There are rumours that Ridley Scott is going to direct an adaptation of Patrick Süskind's novel "The Perfume", however this project was originaly intended for Kubrick.
Is it true?
When will it happen?
I just ask because I read the novel and it's just amazing and I think that it may turn out to be great GREAT film.
i've heard from many sources that ridley is signed on to do it -- im so pissed -- i think ridley will do a great job, however, this is one of my pet projects that i've always wanted to adapt and direct -- teh book is amazing -- hopefully it gets stuck in development hell, and in a few years after my first feature is done, i can jump on board and steal it from ridley -- crazier things have happened...
Following the enormous success of Hannibal, director Ridley Scott may direct another tale of refined evil. Variety reports that Constantin Films has purchased the rights to author Patrick Suskind's acclaimed German novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.
Published in 1981, Perfume detailed the story of an 18th century Parisian driven by olfactory obsession to become a serial murderer.
For years the film rights to the book were held up by Suskind himself who wanted only Stanely Kubrick to direct it. When Kubrick recently passed away, rights to the book went up for grabs.
Now Scott's attached, assisting in the development of a screenplay.
I'm with cowboy on this. This book has always held a personal place for me and just one of those books that if I ever made it in the business, would try to adapt into a film. Sad thing about Scott is that he will likely follow the simple narrative only. I would follow the narrative in ways, but cut it all back a lot and really focused on the atmosphere that this killer brings out. He truly could be the equal to the great Hannibal Lector if done right. I have no confidence in Scott for making this film after Hannibal. Scott can do well, but Hannibal was a disaster. I recommend everyone go out and buy this book and really meet a great character in this serial killer.
Curious cowboy, would shoot in black and white or in color? I couldn't see this movie in anything but black and white.
~rougerum
Thanks, you guys! :-D
I also strongly recommend it. May I also point out that it was Kurt Cobain's favourite novel.
Great book. A wonderful gothic attitude, victorian, evil. I would cast Billy Corgan in the lead role.
How on earth are they going to film the end of the book? I'm talking about both the (BOOK SPOLIER!) release of the perfume that causes the mass orgy/carnage, and the cannibal stuff at the end. In the book these scenes are so powerful, but I can't imagine them looking anything other than silly on screen.
Oh man, that ending would be terrific on film! Sort of like the the very last shot of Clockwork Orange, only increased exponentially.
I just finished the book today, based on these recommendations. I can easily see the interest in turning it into a film...even as I was reading it, I was going over what I'd do if I adapted it. I see it being very reminiscent of Barry Lyndon...full of historical detail, and with third person narration every now and then. I was thinking about how to show him following scents in a visual form; the novel likens them to ribbons frequently, which would be an interesting surreal touch (to show them actually as multicolored ribbons wafting through the air). I think the part that would be the hardest would be the seven years in the cave. Also, I think Grenouille would have to be given a bit more motivation early on...it comes about gradually in the book, which is great, but I think he'd have to discover his own lack of scent/lack of recognition earlier, when he's still a kid. That would make the climax all the sweeter.
I'm incapable of reading a book without considering the possiblities in turning it into a film...although more often than not, I end up coming to the conclusion that the text can't really be topped.
If I had to cast a name actor...the first person that popped into my head would be Sam Rockwell.
My idea with adapting the book into the film was make his early childhood very brief, maybe in the form of an extended montage. Then I would start cutting during the main story and try to go for an overtly atmospheric movie. I thought of Barry Lyndon influence, but felt that would be too slow moving for the movie. I think a very good movie to take influence from would be Picnic at Hanging Rock. The story would take a lot out, but cover a short period of time, and likely have the cave scene, but not for 7 years. Make it a minimumly thing by bringing up the idea of his rejection from society in trying to work perfumes, and then show a few shots of him leaving that world with a few shots of the mountain, with each shot getting closer then of the cave, and the camera lingering in and through out the shots focused on the mountain and caves, his screaming voice would fill the soundtrack to show he has taken his rage and aggression out there. Then I would start going into shots of different portions of the mountain, try to make them feel more poetic, with music over it and then see his face, stricken with rage, appear from the cave.
If I could, I also would do it in black and white and in French just to give the feeling a new world is being spied upon instead of some nice postcard of another country that for some reason has everyone speaking english. I really couldn't see Sam Rockwell in the part, I always imagined someone with resemblance to Thom Yorke actually doing it. A kind of freakish look but still intriguing none the less but that this person would have to inspire some fear on first glance. This is just my first thoughts and if thought out more, likely start changing.
