Time for another batch.
1. The Hollywood Reporter says the writers of The Exorcism of Emily Rose employed a “yin and yang” approach:
With “Exorcism,” they found a way to pay respect to their diametrically opposed viewpoints. Told through flashback, the movie’s plot implies that the title character either succumbed to demonic invasion or a worldly medical condition. The film, perhaps in deference to the writers’ competing philosophies, never answers the question: What happened to Emily Rose?
For Derrickson, the answer haunted him even in his sleep. He says he was spooked when he woke up at exactly 3 a.m. — a recurring motif in the film that suggests a satanic visit — several times during production.
But Boardman offers a logical explanation. “(It’s an) example that the power of suggestion was working on him on some level,” he quips.
2. Reuters/VNU profiles Bosnian director Danis Tanovic, whose film Hell (L’Enfer) premiered at the Toronto festival last week and will come to the Vancouver festival next month:
The origin of Tanovic’s drama goes back to the late Polish film maker Krzysztof Kieslowski, whose trilogy “Three Colors,” examined liberty, equality, and fraternity, the values of the French revolution.
Kieslowski was associated with the “cinema of moral anxiety.” He announced a new trilogy based on Dante’s epic poems: “Heaven,” “Hell” and “Purgatory,” before he died in 1996.
When the idea of completing Kieslowski’s project was first introduced to Tanovic several years ago, he did not feel an instant attraction.
“Since the idea was first introduced to me, I married, I became a father, and the subject appeared different to me. I discovered new centers of interest,” Tanovic, who now lives in Paris, told Reuters.
The screenplay was written by Krzysztof Piesiewicz, a long-time collaborator of Kieslowski, whom Tanovic admired as a student.
“Heaven” was filmed by another director and Tanovic says he wants no part of the last film in the trilogy, “Purgatory,” which deals with journalists in a war zone. He said he does not want to make any more war films.
BTW, that “other director” who made Heaven (2002; my review) is Tom Tykwer, a German whose most famous film over here would probably be Run Lola Run (1998; my article; my 1999 top ten list).
3. Reuters profiles David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, and it occurs to me that we are seeing quite a few films on our love affair with guns these days, including Andrew Niccol’s Lord of War and Thomas Vinterberg’s Dear Wendy. I sense a theme piece …
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In