In the great Star Trek versus Doctor Who debate I've always sided with the latter - even before its triumphant renaissance under Russell T Davies. However I have to admit that the film we screened on Sunday was pretty good, and that it deserves its five star review from Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian.
Here are my notes:
Star Trek
USA 2009 (127 minutes)
Director: J J Abrams
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana and Simon Pegg
Awards and Nominations
Won Oscar for Best Makeup
A further 11 wins and 45 nominations
James T Kirk meets the half-human Spock while training at the Starfleet Academy. Kirk stows away on the USS Enterprise and together with other cadets like Nyota Uhura, Hiikaru Sulu and Pavel Chekhov has an adventure at the final frontier.
Star Trek first appeared in 1966 as a TV series that ran for three seasons before spawning four more spin-off TV series based in the same universe but with different sets of characters. In the cinema there were 10 Star Trek films featuring initially the (ageing) cast of the initial TV series followed by the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. There are also many novels, comic books and video games, although purists consider these to be non-canonical.
The commercial failure of Star Trek Nemesis (2002) effectively killed the official Star Trek franchise in the cinema and it was not until 2005 that Paramount chose to reboot it with a story featuring the cast of the initial TV series portrayed by a new cast. The script is by Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzan who previously had worked with J J Abrams on Mission: Impossible III (2006) – another successful film franchise based on a hit TV show from the 1960s. Initially Abrams had intended only to produce the film, but decided to direct it as soon as he read the script as “I would be so agonisingly envious of whoever stepped in and directed the movie”. The writers were keen to avoid a complete reboot and thus it was important to them to cast Leonard Nimoy in the film. His performance as the older Spock is one of quiet dignity; and it is his voice over the final credits speaking the legendary words about the mission to seek out new life and new civilisations - amended to meet the politically correct requirements of a new millennium - where no one has gone before.
J J Abrams made his name as a writer and producer of eight films before making his debut as a director with Mission: Impossible III (2008). He followed this by producing the science fiction film Cloverfield (2008) before reverting to the role of director for Star Trek. His current future projects include producing Cloverfield 2 and Mission: Impossible IV as well as a possible commitment to direct an as yet untitled sequel to Star Trek. He has a parallel career in television where his credits include co-creating, writing, producing and directing Lost (2004-2010).
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
State of Play
These are the notes for the film we screened last night:
State of Play
USA 2009 (128 minutes)
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Starring: Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright Penn and Helen Mirren
Awards and Nominations
Won International Award Best Actor (Russell Crowe) at the Australian Film Institute
Two further nominations, including Kevin Macdonald as Best Director
Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) is leading an investigation into PointCorp, a private defence contractor whose operations involve the supply of mercenaries, when he hears that that Sonia Baker, a lead researcher in his team has apparently committed suicide on the subway. Reporter Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) had been at college with Collins and as he investigates the death with his colleague Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) they begin to wonder whether Sonia Baker had been murdered.
The film is based on the six part TV drama by Paul Abbott first broadcast in 2003 which was set in London in the early days of New Labour. The film transposes the action to contemporary Washington under a Republican Administration, and the need to distill the core story into two hours means that what it loses in terms of character development it gains in terms of pace. Kevin Macdonald said that it was the complex blend of fiction with journalism and politics that had initially attracted him to the story, adding that he wanted to examine the ways that societies learn what is going on in the world and the extent to which people can trust what they read in the papers. He cited a series of key 1970s films – The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor and especially All The President’s Men - as a major influence on State of Play.
The initial screenplay was by Matthew Michael Carnahan (who previously wrote the screenplay for Lions for Lambs (2007), Robert Redford’s most recent film as director) with further contributions from both Tony Gilray (scriptwriter for all three Bourne films and writer/director of Michael Clayton (2007) and Duplicity (2009)) and Peter Morgan, who wrote the screenplay for The Last King of Scotland (2006), Kevin Macdonald’s debut feature as a director, as well as the screenplays for The Queen (2006) and Frost/Nixon (2008). Despite Paul Abbott’s role as Executive Producer he had no involvement in the screenplay.
