Writer).

The Polanski film, based upon the Robert Harris novel The Ghost, is the director’s first foray into political thrillers. It focuses on a successful ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) who is brought on board to finish the autobiography of Adam Lang (Brosnan), an ex-British PM with a complicated past. The situation already bodes ill for The Ghost as his writing predecessor on the project died under mysterious circumstances. As he digs deeper into Lang’s past, The Ghost finds troubling information that could be hazardous not only to the project but his health. At times it is hard to tell what Lang does and does not know.

ADD was among a small roundtable of journalists in New York who recently interviewed Brosnan about The Ghost Writer. He was charming and eloquent, if slightly exhausted from promoting multiple projects, and generated some unexpected laughs by checking to see if a call on his cell phone was about his next job. (“Always looking for work,” he quipped.) For more on Brosnan, McGregor and the new Polanski film, check out my recent Fandango feature. Further, ADD also has a story on Ewan McGregor.



Image courtesy of Summit Entertainment.

You have supporting roles in The Ghost Writer and Remember Me. How much do you invest in such parts? Is it more of a challenge to take them on as opposed to playing a lead?
No, not at all. If you support the piece and have said yes to it, and if you enjoy the company of the players and you want the best for it, then you should go through and give it your best efforts. In the case of The Ghost Writer, it’s Mr. Roman Polanski, and the invitation to play in the domain and the house of Roman Polanski was a great invite. I had a wonderful experience with Roman in the company of Ewan and Olivia [Williams]. Roman Polanski is very mischievous and deals with metaphor and the elliptical sides of his life in the context of drama. So it was a lovely, Max Escher lithograph of a performance. [This film is] squarely in the vortex of its own time as a political thriller that Polanski has never made. You have the movie in the middle and the life of this director on one side and the life of a politician, possibly Mr. Tony Blair, on the other. It was an interesting drama with a lot to choose from.

Your character seems to have been inspired by former British prime minister Tony Blair. Have you ever met him, and what was your impression of him?
I met him once, and he was very charming. I met his wife. I’ve lived in America for many years now, and I don’t pay deep attention to the politics of Britain. I cannot help having experienced the politics of America, especially during the last eight years, so when Mr. Blair came into office he appeared to be somebody who was doing great things and then seemed to fall by the wayside. That’s just an observance from my shallow perspective on his life.





Adam Lang seems to know more than we think he does at certain times and less than we think he does at other times. He has is own façade that he has to put up.
Yeah, it’s the visible and the invisible of the piece, what is said and what is unspoken. Of course, the character of The Ghost is the one you hang onto. We see it through his eyes. There’s ambivalence within it, and when you have ambivalence you have a strong sense of drama on both sides — the political drama and the huge “what if?” of a story like this. And it’s a huge “what if?” But quite plausible, too.

Brosnan during his 007 years.

The Ghost Writer was filmed mostly in Germany, so it is appropriate that it premiered in Berlin. What kind of pressure does a premiere at a huge festival for a highly anticipated film carry with it, as opposed to something fun or light or maybe indie?
The expectation is fairly palpable for a piece of drama like this, where you have a politically charged thriller by one of cinema’s iconic filmmakers who is known for thrillers, but never a political thriller, and who is incarcerated. And there is a political figure like Mr. Tony Blair, who is under investigation. So you feel the heat somewhat, and it’s exhilarating because you’re going up the red carpet of a city that is extremely political at a festival that is 60 years old and has significant prominence in the theatrical world. I think we all took security in the sense that the film works well as a piece of drama and cinema, and you step forth, shoulders back and head up and give it your best shot. It’s not like a shoot ‘em up indie or a sexy, little romantic comedy.

Are you disappointed that the release of The Greatest has been pushed back to April?
No, not at all. It’s a small drama that you enter into. I’m at the point of my career where I can go off — when there’s time, when I’m looking and searching for the High C of performance, like a Polanski movie — in the interim time you go and work. That’s why my company Irish DreamTime is such a benefit to me. I have to work as an actor, and to go off and do acting workshops or classes, I may as well go off and find a jewel of a film and make the movie and be part of a young writer like Shana Feste and have something to show for it. I don’t have any ego about it. There are four films [of mine this year]: Percy Jackson, The Ghost Writer, Remember Me and my little film, The Greatest. It’s there, it’s done and I’m deeply proud of it. It’ll be seen. It’ll have its place in time.

Adam Lang (Brosnan) watches as the media feeding frenzy builds.
(Photo courtesy of Summit Entertainment.)

Speaking of Remember Me, you’ve dealt with female hysteria as James Bond…
Not quite like Mr. Robert Pattinson. I’ve had my fair share of admirers and long may it last, but to be part of that, that was incredible. That was unreal. I’ve been a man of certain years and time in this business, and having sons you want the best for this young man in every possible way. I think he is acquitting himself grandly. I think he’s got his head on his shoulders. He’s executive producer on that film, so grace under pressure, keep going.

Adam Lang: Flying high, feeling low.
(Photo courtesy of Summit Entertainment.)

Have you done any more painting for charity?
Yeah, I just did a little piece. I just paint. I’m just an enthusiastic painter.

What do you like to paint?
I’ve been taking classes out there in Plein Air, living out there in Hawaii. There are a couple of good mates, and I go out with them. But I like the studio. I like the repetition of certain images and drawings which I just find. I have a studio at home.

Landscapes or portraits?
Landscapes, portraits, that’s it. Don’t give up the day job.