Manderlay - LVT's S

[Sigur Rós]

Press conference:

http://www.infocast.dk/bt/mediamaker.php?id=1241&offset=&category=184&q=
http://www.infocast.dk/bt/mediamaker.php?id=1261&offset=&category=184&q=

[MacGuffin]

Trier: 'Black Americans Shunned My Slavery Film'

Lars Von Trier was forced to take his hunt for black actors to Britain, because hordes of African-American stars refused to play slaves. Manderlay - Von Trier's tale of slavery in the cotton fields of southern America in the 1930s - only attracted three US actors, who he discovered are generally terrified of dredging up a past the superpower would rather forget. However, the Danish director was relieved the British attitude to the film was far more open-minded - he managed to find nine of his 12 black slaves in the film in the UK. Von Trier says, "We tried several (Americans) who thought it was a good thing that the films was being made and that it was interesting. But they didn't take part in it because it's explosive stuff in the Usa. It's a shame for the coloured (sic) actors if they're only allowed to play heroes. If they aren't allowed to be human too. The English actors are completely relaxed about it, and they said 'yes massa' to me every morning. They had a laugh." And Lethal Weapon star Danny Glover - one of three black Americans to commit to the project - echoes Von Trier's frustrations, and has urged the US to stop ignoring a period of its history. He adds, "It would be extraordinary for (the American) film culture to unravel (slavery) but it doesn't. People are afraid to deal with it." Manderlay is in contention to win the coveted Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival this weekend.

[MacGuffin]

Howard: 'Manderlay' Sex Scene Challenging

It's hard to imagine Opie Taylor's daughter in an unnerving sex scene. Almost as hard as it was for Bryce Dallas Howard to imagine herself doing it.

The 24-year-old actress whose father, director Ron Howard, played two of TV's most wholesome characters, Opie in "The Andy Griffith Show" and Richie Cunningham on "Happy Days" bares it all in Lars von Trier's Cannes Film Festival entry "Manderlay."

"I'm a bit of a prude," Howard said, describing her reticence over the scene, a strange combination of violent passion and detached lovelessness between her character and a former slave played by Isaach De Bankole.

"I coped with doing it because I trusted and continue to trust what Lars does," Howard said in an interview at the luxurious Hotel du Cap near Cannes. "I felt like it was a really important scene, and this film is bigger than who I am and my own kind of ego and my own prudishness."

The film is the second in von Trier's trilogy about America, with Howard taking over the role originated by Nicole Kidman in "Dogville."

In "Manderlay," Grace, her gangster-father and their entourage discover an Alabama plantation where whites still own black slaves, 70 years after the Civil War. Grace plays emancipator in a well-intentioned though naive attempt to build a democratic community.

In terror over her sex scene, Howard said she went through it in a hypnotic state. After the first take, "I was kind of curled up in a fetal position, and Lars said, `Well, I got Grace's pain in that take,'" Howard said, laughing.

She excused herself and went to the bathroom to collect her thoughts.

"I said, `All right, you have to do this. It's ridiculous for you to have issues with this,'" Howard said. "Just view it as if you're doing a sketch on `Saturday Night Live' and this is funny, because I'll do anything to be funny, and most people will. They'll do ridiculous things that they can't be held accountable for.

"So that's what happened. I just started to look at it as some sort of comedic scene. Just in my head. And interestingly enough, Lars kind of felt that. The scene wasn't written funny at all, but there are some really eccentric and absurd moments in that scene that people tend to chuckle at."

An unknown when von Trier cast her to replace Kidman, whose schedule prohibited her from continuing the trilogy, Howard later shot to leading lady status with M. Night Shyamalan's thriller "The Village."

"She was kind of glowing and very charming," von Trier said of Howard about their first meeting. "She mastered all these different things needed for the role. She could kind of be quite tough and also she had that sentimental side."

Before her film career took off, Howard had focused on stage work after studying acting at New York University.

"Not that I wasn't interested in film," Howard said. "I just didn't have access to it."

How can Ron Howard's daughter not have access to Hollywood?