~rougerum
Quote from: Ghostboy
I'm incapable of reading a book without considering the possiblities in turning it into a film...although more often than not, I end up coming to the conclusion that the text can't really be topped.
Me, too. The first book I would make into a film:
Them by Joyce Carol Oates, since it's the first book I read that made me feel that way (long ago). And so many just-okay to bad films have been made from her stuff...
I always thought of Gary Oldman as Grenouille, I can see Rockwell though.
As for the way of filming it also think in Barry Lyndon, but not in terms of pacing but on the cinematography, I think vivid colors (reds, yellows, greens, browns) would give almost the same feeling of the scents Grenouille is able to detect, though I don't think you can match that feeling in film.
BTW, I could swear that I smelled everything as he did, the detail of it was marvelous, did any of you feel it that way?
Absolutely, and since finishing the book I've been paying a lot more attention to the smell of things.
Hot damn, Thom Yorke would be perfect! He has the same qualities that I was thinking about when I hit on Rockwell, only amplified. Oldman would be good, too, but he's probably too old now.
Quote from: GhostboyAbsolutely, and since finishing the book I've been paying a lot more attention to the smell of things.
Hot damn, Thom Yorke would be perfect! He has the same qualities that I was thinking about when I hit on Rockwell, only amplified. Oldman would be good, too, but he's probably too old now.
Thom Yorke? Where's he been? The only one that found at imdb is this one and he's a composer:
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Yorke,+Thom
Quote from: FernandoI always thought of Gary Oldman as Grenouille, I can see Rockwell though.
wow the guy who sang " somebodys watching me " ?????????
WOW WHAT A IDEA, ohh man that would be so fucking awsome, and he needs the work
I thought of Noah Taylor as Grenouille. I would love it to be Thom Yorke, that would be the best!!!
Allow me to suggest John Malkovich for the part of Grenouille. When I read the book I only imagined John Malkovich.
that would be cool but he would have to look much younger.
I don't think grenouille would look credible as an old guy.
just read this last week.. and it's funny now that i see he wanted Kubrick to make it. JB u gotta check this out.
GT, the black and white thing? whatever! his dream castle would have to be colour, vibrant purple and reds with raven-blacks for the invisible hands. this is the perfect colour film man! anyway, as i was saying, it's funny that he wanted kubrick to make it cos as i was reading it i kept thinking of Full Metal Jacket and sometimes clockwork and EWS. what a magnificent little book. could this film be anything other than literally brilliant.
*SPOILERS probably*
it's hella fast paced, i don't think u noticed. the book moves at lightning speed, indeed the only times things stand still are when he recognises a good scent and he "surrenders" to it. at every other time he is yearning for that ellusive but flawless and specific scent.
for the climactic scenes of orgies and cannibalism, the only way to translate his beauty visually would be as they described "and all at once he had been bathed in beauty like blazing fire". i can't imagine this being anything other than the most visually vibrant and sensual thing ever, so ur B&W comment is really inappropriate unless u wanna sap all the life out of the story. u are right about one thing tho, thom yorke would be Perfect.
i was just thinking of Full Metal Jacket the whole time, over and over and over, everything from the fog to the mercy killing to the castle to the natural ironic conclusion of his odyssey, the way that he chokes in his dream and then awake (reversed), the release from this fear, the "love" that is created.
ridley will keep it dark and in the end u will barely notice the love if at all, that's a damn shame. he's good with his purples tho, he won't disappoint there.
Orlando Bloom Wanted to Smell Perfume
Source: Variety
German director Tom Tykwer (Heaven) will direct the 18th-century thriller Perfume: The Story of a Murderer for Constantin Film. Variety reports that Orlando Bloom is said to be high on the company's wish list to play the role of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an odorless Frenchman driven to murder by an olfactory obsession.
The film was originally intended as a directorial vehicle for Ridley Scott when Constantin founder Bernd Eichinger acquired the rights to Patrick Sueskind's novel three years ago in what was one of the biggest book deals in years.
Having gone through various stages of rewrites, first by Caroline Thompson (Edward Scissorhands) and lastly by Andrew Birkin, who co-wrote Eichinger's 1986 production The Name of the Rose and more recently Luc Besson's The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, the film looks set to shoot this year.
