Eastern Promises Catch-All
~*~*~SPOILERS~*~*~
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Title: Lunch With David: David Cronenberg (very interesting video interview)
Source: Movie City News; on the left, scroll down a little
©Movie City news; Thanks to kaijamin at V-W!
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Title: Eastern Promises opens this year's London Film Festival
Source: BBC
©BBC News; Thanks to MaryW at V-W!
This is a clip from the BBC, mostly about the London locations used, including a short interview with the person who chose them, and also a short interview with Naomi Watts on the red carpet at the opening of the London Film Festival
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Title: Cronenberg's Violent Reversals
Source: David Bordwell's Website on Cinema
©Kristin Thompson; Thanks to Chrissiejane at V-W!
This article is very interesting and compares Eastern Promises and History of Violence, and makes some interesting comments about the voice-over in Eastern Promises and its significance:
Only at the end does the narration settle with one of the characters. We have seen Anna, finally happy in motherhood after having suffered a miscarriage shortly before the action of the plot began. The film ends with Nikolai, briefly lingering over his grim situation and allowing us to picture what his life will be like. That moment, I think, was where I came to associate Tatiana’s voiceover primarily with him.
If you study film, you might enjoy other items on the website, such as Studying Cinema
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Title: Mayo: David Cronenberg and Mark Kermode, 18 Oct 07
Source: BBC Radio 5 live; scroll down to 'latest episodes'
©BBC Podcast; Thanks to MaryW at V-W!
An 18 minute radio interview on the Simon Mayo show, with David Cronenberg, and also Viggo's biggest British Film Critic fan, Mark Kermode. There are some fun moments, and Cronenberg says once more that he wants Viggo to be in all his films, but given their advanced age, he doesn't think they'll be able to make as many as Scorsese and De Niro!
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Title: Eastern Promises Review
Source: Channel 4 News
©Matthew de Abaitua; Thanks to Chrissiejane at V-W!
It's a good article worth reading in its entirety. Below are a few quotes:
Viggo Mortensen plays driver and aspiring foot soldier Nikolai Luzhin with an expansive civility and a matter-of-fact brutality. Accompanying his captain Kirill (Casell) to the scene of the opening murder, he has to dispose of the victim stored in a freezer. Wearily, he asks for a hairdryer so he can defrost the dead man's jacket to extract his wallet. Then he sets about snipping off the fingertips of the corpse and removing its teeth - and this is our hero?
In a vivid Cronenbergian image, Semyon is stirring a vat of borscht in which nameless things float; dismembered body parts, aborted foetuses.
Nikolai is an unforgettable cinematic event: his body is a weapon covered in tattoos that tell his prison history. The stand-out scene is a fight to the death in a Finsbury steam bath, with Nikolai naked against two Chechen mobsters wielding curved blades. Like Guy Pearce in Memento, Christian Bale in The Machinist, Brad Pitt in Fight Club or even Jim Caviezel in The Passion Of The Christ, the role of the scarified male torso in contemporary cinema deserves an essay: Mortensen's none-more-naked performance in this scene lashes across the screen, a modern mortification of the flesh, as his surname suggests.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Source: The Telegraph
Quote: One thing is for sure, though, I'll definitely work with David again. And if he wants me to fight naked, so be it!
©Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2007
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Title: Interview with David Cronenberg
Source: BBC Newsnight Review
©BBC News; Thanks to Chrissie at V-W!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Title: AICN-DOWNUNDER: Review of Eastern Promises
Source: AICN
© Latauro; Thanks to Chrissiejane at V-W!
The narrative amends this on the run, as the natural plotline shifts organically towards Mortensen and Vincent Cassell's powerfully-impotent heir apparent. These two have extraordinary chemistry, as does Armin Mueller-Stahl as Cassell's crime boss father.
Now, I've heard nothing about EASTERN PROMISES (I went in knowing zilch, to the extent that the opening scene made me think it was an actual Russian film before the moment of "Is that Naomi Watts?"), but I'd be amazed if this didn't lead to a bunch of nominations for Viggo Mortensen. Once again, awards and nominations are not the benchmark for quality, but invoking them when discussing the quality of work helps to illustrate certain points. And the main point is that this Mortensen has found his perfect director in Cronenberg. It's a match I never would have guessed, but the two of them seem to do their best work when they're together. It could be coincidence of material, but where's the fun in that? Mortensen gives not only the most engrossing performance in a year, but the bravest one as well. Calling a performance "brave" can sometimes come across as a backhanded compliment (thank you, Sir Humphrey), but there are very few actors at any level who would commit themselves as wholeheartedly to some of the stuff that Mortensen does here.