Brad Pitt had originally been cast as Cal McAffrey, but he left the production a week before production began as a result of differences over the script which could not be resolved due to the 2007-2008 Screenwriters Strike, and Russell Crowe took on the role at the last minute after a personal approach from Kevin Macdonald. This cast change delayed production and had the knock on effect of Ben Affleck taking over the role of Collins from Edward Norton, who had to leave due to scheduling conflicts. Fortunately Helen Mirren was able to adjust her own filming schedule to retain her key cameo role of Cameron Lynne, the editor of the Washington Globe - although some UK critics wondered why DCI Tennison had suddenly taken up a second career in journalism.
State of Play
USA 2009 (128 minutes)
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Starring: Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright Penn and Helen Mirren
Awards and Nominations
Won International Award Best Actor (Russell Crowe) at the Australian Film Institute
Two further nominations, including Kevin Macdonald as Best Director
Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) is leading an investigation into PointCorp, a private defence contractor whose operations involve the supply of mercenaries, when he hears that that Sonia Baker, a lead researcher in his team has apparently committed suicide on the subway. Reporter Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) had been at college with Collins and as he investigates the death with his colleague Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) they begin to wonder whether Sonia Baker had been murdered.
The film is based on the six part TV drama by Paul Abbott first broadcast in 2003 which was set in London in the early days of New Labour. The film transposes the action to contemporary Washington under a Republican Administration, and the need to distill the core story into two hours means that what it loses in terms of character development it gains in terms of pace. Kevin Macdonald said that it was the complex blend of fiction with journalism and politics that had initially attracted him to the story, adding that he wanted to examine the ways that societies learn what is going on in the world and the extent to which people can trust what they read in the papers. He cited a series of key 1970s films – The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor and especially All The President’s Men - as a major influence on State of Play.
The initial screenplay was by Matthew Michael Carnahan (who previously wrote the screenplay for Lions for Lambs (2007), Robert Redford’s most recent film as director) with further contributions from both Tony Gilray (scriptwriter for all three Bourne films and writer/director of Michael Clayton (2007) and Duplicity (2009)) and Peter Morgan, who wrote the screenplay for The Last King of Scotland (2006), Kevin Macdonald’s debut feature as a director, as well as the screenplays for The Queen (2006) and Frost/Nixon (2008). Despite Paul Abbott’s role as Executive Producer he had no involvement in the screenplay.
Brad Pitt had originally been cast as Cal McAffrey, but he left the production a week before production began as a result of differences over the script which could not be resolved due to the 2007-2008 Screenwriters Strike, and Russell Crowe took on the role at the last minute after a personal approach from Kevin Macdonald. This cast change delayed production and had the knock on effect of Ben Affleck taking over the role of Collins from Edward Norton, who had to leave due to scheduling conflicts. Fortunately Helen Mirren was able to adjust her own filming schedule to retain her key cameo role of Cameron Lynne, the editor of the Washington Globe - although some UK critics wondered why DCI Tennison had suddenly taken up a second career in journalism.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Harry, He’s Here To Help (Harry, Un Ami Qui Vous Veut Du Bien)
Harry, He’s Here To Help (Harry, Un Ami Qui Vous Veut Du Bien)
France 2000 (117 minutes)
Director: Dominik Moll
Starring: Laurent Lucas, Mathilde Seigneur, Sergi Lopez and Sophie Guillemin
Awards and Nominations
BAFTA nomination for Best Film not in the English Language
Nomination for Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival
A further seven wins and 12 nominations
On a hot summer day Michel Pape (Laurent Lucas) is driving south from Paris with his wife Claire (Mathilde Seigneur) and three young daughters to a remote farmhouse they have bought in order to renovate. While they stop at a service station a stranger introduces himself to Michel as Harry Balesteros (Sergi Lopez) a school friend whom he has not seen for twenty years. Harry slowly insinuates himself into the life of the family and then sets about reorganising Michel’s life with advice and manipulative acts.
The key motif of the plot – a charming sociopath inveigles his way into a stable relationship before wreaking havoc – is a key plot device from films like Strangers on a Train to The Talented Mr Ripley. However it is the former that is the key to this film, which consciously echoes a whole series of Hitchcock classics: Harry is the corpse in The Trouble With Harry and Balesteros is the name of the innocent victim in The Wrong Man. Philip French has also noted a more subtle Hitchcock reference: Hitchcock is said to have abhorred eggs, but Harry eats them raw and Michel starts writing a story called Les Oeufs.
