Perfume

[socketlevel]

my o my where are you now kubrick, are you turning in your grave?  saw the trailor and wow, great story that looks like has been interpreted as typical hollywood bs.  where is johnny depp?  oh wait that was a different movie... or was it?

-sl-

13000 posts mac!!!  holy shit it's been a while hasn't it.

you better be drunk, stoned, or retarded.

it just looks like exactly like "from hell", and kubrick wanted to make this movie back in the late 90s, or so was the rumor at that time.

all i'm saying is that kubrick's turning in his grave now if he wanted to do it, contrary to mac's post.  this movie looks like all the other period piece thrillers made.  it woulda been a great kubrick film.  i'm disappointed it's turning out the way it is, and you are out of the loop.

[Pubrick]

it just looks like exactly like "from hell", and kubrick wanted to make this movie back in the late 90s, or so was the rumor at that time.

all i'm saying is that kubrick's turning in his grave now if he wanted to do it, contrary to mac's post.  this movie looks like all the other period piece thrillers made.  it woulda been a great kubrick film.  i'm disappointed it's turning out the way it is, and you are out of the loop.

if you had read any of the articles in this thread you would be well aware of the BASIC information of this project's genesis: it was Patrick Suskind who wanted Kubrick to make the adaptation (with milos forman a distant second), and kept offering it to him, kubrick never showed any interest in it. Suskind nevertheless persisted and finally accepted kubrick's death as a resounding "no", and gave the rights to other interested parties who actually wanted to make the film.

so how am i out of the loop? you just showed that you don't know the most basic information of the whole project.

[Pozer]

my o my where are you now kubrick, are you turning in your grave?  saw the trailor and wow, great story that looks like has been interpreted as typical hollywood bs.  where is johnny depp?  oh wait that was a different movie... or was it?

-sl-

13000 posts mac!!!  holy shit it's been a while hasn't it.

you better be drunk, stoned, or retarded.

it just looks like exactly like "from hell", and kubrick wanted to make this movie back in the late 90s, or so was the rumor at that time.

all i'm saying is that kubrick's turning in his grave now if he wanted to do it, contrary to mac's post.  this movie looks like all the other period piece thrillers made.  it woulda been a great kubrick film.  i'm disappointed it's turning out the way it is, and you are out of the loop.

you better be drunk, stoned and retarded.

[rustinglass]

I hated this film. And I'm not retarded.

[Pozer]

you better be deaf, blind and - i'll stop.

[samsong]

i loved it, so i guess that makes me retarded. 

[MacGuffin]

The closest we have ever got to experiencing smell in a movie is when John Waters' Polyester was released in "odorama" and people were given scratch and sniff cards when they came to the theatre. But much like the original novel of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, the film adaptation directed by Tom Tykwer does an amazing job of describing and presenting what the smells in the movie might be. You can sniff the stink in the air when the main character of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born into the 18th-century French fish market or when Grenouille is making perfume from some of the loveliest women you've ever seen, it is as if you can really inhale their scent. Tykwer is best known in America for his fast paced Run Lola Run and I got a chance to talk with him from the Perfume press junket.

Daniel Robert Epstein: In the novel, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, has a lot more contempt for humanity than in your movie. Did you change that because you wanted more people to relate to him?

Tom Tykwer: No. This is what happens when you don't do a page by page, word by word adaptation. This is a film that tries to stay truthful to the material but at the same time has its own take on some of the details of it. I think what [Perfume author] Patrick Süskind is trying to do is offer the main character an escape in his mind. I think all the loathing and all the contempt that the character is expressing towards humanity is just a safety net. Ultimately what's driving the character is a strong desire to be recognized and loved because he feels himself to be invisible. He fails so miserably at it because he took completely the wrong choices. In the book he decides to turn even more away from humanity and finds an excuse in his whole loathing idea but I don't think it's really what he means because everything he was trying to achieve had to do with a desire to connect with people. So if he really hated those people, why even try? It's quite a complex thing that he's trying to pull off there in the novel and I never really bought it.

DRE:So it was something that you didn't believe so you changed it for your movie.

Tom:Yeah, in a way but it's more the way I read it. The way I read it is that turning away from humanity is an escape system for him. Turning away from humanity when they don't want you is always better than to just accept that they don't want you.

DRE:Was having two of the most important women having red hair your idea?

Tom:[laughs] That's in the book. That's not my chosen obsession.

DRE:I was just going to say that red hair seems to be something that you like.

Tom:No, it's really a coincidence. But I never know whether it has something to do with why I was attracted to the story. That's possible but, if so, it's completely subconscious.

DRE:Your movie is the first to be able to describe the idea of smell. Certainly the book was able to do that as well.