"In my opinion, there's no room for nepotism, because there are so many talented people. I just didn't have the opportunities," Howard said. "A couple of the film auditions I did go on were for very, very, very small roles, I'm talking like one line, and I was not extraordinary. So why would they have any reason to bring me back for bigger roles?"

Then one night after a performance of Shakespeare's "As You Like It" in New York, in which she played Rosalind, Howard found Shyamalan waiting. He told her how much he enjoyed the performance, and three weeks after the play closed, Shyamalan cast her in "The Village" as Ivy, a spirited blind youth who faces down the monsters of her imagination on a journey from her isolated community to the cruel world outside.

Howard did not even have to audition.

"He's crazy, obviously to do that, but I can get why," Howard said. "Because what he was looking for in Ivy was something I was randomly focusing on for my Rosalind. ... That's what he would have been looking for in an audition, and I guess he felt because I was trying to do that every night, he didn't need me to replicate that again.

"I think he was looking for an innocence and simultaneously someone with a strength and humor. The Rosalind I created, she was very young and very innocent and not easily wounded. Very determined and very strong, but also there was a lightness, a bubbliness to her."

Howard is playing Rosalind again in Kenneth Branagh's film version of "As You Like It," now shooting in London. After that, she reteams with Shyamalan for "Lady in the Water," which she calls a combination fantasy, romantic comedy and thriller, playing a water nymph discovered in a swimming pool by a building super (Paul Giamatti).

For "Wasington," the final part of his U.S. trilogy, von Trier said he is interested in featuring both Kidman and Howard, one as Grace, one as her sister.

"That would be amazing," Howard said. "I'm so glad he's actually been talking about that, because the more the talks about it, the more it might actually happen."

[kotte]

The press conference...
and a scene from the film. It does appear to be very funny.

http://www.festival-cannes.fr/films/fiche_film.php?langue=6002&partie=video&id_film=4271486&cmedia=6462

take it down a notch, lars.

Know who should take it down a notch?

I would amputate my toes to work with Lars again...

[Pubrick]

You can see Von Trier being really snide again by casting black ppl in black roles.

[Finn]

Manderlay Poster:

[rustinglass]

God! Didn't they have a picture of Bryce not looking like a retard?

[metroshane]

Bryce....from above...

Before her film career took off, Howard had focused on stage work after studying acting at New York University.

"Not that I wasn't interested in film," Howard said. "I just didn't have access to it."

How can Ron Howard's daughter not have access to Hollywood?

"In my opinion, there's no room for nepotism, because there are so many talented people.

...eh she's probably right.  There is no nepotism.  Infact, it was probably harder for her to get her role.

[MacGuffin]

IFC picks up 'Manderlay,' 'Wedding'

IFC Films has acquired two films out of Cannes, IFC president of entertainment Jonathan Sehring said Monday. IFC picked up the U.S. distribution rights to Lars von Trier's controversial Festival de Cannes Competition entry "Manderlay" as well as fellow Dane Susanne Bier's still-filming "After the Wedding." (IFC is releasing Bier's Sundance award-winning "Brothers.") IFC began negotiations at Cannes on both projects with seller Trust Films. The two films will be released during the fourth quarter, Sehring said. "Manderlay" is the second installment of von Trier's planned USA trilogy; Lions Gate Releasing acquired the first installment, "Dogville," out of Cannes two years ago for $1 million.

[The Perineum Falcon]

TIFF Report: Manderlay Review



Always difficult, always controversial and always about as subtle as a brick to the head Danish maverick Lars Von Trier returns to the festival with Manderlay, the second film in the America trilogy launched with Dogville. While this film suffers some by comparison to Dogville I'm going to disagree strongly with Mathew's review below and say that this is vintage Von Trier: strong, powerful and bitingly satiric. This time out Von Trier turns his gaze on American race relations - or, more accurately he uses race relations as an image to examine power relationships - and, not surprisingly, nobody escapes his scathing criticism.