All four actors perform well in the leading roles, but it was Sergi Lopez who won a Cesar for Best Actor. Since this film he has worked with a number of major European directors and has portrayed villainous characters in films such as Dirty Pretty Things (2002) and, more famously, in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), in which he played the psychopathic Captain Vidal.
Dominik Moll was born in Germany, studied film in New York and now teaches film at the French National Film School. After the success of Harry, He’s Here To Help, for which he also wrote the screenplay, Moll directed Lemming (2005) a psychological thriller starring Charlotte Rampling and Charlotte Gainsbourg, once again from his own script. His next film will be The Monk, based on the classic Gothic novel by Matthew Lewis and starring Sergi Lopez.
France 2000 (117 minutes)
Director: Dominik Moll
Starring: Laurent Lucas, Mathilde Seigneur, Sergi Lopez and Sophie Guillemin
Awards and Nominations
BAFTA nomination for Best Film not in the English Language
Nomination for Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival
A further seven wins and 12 nominations
On a hot summer day Michel Pape (Laurent Lucas) is driving south from Paris with his wife Claire (Mathilde Seigneur) and three young daughters to a remote farmhouse they have bought in order to renovate. While they stop at a service station a stranger introduces himself to Michel as Harry Balesteros (Sergi Lopez) a school friend whom he has not seen for twenty years. Harry slowly insinuates himself into the life of the family and then sets about reorganising Michel’s life with advice and manipulative acts.
The key motif of the plot – a charming sociopath inveigles his way into a stable relationship before wreaking havoc – is a key plot device from films like Strangers on a Train to The Talented Mr Ripley. However it is the former that is the key to this film, which consciously echoes a whole series of Hitchcock classics: Harry is the corpse in The Trouble With Harry and Balesteros is the name of the innocent victim in The Wrong Man. Philip French has also noted a more subtle Hitchcock reference: Hitchcock is said to have abhorred eggs, but Harry eats them raw and Michel starts writing a story called Les Oeufs.
All four actors perform well in the leading roles, but it was Sergi Lopez who won a Cesar for Best Actor. Since this film he has worked with a number of major European directors and has portrayed villainous characters in films such as Dirty Pretty Things (2002) and, more famously, in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), in which he played the psychopathic Captain Vidal.
Dominik Moll was born in Germany, studied film in New York and now teaches film at the French National Film School. After the success of Harry, He’s Here To Help, for which he also wrote the screenplay, Moll directed Lemming (2005) a psychological thriller starring Charlotte Rampling and Charlotte Gainsbourg, once again from his own script. His next film will be The Monk, based on the classic Gothic novel by Matthew Lewis and starring Sergi Lopez.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Australia
These are my film notes for last week's screening of Australia - an attempt to break the record for the number of other films mentioned in a single set of notes.
Once again I wrote the notes before I'd seen the film, and now after the screening I can report that although it had a few impressive set pieces, the overall effect was some considerable way less than the sum of its parts.
Australia 2008 (165 minutes)
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Ben Mendelsohn, Bill Hunter, Bryan Brown and David Wenham
Awards and Nominations
• Nominated for an Oscar
• A further 7 wins and 19 nominations
In September 1939 Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) flies to Australia where her errand husband is running cattle station. After the murder of her husband she and Drover (Hugh Jackman) drive 2,000 head of cattle on a journey of several hundred miles across the desert to Darwin where they will be sold. Several years later Lady Sarah returns to Darwin to look for a young half-aboriginal boy whom she regards as her adopted son, and while she is there she witnesses the Japanese attack on the city.
The cast includes actors such as Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson and Bill Hunter who all made their names in the great period of Australian cinema in the 1970s and 1980s when directors such as Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford and Fred Schepisi were exploring the history of their country and their national identity in films like Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978) and Gallipoli (1981). From this strong beginning subsequent generation of film makers moved away from such major themes, focussing instead on contemporary subjects and producing films such as Strictly Ballroom (1992), Luhrmann’s first film which became a global success after winning an award at the Cannes Film Festival. Luhrmann built on this legacy of anti-heroic cinema in his next two films, with Romeo + Juliet (1996) being set in Latin America and Moulin Rouge (2001) in fin-de-siècle Paris.
Luhrmann decided that his next film would be about the history of Australia, and after six months of research he settled on a story set just before the Second World War in which he could combine a historical romance with a story about the Stolen Generations, mixed race Aboriginal children who were removed from their parents and integrated into white society. Luhrmann wrote the screenplay in conjunction with Stuart Beattie, whose work ranges from the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy to 30 days of Night (2007), and Ronald Harwood, best known for his screenplays for The Pianist (2002) and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007).