Tom:This is a bit of a silly answer, but I've always said, "Well what is our problem? The book doesn't smell." It is also very successful because it is a matter of the language that the book is using. So if the literature language is capable of doing something with the world of smell that is exciting and maybe overwhelming, it is a fun challenge to explore the cinematic language and see what we can do with it in order to think ourselves into the olfactory world.

DRE:I read that Dustin Hoffman approached you about being in your movie, what is that like?

Tom:It's pretty overwhelming and a little bit confusing. It was quite a while ago when he contacted me. I think he had seen Run Lola Run. I was already shooting my next film and it was somewhere in the middle of the night when somebody calls and says "There's Dustin Hoffman on the line for you." I was really like, "Can you please leave me alone and let me sleep with these silly jokes?" But it was really him and he was really excited about the film. It's very much in his nature to do this. He's a complete enthusiast and he's somebody who's still so much in love with the work that he's doing. He has the energy that drives him to contact people and give them his opinion. He's quite wonderful to be with because after such a long time in the business he enjoys it still. That's quite energizing for everybody around.

DRE:The book Perfume is extremely popular worldwide. Was this something that you've wanted to make into a movie for a long time?

Tom:Funnily no. I never saw myself to be a bestseller director. I didn't think that I would be typical period filmmaker because I have certain issues with period films, very often at least. I feel like they present the production design and all the research that they've done to the degree that they slow it down. They tend to show off their goods and I've always felt that if I were to do a period movie, it should be shot in a way that it makes you feel that you are walking around in that age as if it was now. As if we were taking a camera onto a time machine and we were shooting in that period as if we were really there and not show off with all the details that we had researched and reproduced.

The other thing is that I was a little bit nervous about is that, not only is it a bestseller, but that it is a book that many people have taken to their heart and have a very intimate relationship with. It is not just one of those bestsellers that you read and that's it. So that was something I wanted to take very seriously therefore the idea was to make the most faithful adaptation with individual and subjective choices.

DRE:Do you feel that this is a character that would have been a murderer no matter what he had been born with?

Tom:No, he's not born to be a murderer. He discovers that. I don't even look at him as a murderer in the classical sense because he doesn't enjoy the killings. He doesn't commit any murder for the sake of the murder but he does it in the way that an artist does. He needs these objects for creating a greater good, which is like the ultimate object or let's say the ultimate capture of beauty. So he doesn't really relate to the victims as human beings that much. That's quite a psychological problem but he never was born to be a murderer. I think he only comes into this situation when this first encounter with this one particular girl fails so miserably. Even that murder is not a murder that he did intentionally. It just happens. It's quite an accident, which is a change to the novel too. In the novel it's not an accident.

DRE:Why that change?

Tom:You just have to treat films differently in order to get to the same result because literature has a different method of getting people involved and connecting with protagonists. We have a different set of rules in films. If certain things happen too early the audience is taken aback so much that you can't keep them on the tracks. The main challenge was to make Jean-Baptiste Grenouille the protagonist and the hero of the story even though he goes down a path that we don't necessarily agree with.

DRE:The ending of the movie makes the film feel very unreal.

Tom:It felt very real to shoot I must say.

DRE:How many actors did you have at the orgy?

Tom:We had sometimes more than 800 people. We didn't shoot a couple of people and then reproduce them with CGI or something. We did it the real long way with rehearsing a huge amount of people and getting them slowly into understanding the idea of the whole sequence. Then I worked with a Spanish dance theater group from Spain. We developed a method to build around a group of the dance members and then we added all kinds of people from all kinds of businesses to make it work. We had many extras and shot it for over a week.

DRE:Do you feel that up until that point the film is based in reality?

Tom:Yeah, even that whole sequence is something where you we wanted it to feel as real as possible. But first, this movie doesn't work without a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. You can't really follow it if you're not ready to do the things the movie expects of you. You have to buy into the idea that you even can extract or distill the essence of human beings and then create a perfume off of it and that if you could do that, then that would probably be the result. But at the same time it is just the logical conclusion of the events that happen. We had some tiny moments in there before such as when he meets this guy who doesn't like him at all and then he has some remains of some of the first victim's on his hand and that turns this guy around. So now it is the logical conclusion with 12 girls plus the 13th. It is super essence.

DRE:I know Patrick Süskind is somewhat of a recluse but did you deal with him?

Tom:I met him but he's very reclusive and he did absolutely nothing for the project. He had written it for five years and then has lived with for 15 years since then. He was very nice and very polite. He wished me very much good luck and said, "But please, leave me alone."

DRE:What do you like about SuicideGirls so much?