"Perfume" chronicles the life of a man born with no smell of his own yet he develops a near super-human olfactory sense. Using his talent to create unrivaled perfumes, he turns to murder while searching for the ultimate scent.
Quote from: MacGuffinOrlando Bloom Wanted to Smell Perfume
Source: Variety
German director Tom Tykwer (Heaven) will direct the 18th-century thriller Perfume: The Story of a Murderer for Constantin Film.
:) He did such a brilliant job with
Heaven, I have every confidence this will be beautiful.
i almost dont want to make movies anymore, now that i will never be able to obtain this material - fuck!
'Lola' Director Tykwer Sniffs Out Killer Role
Source: Hollywood Reporter
German director Tom Tykwer, who shot the hit film "Run Lola Run," will start work on the period thriller "Perfume: The Story of a Murder" next summer in France and Germany.
Set in 18th century France, "Perfume" is adapted from the book by Patrick Suskind, postwar Germany's biggest selling novel with sales of some 15 million copies.
British actor Ben Whishaw will play Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a man born with no odor but a super-refined sense of smell who becomes a scent-maker and eventually resorts to murder to extract elements to create the ultimate fragrance.
Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman are also squaring up to co-star, said Martin Moszkowicz of the $66 million project's German producer Constantin Film. Tykwer co-wrote the screenplay with Constantin founder Bernd Eichinger. Following his 1998 international breakthrough, he went on to direct the 2002 film "Heaven," starring Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi.
Whishaw, 24, earlier this year became the youngest actor to play Hamlet at the Old Vic in London. The actor's recent film credits include Brit gangster movie "Layer Cake" and the romantic comedy "Enduring Love."
His name comes as something of a surprise because Constantin had previously been angling after a higher-profile lead, with Orlando Bloom among names cited at the top of their wish-list.
'Perfume' for Hoffman, Rickman
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman are set for the feature film adaptation of Patrick Suskind's international best seller "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer." Constantin Film is producing the project, for which the two actors have been touted since the fall.
Hoffman will play Guiseppe Baldini, the perfume maker, and Rickman will be Antoine, the merchant father of a young woman who becomes the subject of obsession for Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, the central character in the film, to be played by British actor Ben Whishaw. Grenouille's obsession turns to murder when he seeks to bottle the scent of the beautiful young virgin. The tale is set in 18th century Paris.
Tom Tykwer ("Run Lola Run") will direct the picture, which he co-wrote with Constantin founder Bernd Eichinger and Andrew Birkin. Caroline Thompson also is receiving a writing credit.
Suskind closely guarded the feature film rights to his book. But Eichinger won him over in 2001 during an intense bidding war at a time when Germany's distributors and producers were flush with cash from the Neuer Markt stock exchange.
Eichinger is no stranger to literary adaptations. His credits include Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" Hubert Selby Jr.'s "Last Exit to Brooklyn" and Peter Hoeg's "Smilla's Sense of Snow."
great news all around! tykwer will hav to try hard to ruin this now, with good writers and a solid cast behind him.
and ben whishaw..
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perfect. it had to be an unknown.
That guy looks great. Richard Ashcroft-ish.
Whishaw looks great! even better than noah taylor!
Luks grate!
locks gate!
Quote from: Pubrickgreat news all around! tykwer will hav to try hard to ruin this now, with good writers and a solid cast behind him.
you don't like tykwer? i'm not defending run lola run or anything, but the princess and the warrior and heaven are gut
havn't seen heaven yet. wintersleepers was alrite but really amateur hour with the colours.
princess was boring tho i plan to see it again. it had the feeling of little rewatchability.
which brings me to the problem of lola. it makes me sad that i will never watch lola again, cos there's nothing more to see in it. and i like to think that a good movie is one u can watch over and over again. his movies' life expectancies are low for the talent he clearly has.
perfume is a book which can be read a million times. that's all he needs to capture to make it work.
DreamWorks Picks Up Scent of 'Perfume'
Source: Hollywood Reporter
In a move that could lead to DreamWorks jumping into the specialty film market, the studio has picked up North American rights to "Perfume," the period serial-killer drama based on Patrick Sueskind's international bestseller.
German filmmaker Tom Tykwer, whose credits include the 1998 thriller "Run Lola Run," has been tapped to direct "Perfume," his first big-budget feature. Production is set to begin in July in Munich and Barcelona, Spain.