With this complex pedigree of screenwriters and with two Australian actors who made their names in Hollywood in the leading roles, rather than returning to the style of the founders of the new wave of Australian cinema Luhrmann imposes a Hollywood sensibility on the film which contains two distinct parts: a so-called “wallaby western” and then a war movie. The first part of the film echoes two famous John Wayne westerns, Red River and The Cowboys, while the sound track evokes the music that Elmer Bernstein wrote for films such as The Magnificent Seven. In the second part there are scenes which are reminiscent of From Here to Eternity, Gone with the Wind (the burning of Atlanta) and Tora! Tora! Tora!
Luhrmann is currently working on another adaptation of The Great Gatsby, although no details of any casting have been announced.
Once again I wrote the notes before I'd seen the film, and now after the screening I can report that although it had a few impressive set pieces, the overall effect was some considerable way less than the sum of its parts.
Australia 2008 (165 minutes)
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Ben Mendelsohn, Bill Hunter, Bryan Brown and David Wenham
Awards and Nominations
• Nominated for an Oscar
• A further 7 wins and 19 nominations
In September 1939 Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) flies to Australia where her errand husband is running cattle station. After the murder of her husband she and Drover (Hugh Jackman) drive 2,000 head of cattle on a journey of several hundred miles across the desert to Darwin where they will be sold. Several years later Lady Sarah returns to Darwin to look for a young half-aboriginal boy whom she regards as her adopted son, and while she is there she witnesses the Japanese attack on the city.
The cast includes actors such as Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson and Bill Hunter who all made their names in the great period of Australian cinema in the 1970s and 1980s when directors such as Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford and Fred Schepisi were exploring the history of their country and their national identity in films like Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978) and Gallipoli (1981). From this strong beginning subsequent generation of film makers moved away from such major themes, focussing instead on contemporary subjects and producing films such as Strictly Ballroom (1992), Luhrmann’s first film which became a global success after winning an award at the Cannes Film Festival. Luhrmann built on this legacy of anti-heroic cinema in his next two films, with Romeo + Juliet (1996) being set in Latin America and Moulin Rouge (2001) in fin-de-siècle Paris.
Luhrmann decided that his next film would be about the history of Australia, and after six months of research he settled on a story set just before the Second World War in which he could combine a historical romance with a story about the Stolen Generations, mixed race Aboriginal children who were removed from their parents and integrated into white society. Luhrmann wrote the screenplay in conjunction with Stuart Beattie, whose work ranges from the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy to 30 days of Night (2007), and Ronald Harwood, best known for his screenplays for The Pianist (2002) and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007).
With this complex pedigree of screenwriters and with two Australian actors who made their names in Hollywood in the leading roles, rather than returning to the style of the founders of the new wave of Australian cinema Luhrmann imposes a Hollywood sensibility on the film which contains two distinct parts: a so-called “wallaby western” and then a war movie. The first part of the film echoes two famous John Wayne westerns, Red River and The Cowboys, while the sound track evokes the music that Elmer Bernstein wrote for films such as The Magnificent Seven. In the second part there are scenes which are reminiscent of From Here to Eternity, Gone with the Wind (the burning of Atlanta) and Tora! Tora! Tora!
Luhrmann is currently working on another adaptation of The Great Gatsby, although no details of any casting have been announced.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Eat Drink Man Woman
Notes as follows:
Eat Drink Man Woman (Yin shin an nu)
Taiwan/USA 1994 (124 minutes)
Director: Ang Lee
Starring: Sihung Lung, Yu-Wen Wang and Chien-lien Wu
Awards and Nominations
Nominated for Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film
Nominated for BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film
Nominated for Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film
A further four wins and seven nominations
Senior Master Chef Chu lives in a large house in Taipei with his three unmarried daughters: a school-teacher nursing a broken heart, a career woman and a student who works in a fast food restaurant. As each daughter encounters a new man and the relationships flourish, their traditional roles within the family evolve. Chu has lost his wife, is losing his sense of taste and is aware that he is getting old. Reminiscing with an old friend Chu comments that the two main human desires are “to eat and drink and to have sex” and the film includes numerous scenes displaying the technique and art of gourmet Chinese cooking for the family’s Sunday dinner, the intricate preparations for the family meal expressing its members’ unspoken feelings for each other.