It doesn't start with any particular brilliance, but it sure as hell makes up for it by the end. One you really have to catch.
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Title: Eastern Promises Press Conference: Steve Knight, Vincent Cassel, David Cronenberg and Naomi Watts
Source: Future Films
© Coco Forsythe; Thanks to Chrissiejane at V-W!
Q: David, you’ve obviously worked with Viggo before, but I believe on this film he almost became Russian. Does his intensity surprise you? For the actors, does it make you raise your game?
David Cronenberg: I knew Viggo’s methodology from A History Of Violence, and he’s very thorough, and does a lot of research - also with a great sense of humour by the way. We take the work seriously as professionals but it really is fun if you do it right, it doesn’t have to be anguished. So I wasn’t surprised as how he works; that’s what’s exciting about working with someone a second time, you know each other’s creative process, so its almost like starting in third gear.
Naomi Watts: I think it’s not only helpful to him but helpful for those around him. I don’t know Viggo that well but I get the feeling that he pretty much was connected to that character the whole time - am I wrong?
David Cronenberg: No, it’s just that it’s not what you think when you think Method Acting. He didn’t ask us to call him the character’s name; after cut he’s still Viggo, you can still joke with him. But he filled his trailer with Russian stuff and his apartment is covered with research materials, and he carries things on his body that remind him of the character. But it’s all done in a very light way; it’s not heavy, and it isn’t silly. It’s very natural and very organic.
Vincent Cassel: The energy is certainly different; he’s a very calm, focussed person whereas I’m more full of energy when I need to. But acting has something to do with pleasure I think, so if you are tense and too focussed all day long, it just gets boring. If David cracks a joke and you smile and you think about something else, then when you shoot again you are fresh. .................
Q: It probably doesn’t surprise anyone that Viggo was quite so committed to authenticity in the fight scenes, but did any of his fellow cast mates feel a pang of envy?
David Cronenberg: They all wanted naked scenes after that! They wanted a naked fight scene after that, but I said no.
Q: Viggo went for it; I imagine some actors might have balked at the nudity.
David Cronenberg: It’s unusual for a star of some magnitude to do that, but he doesn’t consider himself a star, he’s an actor. It was obvious that the level of reality that we’d established in the film would make it silly if I shot it in an obscure way that I hadn’t done in the rest of the movie, or if the towel miraculously stayed around his waist. We were thinking about what the scene needed in the context of the movie, and went for it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Title: First night: London film festival - Eastern Promises
Source: The Guardian
© Guardian News and Media Limited
So some in London were not so impressed with (read the entire article here):
The nation's capital is not quite flattered by its starring role in tonight's opening gala movie of the London film festival, Eastern Promises, a Russian gangster thriller directed by David Cronenberg from a script by British screenwriter Steve Knight. As a city London assumes a sinister, mediocre drabness whose incessant cloud cover and soft light provide a lenient blanket for the parasitic criminal network of expatriate Russian wiseguys who find it a congenial base.
But I have to confess, on the whole, to being disappointed with Cronenberg's film. The director is generally a poet of body-horror and transgression, but doesn't really make this project his own, and doesn't impose his signature on the material the way he did, say, in his last London-set movie, Spider, in 2002.
The situations and characters feel very inauthentic: as a nurse, Anna seems to have a fair bit of time on her hands for detective work and all too often everyone is spyeaking Eeenglyish wyith a fyunny Ryussian accyent, although oddly Mueller-Stahl sticks to his German tones.
Cassel is wildly over the top from the outset in a cliched role, hardly ever shown without shouting and drinking extravagantly to indicate being unprofessional, unreliable etc. Steve Knight's earlier screenplay, for Dirty Pretty Things, was also about a London migrant underworld abandoned to exploitation and violence, but that was somehow far more compelling, with more relaxed performances and subtler, gentler gestures in the drama.
Despite its interesting premise, Eastern Promises gives us nothing more than that - promises.
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French and UK Websites
Both have various features including wallpapers, avatars, stills, clips, history, etc.