Adapted from Sueskind's "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer," the film will star British actor Ben Whishaw ("Enduring Love") as the twisted Grenouille, a man born with a supernatural sense of smell who sets out to create the perfect fragrance by distilling the essence of young virgins.
Alan Rickman will play Grenouille's rival, Antoine Richis, the merchant father of a young woman who becomes the target of the killer's obsession. Dustin Hoffman has signed on as master perfumemaker Giuseppe Baldini.
DreamWorks' acquisition was jointly announced Wednesday by the studio's new president and chief operating officer, Rick Sands, and Martin Moskowicz, president of production at Constantin Film, which is producing the project.
Sands said "Perfume" illustrates a new direction for DreamWorks as it seeks to place greater emphasis on "bringing the works of talented international directors, actors and writers to American audiences."
In his previous job as chief operating officer of Miramax Films, Sands played a role in overseeing that company's international operations.
There has been speculation that he would like to take DreamWorks, which has focused on mainstream studio features, into the specialty film arena -- possibly using the company's Go Fish Pictures label, which to date has been used to release animated films like "Millennium Actress."
Whether released under the Go Fish banner or the DreamWorks logo, a slate of smaller film acquisitions could be used to augment DreamWorks' current output of 10 or so films per year.
"Perfume" also marks the latest in a long line of literary adaptations for producer Bernd Eichinger, whose credits include Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" Hubert Selby Jr.'s "Last Exit to Brooklyn" and Peter Hoeg's "Smilla's Sense of Snow." Most recently, he produced the Oscar-nominated war epic "Downfall."
For Tykwer, "Perfume" is his first full-length film since 2002's "Heaven," which starred Cate Blanchett.
Sueskind's book has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide since 1985, making it the most successful German novel since Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front."
Quote from: cronopioQuote from: Pubrickgreat news all around! tykwer will hav to try hard to ruin this now, with good writers and a solid cast behind him.
you don't like tykwer? i'm not defending run lola run or anything, but the princess and the warrior and heaven are gut
Quote from: Pubrickhavn't seen heaven yet. wintersleepers was alrite but really amateur hour with the colours.
which brings me to the problem of lola. it makes me sad that i will never watch lola again, cos there's nothing more to see in it. and i like to think that a good movie is one u can watch over and over again. his movies' life expectancies are low for the talent he clearly has.
princess was boring tho i plan to see it again. it had the feeling of little rewatchability.
perfume is a book which can be read a million times. that's all he needs to capture to make it work.
i saw heaven.
it was awesome. i should've suspected that he just HAD to mature with another person's material. pta is doing that right? after exhausting his own reserves. that's what princess and the warrior felt like, he was rehashing and sort of summing up everything he had done in wintersleepers and lola. and it went on forever.
but this was very impressive. apart from excessive nodding from blanchett toward the end of the movie, every note was hit and held perfectly. it was the script, clearly, that forced him to mature. and as a result of this, i hav no doubt perfume will be as awesome as it should be.
consider me a born-again, post-heaven tykwerian.
as i stated before - really looking forward to this. a bit concerned about Tom T. however really need to see more of his work. Have only seen Run Lola and Princess - Both seemed exercises in style moreso than storytelling. I'm hoping Heaven solidifies my opinions on him. Seems to have for Pubrick. It's on the cue.
New Dustin Hoffman to Begin Shooting
MUNICH, Germany (AP) Shooting of "Perfume: The Story of A Murderer" begins in Germany next week, with Dustin Hoffman starring in the screen version of the best-known German novel of the 20th century.
Hoffman said Tuesday he was approached by his friend, director Tom Tykwer best known for his 1998 film "Run Lola Run" and immediately agreed to the part of the perfumer, Baldini. The actor said he had read Patrick Suskind's book shortly after it came out some 20 years ago.
"At that time, it was one of the books that you had to have read," Hoffman said.
The film is being shot entirely in English in a Munich studio. It is scheduled to appear in cinemas in autumn 2006.
German producer Bernd Eichinger said he tried for years to get the film rights to the story of Jean-Baptise Grenouille, who experiences life in 18th century Paris entirely through smells.
British actor Ben Wishaw plays Grenouille, who shows up Baldini by effortlessly making complex perfumes that lead him on a strange and relentless criminal quest.
Hoffman said he liked the idea that humans "have more senses than we realize," noting that his favorite smell is that of small babies.
"I'm fascinated how babies' heads and necks always smell the same, although we all have different scents," Hoffman said.