Tom:Oh, I just like it. It's one of my regular visits.

DRE:Do you want a free membership?

Tom:No, I want to support you. I'm not a poor man. I'm not all that rich but I can afford it. So it's ok.

[MacGuffin]

EXCL: Perfume Director Tom Tykwer
Source: ComingSoon

Perfume - The Story of a Murderer is already one of the big box office stories of the year, and that's well before it even opens in the United States. That's because it's grossed over $93 million in Europe, more than half of that in Germany, in large part due to the fanatic following of Patrick Süskind's novel "Das Parfum." The director assigned to bring that novel to the big screen, Tom Tykwer, also has a pretty huge following in Germany (and a smaller cult following here in the States) after finding success with his early film Run Lola Run and its follow-up The Princess and the Warrior, both starring Franka Potente (The Bourne Identity).

The novel and film tell the life story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, played by newcomer Ben Whishaw, a French orphan born into harsh circumstances, who has an impeccable sense of smell that gets him interested in creating the perfect perfume scent. Unfortunately, that involves finding beautiful, pleasant-smelling women and capturing their essence before they die from the process. Yes, it's the story of a serial killer who plagued 18th Century France, and it's a truly original concept in the sense of the setting and M.O. of the main character, and it allowed Tom Tykwer to pull out all of his visual stops to create an unforgettable cinematic experience.

It's quite a comeback for the director who ComingSoon.net got to speak to during a brief stopover in New York City.

ComingSoon.net: This is a well-known book in Germany...
Tom Tykwer: In all of Europe. Actually, here it's also got 2 million copies sold here only, 15 million altogether I think.

CS: How did you come onto this project?
Tykwer: I was asked to do it; [the producers] offered to me. I reread the novel, totally loved it. I read it when it came out twenty years ago when I was pretty young and didn't even know that I'd make it as a filmmaker. Then reading it again showed me that there's a lot of stuff in there that I could really connect with on a deeper level than I really knew than what I have a particular knowledge about. There's some kind of strange "siblinghood" or kinship between this character and my previous characters. I really felt like there's someone really struggling to find attention and love, breaking quite many rules for that. In this case of course, more than in any of my other movies. I was really hooked by this whole idea of making a film about someone, who we deeply root for and who then goes away, we find really difficult to follow, but we nevertheless do follow. We don't let go of him. We kind of stay with him all the way through, even though he becomes a murderer, because we're so curious about what he's after.

CS: Was there already a script in play that you worked on and developed or you started from scratch?
Tykwer: I joined a writing team that was Andrew Birkin and Bernd Eichinger, they had done a draft, but we went through another 20, so really, we spent more or less 2 years of continuous writing.

CS: I wasn't sure about this, but is the author, Patrick Süskind, still alive and was he involved with this at all?
Tykwer: No, he's the German J.D. Salinger. Many people don't believe he exists, but I do know he does because I met him, one of the rare occasions that he was available. We had a nice meeting and he was wishing me very much luck, and also said, "Please leave me alone with this film because I've already spent half my life with it."

CS: Wow, so you met him after all you'd already become involved with the movie.
Tykwer: I was already writing on it, yes. I was sitting there with the writers together, and he was brought to me to be introduced. That was quite an important meeting for me, but at the same time, without any consequence, except the consequence that he left me—which was also very nice—that we could do the film the way we wanted to do the film.

CS: What was the biggest challenge in terms of adapting his book?
Tykwer: The main character and the ambiguity of the character, and the fact that in literature, a different set of rules apply a bit to how you can treat the protagonist than in cinema, because you're watching the guy all the time, you need to bond with other tricks and terms to get the audience really involved. Yeah, we worked hard on that, specifically in the script, and of course, then it was up to casting to find the right guy, that could make people feel closer to him and never let go of him.

CS: How did you end up finding Ben Whishaw to play Grenouille? He's done a few things but nothing on this scale, I'm sure.
Tykwer: No, that was a lucky thing. I was sent to see this play at the Old Vic Theatre in London, which was "Hamlet," and he was a 23-year-old doing Hamlet on a big traditional stage. It was for me, the most amazingly different and extremely modern approach that he had towards the character that I found so amazing. I found it amazing that he was making Hamlet seem like a contemporary character. That was so much also the instinct that I was having towards our film. I wanted our film to be a period picture shot in a way that it feels so contemporary and modern, that you get the feeling as if you were wandering around in 18th Century with a camera, cinema verité style, and being able to shoot anywhere we want, then also throwing out all the backgrounds in a way just for the shot. Not showing off with it. Not doing this whole presentational mode that so many period pictures have, where you feel like they're forced to become slower in the narration just for the sake of showing how much effort they've put into reconstructing the period, which nobody cares for.