French Official Site
UK Official Site
©Pathé UK/Focus Features
Also, Pathé UK has downloaded some new clips to You-Tube:
In the bath house... before the fight
Nikolai reading Tatiana's diary
Anna giving the copy of the diary to Semyon
Thanks to erfoud and dom at V-W!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
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Title: Lunch With David: David Cronenberg (very interesting video interview)
Source: Movie City News; on the left, scroll down a little
©Movie City news; Thanks to kaijamin at V-W!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Title: Eastern Promises opens this year's London Film Festival
Source: BBC
©BBC News; Thanks to MaryW at V-W!
This is a clip from the BBC, mostly about the London locations used, including a short interview with the person who chose them, and also a short interview with Naomi Watts on the red carpet at the opening of the London Film Festival
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Title: Cronenberg's Violent Reversals
Source: David Bordwell's Website on Cinema
©Kristin Thompson; Thanks to Chrissiejane at V-W!
This article is very interesting and compares Eastern Promises and History of Violence, and makes some interesting comments about the voice-over in Eastern Promises and its significance:
Only at the end does the narration settle with one of the characters. We have seen Anna, finally happy in motherhood after having suffered a miscarriage shortly before the action of the plot began. The film ends with Nikolai, briefly lingering over his grim situation and allowing us to picture what his life will be like. That moment, I think, was where I came to associate Tatiana’s voiceover primarily with him.
If you study film, you might enjoy other items on the website, such as Studying Cinema
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Title: Mayo: David Cronenberg and Mark Kermode, 18 Oct 07
Source: BBC Radio 5 live; scroll down to 'latest episodes'
©BBC Podcast; Thanks to MaryW at V-W!
An 18 minute radio interview on the Simon Mayo show, with David Cronenberg, and also Viggo's biggest British Film Critic fan, Mark Kermode. There are some fun moments, and Cronenberg says once more that he wants Viggo to be in all his films, but given their advanced age, he doesn't think they'll be able to make as many as Scorsese and De Niro!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Title: Eastern Promises Review
Source: Channel 4 News
©Matthew de Abaitua; Thanks to Chrissiejane at V-W!
It's a good article worth reading in its entirety. Below are a few quotes:
Viggo Mortensen plays driver and aspiring foot soldier Nikolai Luzhin with an expansive civility and a matter-of-fact brutality. Accompanying his captain Kirill (Casell) to the scene of the opening murder, he has to dispose of the victim stored in a freezer. Wearily, he asks for a hairdryer so he can defrost the dead man's jacket to extract his wallet. Then he sets about snipping off the fingertips of the corpse and removing its teeth - and this is our hero?
In a vivid Cronenbergian image, Semyon is stirring a vat of borscht in which nameless things float; dismembered body parts, aborted foetuses.
Nikolai is an unforgettable cinematic event: his body is a weapon covered in tattoos that tell his prison history. The stand-out scene is a fight to the death in a Finsbury steam bath, with Nikolai naked against two Chechen mobsters wielding curved blades. Like Guy Pearce in Memento, Christian Bale in The Machinist, Brad Pitt in Fight Club or even Jim Caviezel in The Passion Of The Christ, the role of the scarified male torso in contemporary cinema deserves an essay: Mortensen's none-more-naked performance in this scene lashes across the screen, a modern mortification of the flesh, as his surname suggests.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Source: The Telegraph
Quote: One thing is for sure, though, I'll definitely work with David again. And if he wants me to fight naked, so be it!
©Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2007
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Title: Interview with David Cronenberg
Source: BBC Newsnight Review
©BBC News; Thanks to Chrissie at V-W!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Title: AICN-DOWNUNDER: Review of Eastern Promises
Source: AICN
© Latauro; Thanks to Chrissiejane at V-W!
The narrative amends this on the run, as the natural plotline shifts organically towards Mortensen and Vincent Cassell's powerfully-impotent heir apparent. These two have extraordinary chemistry, as does Armin Mueller-Stahl as Cassell's crime boss father.
Now, I've heard nothing about EASTERN PROMISES (I went in knowing zilch, to the extent that the opening scene made me think it was an actual Russian film before the moment of "Is that Naomi Watts?"), but I'd be amazed if this didn't lead to a bunch of nominations for Viggo Mortensen. Once again, awards and nominations are not the benchmark for quality, but invoking them when discussing the quality of work helps to illustrate certain points. And the main point is that this Mortensen has found his perfect director in Cronenberg. It's a match I never would have guessed, but the two of them seem to do their best work when they're together. It could be coincidence of material, but where's the fun in that? Mortensen gives not only the most engrossing performance in a year, but the bravest one as well. Calling a performance "brave" can sometimes come across as a backhanded compliment (thank you, Sir Humphrey), but there are very few actors at any level who would commit themselves as wholeheartedly to some of the stuff that Mortensen does here.