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U.S. actor Dustin Hoffman, right, and German directors Tom Tykwer, center, and Bernd Eichinger, left, during a photocall for the new Bernd Eichinger movie "The Perfume" in a studio of Bavaria Film in Munich, southern Germany, on Monday, July 4, 2005.
Quote from: hoffmunchkin"I'm fascinated how babies' heads and necks always smell the same, although we all have different scents," Hoffman said.
i don't think he's read the book.
Trailer here. (http://www.datenhoster.de/download/114039285143f90393b7a92/parfum-teaser.mov)
Full German Trailer here. (http://www.parfum.film.de/)
warning..
SPOILERFUL IMAGE BUT NOT REALLY COS IT HAS NO CONTEXT BUT ANYWAY IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK IT'S YOUR OWN FAULT
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YES
i knew Heaven showed promise.
This trailer has made me very, very happy.
If any of you marketing execs at Dreamworks are listening...I dare you to keep the first few shots in the US trailer, whenever you get around to cutting it.
Quote from: Pubrick on May 16, 2006, 05:26:15 PMYES
The trailer, and especially that shot makes me wish this would work:
[size=50p]:yabbse-grin:[/size]
SPOILER
Please, God, let it match the hilarity of the book.
fuuuuuuck. neither trailer is working for me. :cry:
grenouille is too good looking.
Critics sniffy over Perfume, the 'unfilmable' film
· €50m movie of bestseller is Germany's most costly
· Kubrick, Scorsese, Scott backed out of project
Source: The Guardian
A 15-year wait for the film realisation of Patrick Süskind's best-selling novel Perfume ended last night with the Munich premiere of the project which many thought would be impossible to recreate on the big screen.
Set in the murky backstreets of 18th century Paris, the book tracks Jean-Baptiste Grenouille - born without a personal odour but who develops a superior olfactory sense - on his murderous quest for the perfect scent. With international sales of 15m copies, it is the most successful German novel for decades. It also caught the imagination of many film directors.
Stanley Kubrick was among those who fantasised about filming the book before he reputedly ditched it as "unfilmable".
Other big names at some time linked to the elusive project were Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott and Tim Burton. But, years after the book's publication, it was finally the German cinema director Tom Tykwer who took the hot seat.
Süskind is keeping far from the limelight. Born in 1949, he has a sparse bibliography of books and plays, and lives a reclusive life in Munich. But the film, starring Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman and newcomer Ben Whishaw as Grenouille, is already being lauded as a likely hit of the year. With a budget of €50m, it is claimed to be the most costly German film to date.
However it remains to be seen whether the film can replicate the key to the book's success: its ability to conjure up smell.
Born without a personal odour, Grenouille is obsessed with creating a perfect smell for himself, an olfactory mission which impels him to murder virgins for their scent. Süskind's descriptions dwell on the stench of the fish market and pungent Parisian alleys.
The film's producer, Bernd Eichinger, the man behind the controversial Hitler film Downfall, said the film aims to bring smell to celluloid by imitating the author's attention to detail. "While Süskind used the clear and exact power of words, we use the power of image, noise and music," he said. "When filming a lawn in sunlight, or even a single tree, all that is needed is absolute optical precision and then smells are created."
But although German film critics praised the costumes and acting, many argued that the film fell short of conveying the sense of smell. The daily Süddeutsche Zeitung said it did not match up to the book and "in the end failed to emerge as the orgasm of a film it wanted to be". Meanwhile, Die Zeit weekly ridiculed the film as "big nose theatre", saying it rather obviously tried to convey smell through close-up shots of the protagonist's nose - of which there were no less than 27.
PERFUME Smells Sweet in Europe
For many in Germany, this was a film adaptation as eagerly anticipated as this spring's Da Vinci Code.
Source: FilmStew.com
The German production Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is beginning to smell like an unexpected hit. The Hollywood Reporter notes the film opened in the local market in Germany this weekend and sold over a million tickets, taking in the equivalent of nearly $10 million on only 700 screens, a major blockbuster by German standards. 53% of all movie tickets sold in Germany over the weekend were for Perfume, leaving Cars, Miami Vice and Pirates of the Caribbean in the dust.
The film is also set to make waves in Belgium, according to Daily Variety. Perfume is running in competition at the 33rd annual Flanders Film Festival in early October, and its screening will be the Gala opening event. Tom Twiker directed the film based on the international bestseller by Patrick Susskind.