CS: Speaking of narration, that was John Hurt doing the voice-over who also did voice-over for Lars Von Trier's last two movies. Were they an influence on you hiring him?
Tykwer: No influence at all. I just think he was by far the best choice for narrating this, because he gives it a feeling of safety. He's like a safety net that he puts under you, and he gives you a certain amount of security, but he can also relate to the humor and the more ironic parts of the story. At the same time, he's only framing the film with the narration and he gives it this whole feeling of being protected because there's this voice, and then you are not, because the movie goes so far more into unexpected territory and dark zones, and the narrator vanishes, so you're left alone with this darkly romantic nightmare.

CS: This is an interesting production, because it's a German book, you're a German director, but it's set in France with a lot of British actors. Did you actually shoot in France?
Tykwer: Yes, we shot in France, Spain, exteriors, also on location on a stage in Munich. Strangely enough, everyone accepts that they speak English, because it's just the international or common language of film.

CS: Süskind's novel was originally written in German, so would you know why he decided to set the story in France?
Tykwer: Oh, he's very much a Francophile, and he's been living there for awhile, in Paris, and he's been living in Grass for a long time for private reasons, but also he started researching there for the book. So he's quite connected to the country. I am, too. I'm very open in France. I just don't speak French well enough to even have the opportunity to shoot something in French.

CS: The book came out in 1985, so do you think it had any influence on Thomas Harris as he developed Hannibal Lecter with his sense of smell and other elements?
Tykwer: (laughs) I don't know. Yeah, this whole idea of Grenouille being sort of like a connoisseur or gourmet of smell whereas Lecter is a gourmet of a specific kind of food, but there's this idea of being a specialist in something and being dangerous because of that, which of course gives some similarity to the characters, but you should never forget that Lecter is a character who kills also partly for pleasure, whereas Grenouille doesn't kill for pleasure at all. He just doesn't know how to do better or how to make it simpler. He's a collector of beauty, he collects sculptural elements in a way to compose the ultimate beautiful sculpture, which is the scent that he's creating. He doesn't have at all the perspective of himself to be a murdered, although objectively of course, he is.

CS: This was a huge production, and one of the most memorable things is the crowd scene at the end. The first thing I thought of was that photographer famous for doing huge group nude shots.
Tykwer: Yeah, we saw his pictures, and he's amazing, and of course, funnily enough because we shot that sequence in Barcelona, his most successful project happened there, more people than anywhere else showed up and were ready to undress and do the picture. It's really funny because that was my experience, too. We needed time to rehearse with those people, and we needed time to get them into the mood and set-up their perspective on the scene, but then they went for it, and they didn't want to stop. They kept going and going and going.

CS: The success of the movie in Germany and Europe is amazing. You said the book sold a few million copies, here, but do you think this sort of movie can translate well here? Period pieces tend to have a bit of a spotty history with audiences here.
Tykwer: Well, I have great experiences with American audiences, they've always been very curious at least about my stuff, I think because of the mix of traditional approach that you can feel a little safe in, and then of course, there's so much to discover in the movie, as much as the book was I hope, that's unlike any other film. I'm still so much an audience myself that I don't want to deliver a movie that I myself as an audience would find a repetition of something I've seen already. I want to see new stuff, because I know what's out there. I know what people are waiting for, and I know that the Americans--once a film is exciting to watch--are quite open-minded about making it a success, especially if it's also interesting.

CS: Before we wrap this up, what is your obsession with that bright red hair?
Tykwer: No, no, no. That's a sheer coincidence. I totally distance myself from any... because it's in the book. It's coincidence, as much as we believe in coincidence.

Perfume - The Story of a Murderer opens in select cities on Wednesday, December 27.

[MacGuffin]

Interview: Perfume Director Tom Tykwer
Source: Cinematical

Director Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) is everything you would expect him to be, if you're familiar with his films. German, impeccably groomed, dressed all in black, he is fierce and passionate. He appears relaxed at first, but then you realize that's just a well-practiced cover for the nervous energy underneath, which comes springing out unleashed when he gets talking enthusiastically about something -- like his latest film, the bizarre, dark fable Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, adapted by Tykwer from the enormously popular Patrick Süskind book of the same title. Tykwer was in town recently on a press tour for his film, and sat down with Cinematical to chat about the intricacies of making a film about scent.

Cinematical: I wanted to talk first about what drew you to this story and adapting the book into a film.