Ang Lee studied film in New York but made his name in his native Taiwan with two studies of Chinese American relationships in Pushing Hands (1992) and The Wedding Banquet (1993), the second of which was nominated as Best Foreign Film in both the Golden Globes and Oscars. Lee returned to Taiwan for Eat Drink Man Woman, a study of traditional values, modern relationships and family conflicts in Taipei, and after its international success moved to Hollywood.
Lee has subsequently directed a diverse series of films which include Sense and Sensibility (1995) from the novel by Jane Austen, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) based on the Chinese wuxia (martial arts and chivalry) genre, Hulk (2003) a blockbuster based on the Marvel Comics character, and Brokeback Mountain (2005) a small budget independent film based on a short story by Annie Proulx. To date Lee’s films have won seven Oscars, eight Golden Globes and 12 BAFTAs. He is currently working on Life of Pi, based on the award-winning novel by Yann Martel.
In 2002 Eat Drink Man Woman suffered the usual fate of a successful foreign language film in the US: an English language remake called Tortilla Soup about a Mexican chef and his family in contemporary Los Angeles. Peter Bradshaw described it as “a film so tooth-grindingly irritating you will feel your mouth filling up with enamel powder”.
Eat Drink Man Woman (Yin shin an nu)
Taiwan/USA 1994 (124 minutes)
Director: Ang Lee
Starring: Sihung Lung, Yu-Wen Wang and Chien-lien Wu
Awards and Nominations
Nominated for Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film
Nominated for BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film
Nominated for Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film
A further four wins and seven nominations
Senior Master Chef Chu lives in a large house in Taipei with his three unmarried daughters: a school-teacher nursing a broken heart, a career woman and a student who works in a fast food restaurant. As each daughter encounters a new man and the relationships flourish, their traditional roles within the family evolve. Chu has lost his wife, is losing his sense of taste and is aware that he is getting old. Reminiscing with an old friend Chu comments that the two main human desires are “to eat and drink and to have sex” and the film includes numerous scenes displaying the technique and art of gourmet Chinese cooking for the family’s Sunday dinner, the intricate preparations for the family meal expressing its members’ unspoken feelings for each other.
Ang Lee studied film in New York but made his name in his native Taiwan with two studies of Chinese American relationships in Pushing Hands (1992) and The Wedding Banquet (1993), the second of which was nominated as Best Foreign Film in both the Golden Globes and Oscars. Lee returned to Taiwan for Eat Drink Man Woman, a study of traditional values, modern relationships and family conflicts in Taipei, and after its international success moved to Hollywood.
Lee has subsequently directed a diverse series of films which include Sense and Sensibility (1995) from the novel by Jane Austen, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) based on the Chinese wuxia (martial arts and chivalry) genre, Hulk (2003) a blockbuster based on the Marvel Comics character, and Brokeback Mountain (2005) a small budget independent film based on a short story by Annie Proulx. To date Lee’s films have won seven Oscars, eight Golden Globes and 12 BAFTAs. He is currently working on Life of Pi, based on the award-winning novel by Yann Martel.
In 2002 Eat Drink Man Woman suffered the usual fate of a successful foreign language film in the US: an English language remake called Tortilla Soup about a Mexican chef and his family in contemporary Los Angeles. Peter Bradshaw described it as “a film so tooth-grindingly irritating you will feel your mouth filling up with enamel powder”.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Revolutionary Road
These are the film notes for last night's screening:
Revolutionary Road
USA 2009 (119 minutes)
Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Michael Shannon, Richard Easton and Jay O Sanders
Awards and Nominations
* Nominated for three Oscars, including Best Supporting Actor (Michael Shannon)
* Won Golden Globe for Best Actress (Kate Winslet)
* A further five wins and 21 nominations including BAFTA nominations for Best Actress (Kate Winslet) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Justin Hayes)
In 1950s Connecticut Frank Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio) works discontendely for a Manhattan computer company while his wife April (Kate Winslet) once had ambitions to be an actress but is now a housewife who takes part in amateur theatricals. In the throes of a quarter life crisis they plan to move to Paris to retrieve their lives, but while April becomes hooked on her pipe dream Frank gets cold feet.