The murderer is a perfumer, born an orphan with a supernaturally acute sense of smell, and the story is set against the opulence of 18th century France. Ben Whishaw stars in the title role, with Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman in supporting roles. DreamWorks has picked up the film for domestic distribution, and it'll be scenting American Cinemas this December.
mmm mmm mmm this film could be up there with The Fountain as one of the most highly anticipated films going on these days.
Quote from: SiliasRuby on September 20, 2006, 07:48:04 PM
mmm mmm mmm this film could be up there with The Fountain as one of the most highly anticipated films going on these days.
i have no idea what the point of that comment was. or any other of your comments from the last 24hrs.
Quote from: Pubrick on September 21, 2006, 06:03:58 AM
Quote from: SiliasRuby on September 20, 2006, 07:48:04 PM
mmm mmm mmm this film could be up there with The Fountain as one of the most highly anticipated films going on these days.
i have no idea what the point of that comment was. or any other of your comments from the last 24hrs.
He makes the posts that I'd make if I made posts.
Such as this one.
So, ignore him all the same.
Quote from: Pubrick on September 21, 2006, 06:03:58 AM
Quote from: SiliasRuby on September 20, 2006, 07:48:04 PM
mmm mmm mmm this film could be up there with The Fountain as one of the most highly anticipated films going on these days.
i have no idea what the point of that comment was. or any other of your comments from the last 24hrs.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that his recent posts were all off-putting in some way.
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See how pretty posters can be when they don't have giant floating heads on them?
yep. :bravo:
Trailer here. (http://www.apple.com/trailers/dreamworks/perfume/)
Quote from: MacGuffin on October 14, 2006, 12:10:29 AM
Trailer here. (http://www.apple.com/trailers/dreamworks/perfume/)
please deliver please deliver please deliver please deliver please deliver.
bonz is right he's not ugly enough.
I'm gonna skip the new trailer, since I'm seeing the movie next week.
RK, feel like standing in line at the Paramount with James and I?
Just got back from it. I'll write more later, but for now, I'll just say that it's almost a beat-for-beat adaptation of the book, and as such, it's extremely satisfying, and frequently almost perfect. They make Grenouille attractive, yeah, but I think it really works for the best. It's very sensual and very funny (mostly in the same way that the book is funny), and I have no idea how audiences who aren't expecting it will react to the climax. It's one of the most beautifully absurd scenes I've seen in ages. I wish I could have been there on set, because I really don't know how Twyker pulled it off.
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.
Quote from: socketlevel on October 21, 2006, 08:43:57 PM
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.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Do you even know?
Quote from: socketlevel on October 21, 2006, 08:43:57 PM
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.
Quote from: SiliasRuby on September 20, 2006, 07:48:04 PM
mmm mmm mmm this film could be up there with The Fountain as one of the most highly anticipated films going on these days.
today i was lucky enough to see both. i liked this, i knew almost nothing about it going in, havent read the book so the film was almost a complete surprise. as such, without the weight of expectation, i enjoyed it. the stuff at the beginning is great, the birth especially, the random deaths of those he comes into contact with but the film lost some of its momentum. so i enjoyed the first half better than the second half, the ending is insane though i knew part of it was coming (from that trailer). there were some snickers in our theatre, though there were only about 20 people in there incl. my main man, samsong. i'm curious to hear what he thought of it. this movie actually reminded me of The Messenger, another film i saw in the theatre, really liked, great work all around, but hadn't thought about since. i feel like this will sort of have the same fate. its a good film, but one that will be forgotten. i'd like to read the book though.
Capturing a Whiff of a Repellant Hero
By COELI CARR; NY Times
"PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER," Patrick Süskind's seductive novel about the power of scent, was first published in Germany and went on to sell 15 million copies around the world. For its many fans the evocative tale lingered like the bottom note of a fragrance. But it took 21 years to find its way onto screens. A film adaptation is opening Dec. 27 in New York and Los Angeles.
The book tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a young 18th-century Parisian born to lowly means but blessed with a preternatural sense of smell. He emits no body odor, a condition that he believes has made others ignore or dismiss him. Seeking to create a scent that will compel the world to esteem him, Grenouille, by then a journeyman perfumer, decides to kill virgins to obtain its components.