Tom Tykwer: Well, I'd read the book when it first came out, I was 20, maybe younger. And I had a strong memory about the intensity of the novel, and the graphic nature of it. I had forgotten about some of the subplots, and then I reread it when I was approached to adapt and direct it, and there was so much I found that attracted me to it, that it was almost a continuation of what I had been doing before. It is, at its core, about a person who is very lonely, who is trying very hard to be somebody, who is trying to find some kind of recognition, and is ready to break all kinds of rules to get that. And that's something that feels very familiar to me, you know, from other heroes of my stories that are all in similar situations. And what they're all looking for, really, in the end, is some sort of redemption through love. And either they get it or they don't – in this case, he ... miscalculates a bit.

I love that I could have this very personal relationship, this identification with the character of Grenouille. And at the same time of course, the way the story goes and of course the period of the piece, were completely alarming challenges.

I had never done a period piece before, I'd never been involved with costume dramas and such. And also because in most cases, this life, 18th century, 17th century films -- in aesthetic terms, so often you feel like they are presenting to you the production design; the people are wearing costumes that don't look or feel at all as if they've been really living in them, they are just wearing them like marionettes, like puppets. I hate that.

Cinematical: I didn't get that sense from this film. The design felt quite authentic.

TT: That was a major, major struggle, to get it not like that. I said okay, I can complain about those things, but maybe that is a good reason to make the film – to make a film that is not like a bad period drama. The dream that I was having was to get a feeling of a period as if we were in a time machine, as if we'd brought a camera back with us and were just able to shoot it as it was, in a cinema verité style. We're just there.

And we shoot as if it's a modern film, except that of course it is the 18th century. And that is a major effort, as you can imagine. Because when you pan over it, every element has to look like the 18th century. That is the secret of it, and also the secret about why I wanted to do it, and also the secret of the novel. The novel was not about the aristocracy, it was not about the kings and queens, it was 18th century, the lower classes, the dirt and the filth and the stink that they had to live among.

Cinematical: And you captured that very realistically -- there were times watching it when I was thinking, "I'm really glad I didn't live back then."

TT: It was an endless process. And with all the extras of course, we had to be very careful, because they make it real. And so we had to pay attention to every single person's teeth, you have to really get the hair -- I mean, they didn't wash themselves for months, for God's sake. Even with a pan shot, it has to all be there, because you can't have one wrong thing pop out at you to take you out of that time and place. One wrong thing really sticks out. And people don't really analyze that, but they do get it. They'd notice it if it wasn't done right.

Cinematical: The story is so focused on scent, which is not something you can really capture and convey visually. How did you work to bring that theme to life in a visual way?

TT: Well, I always felt the novel was very good at translating his (Grenouille's) addiction to scent. And so I felt like, okay, as the book doesn't smell itself, it's obviously due to the quality of the literature, of the language. And so I felt that it was a wonderful challenge to see what we can do with cinematic language -- to, let's say, describe and embrace someone's perception of the world that goes entirely through the nose. So what we were trying to do was actually achieve a way with camera work and color schemes and everything, to really adapt ... how he perceives everything – when he walks into a room, we pick up these elements. He focuses on the details, dissects them. So rather than just going with a wide shot, we focus on specific elements as he is smelling them, as he's putting together a "note," and then those notes become chords, which slowly become a composition, which then ultimately became a wide shot. So we were working our way through the nose, from the object and the tactileness of all that, to certain idea of how to build up an imagery.

Cinematical: So in structuring the film you basically followed the structure of perfume itself: From note to chord to composition, throughout the film.

TT: Yes, exactly. And also what we were trying to do was to have this guy be our guide through everything, and to be as subjective as possible, because, you know, he's a rather complicated character to follow – which I loved about him, that's he's so difficult to understand and all – but it makes a challenge. So I thought that the whole strategy of the film should be around his energy, that we should follow him all the way through, even when he goes into regions where we are kind of reluctant to follow – when he becomes a murderer, of course.

Cinematical: The whole film was very much from his perspective, his point of view – which is actually the same thing you did with Lola (in Run Lola Run).

TT: Exactly, it is what we always do, we structure around the character.

Cinematical: In Perfume, though, you're dealing with a character with this very complex personality. Did that make it more of a challenge, structuring around a character like Grenouille?

TT: Well, yes, in a way, but that's the fun of it, isn't it? If it was an uninspired, not very complicated person, that would lead to an uninspired, not very diversified style of film, and I am not interested in exploring those kinds of characters.

Cinematical: There are enough uninspiring films out there already.

TT: Exactly. And I really want to investigate characters who I find interesting, and if I don't see a project has that potential, I cannot see myself attached to it. But also what I thought was really fundamentally important to me was music – music really played such a great role in the developing the film. A bit like with Lola, where the music is really the pulse of the film, and you can't really imagine the imagery without the music because the two are so intertwined. It's really kind of one unit, one element. And I felt this was one more kind of material that really asked for this kind of, one unit of music and imagery and sound design in general.