Manderlay picks up where Dogville left off. Grace is travelling with her father and his roving band of gangsters as they try to find a new territory to set up shop. When they stop for a break in Alabama they stumble across a cotton plantation called Manderlay, a place where slavery is still being practiced seventy years after abolition. Grace steps in determined to change things and is soon forcibly democratizing the entire establishment. To go any further than that in describing the plot would entail dipping into serious spoilers and I will refrain from doing so ...

Manderlay echos the unusual approach of Dogville. While the other Dogme directors have by and large abandoned the movement and returned to conventional film making techniques Von Trier has plowed ahead determined to find other means to reach the same intimate ends targetted by Dogme. In this case it means a film shot on a bare soundstage with utterly minimal sets - the occasional piece of furniture or partial wall and small props - with the action of the entire plantation often in full view. While artifical lighting, guns, and dolly and crane shots - all things banned by Dogme - are allowed here it is, nonetheless, another case of Von Trier limiting his technical palette to force himself to focus on his characters.

But calling them characters at all is something of a misnomer ... while Dogme aimed to create and capture real people in extreme situations these America films don't have an actual person in them. This is high satire. There is no attempt at realism, each of these characters is meant to embody some sort of political or idealogical position. The easiest trap to fall into with these films is to assume that Grace is speaking for Von Trier himself but that is very simply not the case. If anything Grace - with her naive idealism and belief that she has the moral authority to impose her views on others by force if neccessary leaving a broad swathe of ignored destruction in her wake - is Von Trier's primary target. As Mathew has pointed out in his review below Grace's understanding of race relations is laughably shallow but I suggest that this is not a failing but rather a very intentional feature: Grace represents the vocal faction that believes so simply and purely in their own idealogy that they've never once stopped to actually look at it or the consequences of it that they remain blissfully unaware of their own destructive power until it is far, far too late. Also skewered are the oppressors and the oppressed who are implicit in their own situation. Basically Lars is unhappy with everyone and very, very vocal about it.

Standing on its own strength Manderlay is a very strong film but it does suffer from the changes, largely cast changes, made after Dogville. Even by Von Trier standards - and we're talking about a man who once provoked an actor into removing their own shirt, cutting it up and eating it - Manderlay was a difficult shoot. Nicole Kidman opted out of the role of Grace at the last possible moment to take the large payday offered by Bewitched and while Dallas Howard is a talented actress with a bright future she is simply too young and too inexperienced to do the role justice. John C Reilly - who was slated for a major part - walked out of the shoot midway through to protest the on-camera slaughter of a donkey and his role was excised entirely. Willem Dafoe steps into the gangster-father role previously held by James Caan and while I generally like Dafoe a lot he could never even hope to compete with Caan's screen searing performance in the part. Von Trier has brought back Jean Marc Barr, Chloe Sevigny and Udo Kier but all - particularly Barr and Sevigny - are reduced to little more than window dressing. The slave cast is servicable but only Danny Glover and Isaach De Bankole truly stand out, which is a surprising step back from the complexity of village life in Dogville. There is no single performance here to rival Stellan Skaarsgaard, Paul Bettany or Phillip Baker Hall. While the cast is certainly strong enough fans of Dogville will likely spend the first couple chapters lamenting the lack of that previous film's principal cast.

Strongest in th middle section where it focuses on power politics in general rather than race relations in particular Manderlay is brash film, sure to provoke strong reactions. Von Trier's is a restless angry voice, decrying just about anything while offering very little in the way of solutions. He seems to be content to simply stand in the middle of the street and yell at the top of his lungs "You're doing it all wrong!" Love him or hate him you very simply cannot ignore him.
* * * *

Another, less than happy, review

[picolas]

this was absolutely amazing. i think i like it more than Dogville.

[The Red Vine]

the date is set...

USA - 3 February 2006 - (limited)

[Ghostboy]

I saw it the other night; I agree that it is amazing, but I think I liked Dogville more. I'll give it time to settle; in the meantime, here's my full review.

[w/o horse]

I've seen the first ten minutes a couple of times.  The opening shot is fucking ace.  The story looks a bit forced? 

I need to see more.

[hedwig]

I've seen the first ten minutes a couple of times.

explain.