"There was a tremendous buzz about this book, everybody in the world was interested, and its reputation spread very quickly," said Carol Janeway, the senior editor at Alfred A. Knopf who acquired the title for the American market. "The boldness of writing a book about one of the senses that is almost impossible to put into words is a brilliantly daring one."
Producers competed to obtain the film rights, but Mr. Süskind did not want to sell. "Patrick felt there were only two people who could possibly make the right movie out of this book," Ms. Janeway said. "The first, by a long way, was Stanley Kubrick. His second hope would have been Milos Forman. Neither was drawn to doing this as a movie, and Patrick simply wasn't interested in anybody else trying." Not even Mr. Süskind's friend Bernd Eichinger, who took over Constantin Film in 1979 and now produces for the company.
Mr. Eichinger, who was the producer of "The Neverending Story" (1984) and "The Name of the Rose" (1986), among other films, had read the book when it was first published and instantly knew he wanted to turn it into a film. "It is a very unique concept," he said. "You cannot compare it to any other piece of literature." He thought the rights issue "might change over the years," and his instincts proved correct.
While in Los Angeles in 2000, Mr. Eichinger said, he "sensed some rumors that this book could be purchased." He immediately hopped a flight to Zurich to meet with Mr. Süskind's publisher, who, while Mr. Eichinger smoked a cigarette in the waiting room, struck a deal with Mr. Süskind by phone. (Contractually, Mr. Eichinger said, he cannot discuss how much he paid for the rights.) But securing the rights would turn out to be the easy part.
Mr. Eichinger was now faced with a reprobate lead character, an individual he calls "unsympathetic," having no "regrets or doubts or remorse" and seemingly irredeemable. As his sense of the world is constructed solely through scent, Grenouille can neither communicate with people normally nor share their point of view. "On one side he's a very naïve figure, and on the other side you have a person with a very dark obsession," Mr. Eichinger said.
By 2002, having drafted a 70-page film treatment, he was acutely aware of the challenges that faced him. As he met with potential writers and directors, Mr. Eichinger said, a number of the American writers strongly suggested he introduce a new character to provide more drama: an antagonist, who would pursue Grenouille.
Rejecting such a drastic structural change, he invited Andrew Birkin, the British screenwriter of "The Name of the Rose," to write the script with him. Sometime later, with the thought of having him eventually direct the film, Mr. Eichinger brought in a fellow German, Tom Tykwer, who had written and directed "Run Lola Run" (1998) and "The Princess and the Warrior" (2000).
Over the next two years the three men — they share screenwriting credit — met at different locations, sometimes for months, to create a narrative that would turn Grenouille's murderous agenda into something fascinating. As Mr. Eichinger put it, there would come a time when audiences would have to decide whether they wanted a pretty girl to survive or Grenouille to succeed. After some 20 revisions, Mr. Eichinger said, he felt "we got it right."
What goads Grenouille, Mr. Tykwer says, is the "urge and desire to be recognized," a motivation he calls "absolutely universal and simple and substantial," and one reason an audience would stay attached to such a character until the very end.
Finding an actor to portray him took a year. It was only late in the game, in 2004, that the casting agent in London steered the team to an actor named Ben Whishaw, a recent graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, who was then 23 and playing Hamlet at the Old Vic. Mr. Tykwer saw the performance and later met with Mr. Whishaw, who said the really difficult task was Mr. Tykwer's having "to convince everybody else it was a good idea to cast some complete unknown bloke from England."
For Mr. Whishaw what stood out about Grenouille was not so much his criminality but his state of solitude. "He's so withdrawn as a human being," he said. "It's the loneliness. There are so few scenes with any other actor."
"Because he hardly ever says anything," Mr. Whishaw continued, "you start to read his behavior and look at those tiny things — posture, gait or the expression in the eyes — that are usually secondary to words." He and the director even explored how animal instincts translate into movement.
Mr. Whishaw was also fascinated by the character's contradictions. "He's a murderer and an artist, he's like a child and also like an old man, and he's like an animal, but there's something ethereal about him," he said. In talking with people who had seen the movie, Mr. Whishaw said, he found that some had enormous sympathy for Grenouille, while others were repelled. "I like the fact that the film allows for those two very different responses," he said.
Mr. Tykwer was also aware that many viewers would consider the novel a reference point. "People say, 'I'm the only one that really gets it,' which means they have this very personal relationship with the idea of the olfactory world as a setting," he said. Beyond its basic story, the book can be interpreted in various ways, among them an artist's obsession, a yearning to be loved and an exploration of death.