(In) most if not all references to smells (in the film), the music is the one that gets closest to that abstract impression of something which is so much connected with our idea of memories, and how we organize them. We organize them very much through connections, and through the way our memories are triggered .And as we all know, there is a connection between the memory and smell. You capture a smell that becomes a part of you. It can be something like: it has just rained ... and there's the smell of wet vegetation around ... and someone is cooking something that smells good ... and suddenly I'm brought back to a day when I was walking to school as a six-year-old boy -- the way I looked and what I was thinking about and how I felt -- and that was 35 years ago! And this whole emotionality of it is part of the millions of pieces of what my memories are made of. The way in which I organize them, you could say, is who I am.

And so the whole equalization of smell equals identity, this whole concept that Grenouille is so obsessed with, makes sense to everyone when you think of it. And the funny thing is that music is just the same, you know? When you hear a favorite song you haven't heard in twenty years ...

Cinematical: ...it brings you right back.

TT: (laughs) Yes, it does, doesn't it? Three dimensionally, you are suddenly back in that room, where you had your first kiss or what have you, and there's nothing like it! Scent and music, they have this kind of sibling relationship, and that's why I felt from the start that music would be really crucially important to the development of the atmosphere, and the whole texture of the film.

Cinematical: The tone of the film was so set by your musical choices – I especially wanted to talk to you about the choice of music for the sequence where Grenouille murders the majority of his victims. Your choice there was to keep the music very light-hearted, not sinister or dark or spooky, which gives that scene a very different feel emotionally from what you would expect. So I wanted to ask you about how you feel that musical choice reflects what is going on inside Grenouille as he is taking his victims.

TT: Oh, very much so. It was to make it clear, especially for that sequence, that he isn't the kind of killer who – he doesn't get any satisfaction out of the killing. He is a collector of beauty. And he doesn't really – the whole moral implications, and problems of course, once you start thinking about it morally, he is completely unaware of. And what he's doing is, he is completely obsessed with and quite intently working on creating an artistic masterpiece. And these are all elements he is collecting, which are all a part of his ... sculpture of maximum beauty. So they are all like pieces of a sculpture.

Cinematical: And as a part of that, it's about making himself feel like a complete person as well, yes? Because he has no scent of his own.

TT: Yes, but of course what he considers to be complete turns out to be quite tragical. But at the same time, yes, that is what the music does there, to make it like a very inspired "playground" sound there. And that is very much what the music does, is to sort of guide us along his life, and also to introduce the concept of smell by a musical theme. And I was lucky because I could start writing the music right from the start of the script. I was composing the same day I started writing the screenplay. So that whole writing process of script and music was completely parallel.

Cinematical: So it was all very symbiotic, the way in which you built the film?

TT: Yeah, and when you write a script you are investigating structure, and modulation and things like that, and when you write music it is much more about abstract emotion than about the outside world that you are investigating. So if you can develop in parallel, it is perfect really. So if you've written the script and done the music as well, you have a much better idea of what the atmosphere of the film is supposed to be like.

Cinematical: Lets talk about the casting of the film, particularly Alan Rickman and Dustin Hoffman. Were those actors already attached to the film when you started working on it?

TT: No! How could they? I am casting it.

Cinematical: Sometimes it does happen that way, though – a big name actor gets attached to a script before a director comes on board.

TT: No, no. I do not work that way. I have to find the actors during the process of developing the film. I would never be attached if I was not doing the developing. This whole process to me of writing a script, and attaching actors, and then just adding a director – it's completely absurd. That's bullshit! It's bullshit, you know? I'm upset by this whole idea, because it means that it's just like, a regular meal that you are cooking. There are some films, I guess, where you can do that, but not mine. If you are to make a particular movie with a specific voice, a whole language, then you need to be right there. And with the whole crew, I have specific people that I work with.

Cinematical: So for you as a director, it's really crucial to be involved with all elements, from the writing to the design to the music.

TT: Yeah, well, that's for every director, you are always very involved with the production designer. But these guys are people that I've grown up with, I've known them for a long time already. I always work with the same key people on my films, it's kind of like growing up together. So when we work together we already know certain things. And so I insist as a director on having my own team. You can't hire me without my posse. I have never had another DP (director of photography) -- most of the people at the center of my crew, the department heads, have been with me for quite a long time already.

Cinematical: Working that way gives you so much more creative control over your films.

