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OL.D MASTERS: Ermanno Olmi (72) and Manoel de Oliveira (95)
are both back behind the cameras. |
PREMIERED AT CANNES last year, Ermanno Olmi’s Il mestiere delle armi (The Profession of Arms) certainly didn’t seem to have ‘hit’ written all over it. An austere - if beautifully shot (by Olmi’s son, Fabio) - tale of a 16th-century battle in which traditional cavalry encountered modern fire arms, the film featured many Bulgarian actors and proceeded at a pace which, even by art-film standards, could best be described as stately.
Italian audiences loved it, however, making it one of the most successful Italian films of the year. And the jury at the David di Donatello Awards (Italy’s Oscars) obviously thought likewise, giving Profession the top prize (best film) and another eight gongs for good measure.
This (rather than the Cannes outing) seems to be what attracted the attention of Hollywood, since indie Lakeshore shortly thereafter boarded Olmi’s new film, Cantando dietro il paraventi (Singing Behind the Screens). Set a century later than Profession, it is the tale of a female pirate who ruled the South China Sea and is based on a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. Production is due to start soon in Macedonia (and presumably on the waters off the Macedonian coast).
Having turned 72 this summer, Olmi certainly qualifies for the epithet ‘veteran’. But he is a spring chicken by comparison with the cinema’s oldest working director, 95-year-old Manoel de Oliveira, who shows no signs of abandoning his rate of (at least) a film a year.
Oliveira recently started work on this autumn’s opus, Un film parlant (A Talking Picture), which will see him team up once again with John Malkovich and Catherine Deneuve (whom he last directed together in O convento/The Convent in 1995). Rounding out the cast are Leonor Silveira, Stefania Sandrelli and Irene Papas, all of whom have also previously worked with the Portuguese maestro.
And for anyone who assumes that a 95-year-old director must do most of his work in the less-demanding environs of a studio, Un film parlant (which, as usual, is a Franco-Portuguese film produced by Paulo Branco) shoots in Marseilles, Naples, Athens, Istanbul and Cairo as well as in the director’s native Portugal.
Look for a Cannes 2003 premiere.
DOUGAL SEARCH: Broadbent (below left) and Winstone (below right) are among the voices in The Magic Roundabout.
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FROM THE VERY
old to the very young - or at any rate young at heart. Back in the seventies, The Magic Roundabout provided a link between British televiewers old and young. For the young, it came at the end of what were then called the ‘children’s programmes’ (try selling that idea to kids today). For adults, it came just before the early evening news, so we could all pretend we’d just switched on the TV a little bit early. Either way, it became a national institution.
Which is all the more surprising because it was originally French, bought wholesale from French television and then entirely reinvented with new character names, storylines and, above all, new voices. The French even thought we were having a go at them because the dog was called Dougal (Dougal = De Gaulle: geddit?)
Anyway, I guess it is fitting that Pathé, the British production company with the French name that had a worldwide hit with that other animated classic, Chicken Run, should be behind a major new big-screen version of The Magic Roundabout which is currently in production in Bristol and Marseilles under director Dave Borthwick (The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb).
The old familiar characters of Brian the snail, Ermintrude the cow, Dougal the dog and Florence, the little girl whose ‘time for bed’ was always the end of the show, are all back, voiced by, respectively, Oscar-winner Jim Broadbent, Ab Fab girl Joanna Lumley, and pop superstars Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue. Zebedee, the spring-mounted emcee of the original, will be voiced by Tom Baker. And there is a new character: Soldier Sam, who will speak with the voice of Ray Winstone. What he has to do with the stuff of dreams will be explained in 2004, which is when the film is due to open.
… THOSE OF YOU with fond memories of Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1989 movie L’ours (The Bear) - the story of an actual bear (played by an actual bear called Bart, who has since had quite a decent Hollywood career, most notably aggressing Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin in The Edge) - will be pleased to hear that Annaud is about to do it again, this time with tigers.
The French director is about to start shooting a film called Two Brothers for National Geographic Films and its new chairman, veteran producer Jake Eberts. The story is set in Cambodia in the twenties and is essentially a coming of age movie, tiger-style, about two cubs growing up near Angkor, their first encounter with human beings and their subsequent battle for survival. Human roles will be taken by Guy Pearce, Christian Clavier and Philippe Leroy-Beaulieu, with shooting due to take place in Cambodia, Thailand and France for a 2004 release.
Annaud wrote the screenplay with Alain Godard, and Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) was brought in to do some extra work, presumably on the grounds that what better preparation could there be for a tale of nature red in tooth and claw than a script about a house full of members of the British upper classes…
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