On the other hand the film, in which Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman also appear, may generate new readers. "This is the kind of movie that will send people back to the book," said Marty Asher, editor in chief of Vintage Books, the Random House imprint that publishes the novel's paperback version and whose movie tie-in edition will be in stores on Tuesday. The publisher will also reissue several thousand copies of the title in hardcover.
"The character's so weird," she said, "and it kind of raises the whole question of 'Is he a monster or does he have redeeming features?' "
Mr. Asher said the filmmakers had turned Grenouille "into something between the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Jesus." But if he were a complete monster, he added, "the movie would have no emotional heart to it, and it does." How much of that heart belongs to Grenouille will be up to audiences to decide.
Quote from: Pubrick on October 22, 2006, 06:48:06 AM
Quote from: socketlevel on October 21, 2006, 08:43:57 PM
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.
Quote from: socketlevel on November 27, 2006, 01:48:13 PM
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.
Quote from: socketlevel on November 27, 2006, 01:48:13 PM
Quote from: Pubrick on October 22, 2006, 06:48:06 AM
Quote from: socketlevel on October 21, 2006, 08:43:57 PM
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.
I hated this film. And I'm not retarded.
you better be deaf, blind and - i'll stop.
i loved it, so i guess that makes me retarded.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: pozer on November 28, 2006, 01:33:43 PM
Quote from: socketlevel on November 27, 2006, 01:48:13 PM
Quote from: Pubrick on October 22, 2006, 06:48:06 AM
Quote from: socketlevel on October 21, 2006, 08:43:57 PM
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-
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.
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.
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.
I think I may have visited this thread once ever and that was before they started filming. I've never read the book and didn't recall any recommendations I had to have read here. I don't think I even watched the trailer when it was first posted. Don't know why. Even though Lola was the only Tykwer I've seen (which I haven't watched in years), I still take note of when he makes a film and try to remind myself (and failing) to see it. I know I might be setting myself up for minor disappointment in regards to his back catalogue but it's got to be worth it because this film was just fucking incredible.
I think I may have been peripherally aware of any connection to Kubrick this film had but I didn't know that Suskind had wanted him to adapt his book. I completely understand why; as much as I enjoyed this film, I kept imagining what Kubrick would have done with it, say, 10 years ago with, say, Christian Bale in the lead.
But that's not a slight to this film in the least. I was sucked in right from the start. I have to say that anyone criticizing this film for not being able to represent smell on film simply has no imagination. They're like those people who were too busy missing out on similar pleasures in Ratatouille (with which this would make the most bizarrely appropriate double feature) because they were waiting for the fart jokes that never came. This was a dark kind of fairy tale that I wasn't even expecting it to be.
Like mod, I was reminded of The Messenger but I think that was entirely because of Dustin Hoffman being in a period piece set in France. At first, I was thinking, what the hell is he doing in this movie? But he had me at his first snap of the handkerchief, despite his made-up accent. And I read the criticisms that Ben Whishaw is too good-looking to be Grenouille based on his description in the book, but there's still an ugly, repulsive quality about him that makes it work. Like he's as ugly as a handsome man can be without being actually ugly. I don't think Leo or Orlando could have pulled that off. And maybe it's because I just recently saw The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner but Whishaw reminds me a LOT of a young Tom Courtenay.
And that ending... holy shit. You don't really see it coming and it was just perfect... Rickman's reaction was just... fuck. I just wish Dreamworks had had the balls to release this wide; that ending may be too much for the average joe moviegoer to handle but if they had released it wide, it would have actually made some money here before people ran screaming from the theatres about how horrible it was.
So the redhead connection... was that in the book or is that more evidence in support of a possible Tykwer fetish? You know what, never mind. I'm running out today at lunch to get the book. This film makes my top 5 of '06 easily.
spoils
i thought this was going to be great from the first few minutes and it just kind of got worse and worse. but it started from such a height that it was still pretty good up until around hoffman leaving. i think the thing that threw off most of the movie was i didn't like the main character or the performance.. he was totally unaware of anyone other than himself. just flat-out psychopathic. so he wasn't interesting to me. the crowd sex and rickman apologizing wasn't believable in any way despite the set-up/myth. i could see it working on paper but not here...
non-spoils
visually it's wonderful, though. and it's worth a rental for the first.. hour i suppose. and i agree it made me smell things which is fairly unique/deserves extreme kudos.