TT: But you are able to work that way, only if you insist upon it. Most people are not strong enough to just insist. You have to just insist and then what can they do? I'm not going to make a movie if I can't bring my people. And either they (studios) don't want to let you do that, or they'll let you do it.

Cinematical: Don't you think there's a tendency in some directors to kind of "sell out," though, and do what the studio wants, just to make a movie?

TT: I feel like that happens, I don't know how often though.

Cinematical: When Run Lola Run came out it did very well in Europe first, and then became a huge hit also in the United States. Perfume also has already done very well in Europe, but the book is more well-known there, and this is a different kind of film – how do you think it will play here?

TT: I have a very good instinct here. Most of my films have done quite well here. Even though there is a cliché about lazy Americans who ultimately look for something convenient and easy to digest, I've had quite the opposite experience. My general feeling now is that audiences here are very open to discovering, as long as what they see is also entertaining. If Perfume is not entertaining, then I don't know what is – it's just also very ... strange and bizarre. But that's the best of both worlds you can get, and I think people will recognize. I really believe that.

[MacGuffin]

Movie and music: It's a package deal
Director Tom Tykwer knows the score -- because he wrote it. His latest film is "Perfume."

There are a lot of renowned collaborations between film directors and their favorite composers — Steven Spielberg and John Williams, Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann, Tim Burton and Danny Elfman. But it's rare to find a film director who also serves as his own composer. Clint Eastwood is one; another is German-born director Tom Tykwer, whose latest movie, "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer," opened in L.A. last week.

"Perfume" is based on a 1985 historical novel by elusive German writer Patrick Sueskind, one that's been a bestseller in Europe since it first hit bookstands. Although directors as diverse as Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott and Burton all were interested in filming the book, the author waited until 2001 to sell the rights to Bernd Eichinger, a persistent German film producer who chose Tykwer to direct, help write the screenplay and compose the music.
 
"I don't consider it a luxury to be able to do all those jobs," Tykwer (pronounced "Tick-vur") said. Dressed in black, running his hand through his spiky black hair, the 41-year-old triple threat added, "I could never imagine myself doing a film without doing the music — or at least being involved in the writing of the music."

Tykwer may be best known to American movie audiences for "Run Lola Run," the indie hit from 1998. Part of its success was Tykwer's propulsive electronic score, which he composed in collaboration with Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek.

Tykwer, a classically trained pianist from age 8, later became hooked on film. Having no budget to hire a composer for his first movie, he took on the job himself.

The collaboration with Heil and Klimek came about when Tykwer booked studio time at Klimek's studio in Berlin to record the music he'd written for the trailer for "Winter Sleepers," his first feature. Tykwer heard songs that Heil and Klimek had recorded together and asked them to work with him on the full score; they agreed. Tykwer has worked with the two on all of his films since, most specializing in electronic music.

"Perfume," whose plot turns on the uncanny sense of smell of the mostly mute leading character (played by Ben Whishaw), at first stymied the director. In the liner notes for the soundtrack (out on EMI Classics) he explained: "How do we treat the fact that this film is all about the realm of scents and odors? I realized that this could only be done through music. The analogy with music positively leaps out because the entire vocabulary of perfumery derives from music theory. In the perfume business, you also talk about chords and notes."

In typical Tykwer fashion, script and score happened at the same time.

"We started writing the music from scratch when I joined the writing team, which was two years before filming began," he recalled. "A huge chunk of the score was composed before the film was even financed."

The advantage of working in this manner is clear to Tykwer.

"When the script and score grow parallel, you enter the shooting with a very strong understanding about both the atmosphere and the logics of the material. You even have the chance to play the music to the actors on set, and what's most important, of course, is when you go into the editing room, you never have to touch any tempos. There's just no logic to do the music at the end of the process — whether you compose it yourself or not."

Realizing that the historical setting (France in the 1800s) would call for a more classically inspired sound, the group eschewed its usual electronic instruments and wrote for orchestra. It made test recordings using a smaller ensemble, revealing what Tykwer called "the more abstract parts of a film — suddenly you really understand so much about the atmosphere, about the emotions."

The completed score, with its greatly expanded musical orchestrations, was played by the Berlin Philharmonic.

[MacGuffin]

Spielberg helps perfect bouquet of 'Perfume'

The DreamWorks release "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer," now playing in theaters, appealed to Steven Spielberg so much that his production company acquired the distribution rights to the European production for U.S. release.

Based on 1986 best-seller by Patrick Suskind, "Perfume" is a unique thriller set in 18th-century France. When its core character, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, rises from orphan to perfumer apprentice, Grenouille becomes obsessed with developing a perfume so powerful, so perfect that he'll stop at nothing to find the proper ingredients...

