The London Film Festival rolls on, and last night it was the turn of three more excellent pictures from around three different continents. From the USA, director Ira Sachs was in town to introduce his film Forty Shades Of Blue. It's about Laura, the young, somewhat unhappy wife of a grizzled old soul music legend (played by Rip Torn, who sadly could not be present), and the upheaval in her life when his estranged adult son comes to stay with them. She is played by the lovely Dina Korzun, who had also flown in for the event.
"I'd seen Dina in Last Resort back in about 2001, and straight away I was interested in her for the part," said Sachs, who also co-wrote the script. Equally enthusiastic, Korzun didn't need any persuasion. "I was always very interested in the part because of the challenge it presented to whoever was going to get the role. Laura is a very internal character, holding things inside, and to reveal only the smallest details is very hard to do, so that was appealing." Even Torn was drawn to the project. According to Sachs, " he was really eager to do it – which was wonderful. He's been seen lately – probably in the last five years or so, as a comic actor, and a supporting actor, so he was really wanting to do something meaty."
Representing Europe were the Dardenne brothers, en route (in a tenuously broad sense) from the Cannes festival with their second Palme D'or winning feature, L'Enfant. We asked them what inspired the film. "When we were working on our last film," said Luc via a translator, "we were out shooting, and saw a young woman pushing a pram with great… anger. It was an image that stuck with both of us, and we got to talking about it. Then we supposed what it would be like if she had a boyfriend, and it developed from there."
Famous for their Loachian social realist take on life in the poorer people of modern Europe, this story looks at a young impoverished couple who have a new born child, but the father decides to sell l'enfant for adoption. The Belgian brothers share almost every stage of their films' creation. "Luc always writes the first draft of the screenplay, and after that, we always work together, including casting and rehearsing the actors," explained Jean-Pierre. "It's only once we get on set that we then separate again, and while one of us is on set with the actors, the other is looking at the monitor. Then we switch."
Later in the evening, the mild weather held out for the gala presentation of Australian western The Proposition, which has proven to be one of the most anticipated films of the festival. We were treated to the presence of not only director John Hillcoat and stars Guy Pearce, Danny Huston, Tommy Lewis and Rob Morgan, but also screenwriter and musician Nick Cave.
The film is set in the outback of the 1880s, and focuses on Charlie Burns (Pearce), an outlaw in a difficult spot – he has to catch and kill his older, psychotic brother (Huston), or the police saraent (Ray Winstone) is going to hang his younger brother Mikey (Richard Wilson – no, not that one). It didn't take long to get Pearce interested. "They wanted me to be in it. They sent me the script, I read it, thought it was great, and off we went, simple as that… Nick's obviously such a wonderful, evocative writer, that there was no question. My imagination was sparked, and obviously it's a fairly extreme situation. I think sometimes we find ourselves in extreme situations, so on some on some level people might actually relate to this idea."
The production shot in south western Queensland, just outside the town of Winton – a place renowned for its desert conditions, its heat, and its flies. All three make prominent appearances in the film, but that didn't seem to bother anyone involved. "Sometimes, you think when you have to go to a location 'Oh, this is gonna be fuckin' crap', but this was a tough script – you were sweating, 50 degrees, covered in sweat and flies, but you really felt 'this is good'" said Morgan. " And despite how it looked," added Lewis, "it was nice to be in Winton, where the people really looked after us. It's nice to know that the history of Australia – both cultures – managed to be put into the story, and it shows… when you understand both, you can get further into the truth, and you can get stories like this one from it."
The other interesting point about John Hillcoat's film is that it's his first feature in nearly twenty years. So, why the delay? "Well, to a degree, logistics," which is not an uncommon snag to strike when finding funding in Australia. "But also finding the right story. I didn't realise that Nick was this great writing talent. Of course I did know that he does narrative songs, and we'd talked about the score for many, many years. It was really… Nick getting very impatient with me, so he gave the writing a shot. Mutually we weren't sure whether he could deal with the format of scriptwriting, but in the end it wasn't an issue."
Cave was enjoying both the moment and his first, bold steps into the world of screenwriting; he even managed to catch himself off guard. "For me, the process of writing a script and the process of actually doing it are two totally different things. When I'm writing it, I don't feel particularly emotionally involved – I'm just trying to write a screenplay where people are speaking words that I like, and that there's certain rhythms to it, that it makes some kind of sense. But having seen it on the screen, I was really surprised at how emotional I felt about it."
The cast and crew were then rounded up for photographs, and the packed foyer of guests were herded into their seats. All thee films are scheduled for general release in the UK.