There had been several earlier unsuccessful attempts to film the 1961 novel by Richard Yates, but it was only after Kate Winslet told her husband Sam Mendes that she would like to play the part of April Wheeler that he agreed to direct it, and only when DiCaprio had been cast as Frank Wheeler that the film actually went into production. Winslet and DiCaprio made their names in Titanic (1997), and since then both actors have had successful careers in a number of high profile films although this is the first time that they had worked together again. Nonetheless the friendship that they had developed while making Titanic endured, and this helped them portray a couple so convincingly in this film. Both actors received praise for their performances, but it was Winslet who won the awards (although as she had been nominated for Best Actress Oscar for her performance in The Reader she was ineligible for a nomination for her performance in this film, and she competed against herself in the BAFTAs, winning the Best Actress award for her performance in The Reader). The shoot was so emotionally and physically draining for DiCaprio that he postponed his next film for two months.
Revolutionary Road was Yates’ first novel, and was a finalist in the National book Award of 1961 (Catch-22 was also shortlisted). Despite being championed by writers as diverse as Kurt Vonnegut, Dorothy Parker, William Styron and Tennessee William and receiving almost universal critical acclaim for his work, none of his novels sold well and all went out of print after he died in 1992. However in recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in his work: in the UK Nick Hornby made one of the suicidal characters in his 2005 novel A Long Way Down carry a copy of Revolutionary Road so that it could be discovered on his corpse.
Sam Mendes made his name as a stage director with award-winning productions in both the UK and the USA. In 1999 as a novice film maker he directed American Beauty which won five Oscars, including Best Director and Best Film. He followed this with Road to Perdition (2002) which included Paul Newman’s final screen appearance in a major role. It has just been announced that Mendes will direct the as-yet-untitled next Bond film, which is due for release in 2011.
Revolutionary Road
USA 2009 (119 minutes)
Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Michael Shannon, Richard Easton and Jay O Sanders
Awards and Nominations
* Nominated for three Oscars, including Best Supporting Actor (Michael Shannon)
* Won Golden Globe for Best Actress (Kate Winslet)
* A further five wins and 21 nominations including BAFTA nominations for Best Actress (Kate Winslet) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Justin Hayes)
In 1950s Connecticut Frank Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio) works discontendely for a Manhattan computer company while his wife April (Kate Winslet) once had ambitions to be an actress but is now a housewife who takes part in amateur theatricals. In the throes of a quarter life crisis they plan to move to Paris to retrieve their lives, but while April becomes hooked on her pipe dream Frank gets cold feet.
There had been several earlier unsuccessful attempts to film the 1961 novel by Richard Yates, but it was only after Kate Winslet told her husband Sam Mendes that she would like to play the part of April Wheeler that he agreed to direct it, and only when DiCaprio had been cast as Frank Wheeler that the film actually went into production. Winslet and DiCaprio made their names in Titanic (1997), and since then both actors have had successful careers in a number of high profile films although this is the first time that they had worked together again. Nonetheless the friendship that they had developed while making Titanic endured, and this helped them portray a couple so convincingly in this film. Both actors received praise for their performances, but it was Winslet who won the awards (although as she had been nominated for Best Actress Oscar for her performance in The Reader she was ineligible for a nomination for her performance in this film, and she competed against herself in the BAFTAs, winning the Best Actress award for her performance in The Reader). The shoot was so emotionally and physically draining for DiCaprio that he postponed his next film for two months.
Revolutionary Road was Yates’ first novel, and was a finalist in the National book Award of 1961 (Catch-22 was also shortlisted). Despite being championed by writers as diverse as Kurt Vonnegut, Dorothy Parker, William Styron and Tennessee William and receiving almost universal critical acclaim for his work, none of his novels sold well and all went out of print after he died in 1992. However in recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in his work: in the UK Nick Hornby made one of the suicidal characters in his 2005 novel A Long Way Down carry a copy of Revolutionary Road so that it could be discovered on his corpse.
Sam Mendes made his name as a stage director with award-winning productions in both the UK and the USA. In 1999 as a novice film maker he directed American Beauty which won five Oscars, including Best Director and Best Film. He followed this with Road to Perdition (2002) which included Paul Newman’s final screen appearance in a major role. It has just been announced that Mendes will direct the as-yet-untitled next Bond film, which is due for release in 2011.
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