Filmmaker Tom Tykwer, perhaps best known for his 1998 film "Run Lola Run," directed "Perfume" as an independent production, but when it came to putting the final touches on his film, he proudly states that Steven Spielberg offered an eye to making the film the best it could be.

"We did some fixes here and there at the end of the final cut," Tykwer said, "but what else can you dream of than having Steven Spielberg sitting next to you when you are finishing your film and giving you some ideas? He was lovely."

"Perfume" has another Spielberg connection in the respect that "Hook" star Dustin Hoffman co-stars in the film as Giuseppe Baldini, master perfumer who takes the murderous Grenouille under his tutelage.

The film seems to be dividing audiences, but to those who have been intoxicated by its sensual filmmaking, the challenging film rewards.

Critic Roger Ebert calls "Perfume" a "dark, dark, dark film, focused on an obsession so complete and lonely it shuts out all other human experience.

[socketlevel]

my o my where are you now kubrick, are you turning in your grave?  saw the trailor and wow, great story that looks like has been interpreted as typical hollywood bs.  where is johnny depp?  oh wait that was a different movie... or was it?

-sl-

13000 posts mac!!!  holy shit it's been a while hasn't it.

you better be drunk, stoned, or retarded.

it just looks like exactly like "from hell", and kubrick wanted to make this movie back in the late 90s, or so was the rumor at that time.

all I'm saying is that kubrick's turning in his grave now if he wanted to do it, contrary to mac's post.  this movie looks like all the other period piece thrillers made.  it woulda been a great kubrick film.  I'm disappointed it's turning out the way it is, and you are out of the loop.

you better be drunk, stoned and retarded.

nope, despite your not-so-eloquent way of trying to be funny, the truth of the matter is i was just very wrong in my presumption about this film.  actually, dead wrong. i just saw it and i gotta say it lies somewhere between being a great film and a classic.  not quite a masterpiece, but as close as you could come to being one.  the film maker really did love this material and did a great job translating it to the screen.  i haven't read the book in ages but this is how i would have imagined it back when i read it.

so i stand corrected, i guess i just give very little credit to modern cinema...  this didn't let me down though. 

however, i will say if kubrick wanted to do it back in the day, I'm sure he would have eclipsed how good this film was.  not saying he did pubrick, just saying 'if' he did.  alas, kub is dead, and this is as good as i could have ever imagined.

-sl-

[©brad]

i think twyker hit a home run here. it's discouraging (but not surprising) to see the majority of American critics dismiss this, blasting him for failing to successfully do what many have long-deemed impossible - conveying smell on celluloid. al contraire! the film does so and then some, from that delightfully disgusting birth scene onwards (you mean to tell me you can't smell those fish?) i haven't read the book yet but am anxious to see what the original grenouille is like. my only beef would be w/ the excessively powdered dustin hoffman and his ever-fluctuating, indecipherable accent - a bizarre hybrid of london meets upper east side jewish new york. i did enjoy his performance nonetheless.

i saw this with a friend who had read the book, and he thought the film followed it far too literally. he also thought the infamous ending, while undeniably powerful in the book, came off pretentious and down-right silly on film.

[Alexandro]

I also can believe I even doubt this film could be great. Tykwer knos his shit.So far he hasn't dissapointed me. Each movie is better than the last one.

"Critics" naysaying about how the movie can't convey smell are really making fool of themselves. First of all because it isn't true. Most people I know that have seen this film agree (and mmost of them say this before making any other comment) that what the film does best is conveying smell through images. Secondly, because even if the film didn't it has so much more going for it that I have to assume this critics are just aiming at the easiest target and repeating what the others are saying.

The film follows the book quite literally but it's is own beast too, and honestly, following a book literally is not a bad thing when both the book and the film work so well.

However, I must say it kinda losed steam on the second half, but not too much. Nothing to worry about, really.

All in all I was really surprised. Back when I read the book I was convinced it was almost impossible to film it.

Oh, and Dusty is great. Someone should give him a starring role somewhere so he can deliver all the goods again.

[The Red Vine]

I want to give special mention to this since it just hit DVD (R1).

"Perfume" is a fucking excellent film that works on it at least 3 different levels...

1.) A character study of a man with no sense of purpose or belonging.

2.) A dark and brooding gothic tale that ranks with the delights of Edgar Allen Poe.

3.) A fascinating analysis of the human senses.

Tykwer's vibrant imagery brings the subject of scent to life as much as any filmmaker probably could. As Ebert has said, the task is almost impossible but Tykwer's filmmaking inserts the almost. On all these levels, I feel it his best film.

As for the notorious mass orgy sequence - I almost cried. A bit pretentious perhaps but it was just so beautiful.