It doesn't start with any particular brilliance, but it sure as hell makes up for it by the end. One you really have to catch.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Title: Eastern Promises Press Conference: Steve Knight, Vincent Cassel, David Cronenberg and Naomi Watts
Source: Future Films
© Coco Forsythe; Thanks to Chrissiejane at V-W!
Q: David, you’ve obviously worked with Viggo before, but I believe on this film he almost became Russian. Does his intensity surprise you? For the actors, does it make you raise your game?
David Cronenberg: I knew Viggo’s methodology from A History Of Violence, and he’s very thorough, and does a lot of research - also with a great sense of humour by the way. We take the work seriously as professionals but it really is fun if you do it right, it doesn’t have to be anguished. So I wasn’t surprised as how he works; that’s what’s exciting about working with someone a second time, you know each other’s creative process, so its almost like starting in third gear.
Naomi Watts: I think it’s not only helpful to him but helpful for those around him. I don’t know Viggo that well but I get the feeling that he pretty much was connected to that character the whole time - am I wrong?
David Cronenberg: No, it’s just that it’s not what you think when you think Method Acting. He didn’t ask us to call him the character’s name; after cut he’s still Viggo, you can still joke with him. But he filled his trailer with Russian stuff and his apartment is covered with research materials, and he carries things on his body that remind him of the character. But it’s all done in a very light way; it’s not heavy, and it isn’t silly. It’s very natural and very organic.
Vincent Cassel: The energy is certainly different; he’s a very calm, focussed person whereas I’m more full of energy when I need to. But acting has something to do with pleasure I think, so if you are tense and too focussed all day long, it just gets boring. If David cracks a joke and you smile and you think about something else, then when you shoot again you are fresh. .................
Q: It probably doesn’t surprise anyone that Viggo was quite so committed to authenticity in the fight scenes, but did any of his fellow cast mates feel a pang of envy?
David Cronenberg: They all wanted naked scenes after that! They wanted a naked fight scene after that, but I said no.
Q: Viggo went for it; I imagine some actors might have balked at the nudity.
David Cronenberg: It’s unusual for a star of some magnitude to do that, but he doesn’t consider himself a star, he’s an actor. It was obvious that the level of reality that we’d established in the film would make it silly if I shot it in an obscure way that I hadn’t done in the rest of the movie, or if the towel miraculously stayed around his waist. We were thinking about what the scene needed in the context of the movie, and went for it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Title: First night: London film festival - Eastern Promises
Source: The Guardian
© Guardian News and Media Limited
So some in London were not so impressed with (read the entire article here):
The nation's capital is not quite flattered by its starring role in tonight's opening gala movie of the London film festival, Eastern Promises, a Russian gangster thriller directed by David Cronenberg from a script by British screenwriter Steve Knight. As a city London assumes a sinister, mediocre drabness whose incessant cloud cover and soft light provide a lenient blanket for the parasitic criminal network of expatriate Russian wiseguys who find it a congenial base.
But I have to confess, on the whole, to being disappointed with Cronenberg's film. The director is generally a poet of body-horror and transgression, but doesn't really make this project his own, and doesn't impose his signature on the material the way he did, say, in his last London-set movie, Spider, in 2002.
The situations and characters feel very inauthentic: as a nurse, Anna seems to have a fair bit of time on her hands for detective work and all too often everyone is spyeaking Eeenglyish wyith a fyunny Ryussian accyent, although oddly Mueller-Stahl sticks to his German tones.
Cassel is wildly over the top from the outset in a cliched role, hardly ever shown without shouting and drinking extravagantly to indicate being unprofessional, unreliable etc. Steve Knight's earlier screenplay, for Dirty Pretty Things, was also about a London migrant underworld abandoned to exploitation and violence, but that was somehow far more compelling, with more relaxed performances and subtler, gentler gestures in the drama.
Despite its interesting premise, Eastern Promises gives us nothing more than that - promises.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
French and UK Websites
Both have various features including wallpapers, avatars, stills, clips, history, etc.
French Official Site
UK Official Site
©Pathé UK/Focus Features
Also, Pathé UK has downloaded some new clips to You-Tube:
In the bath house... before the fight
Nikolai reading Tatiana's diary
Anna giving the copy of the diary to Semyon
Thanks to erfoud and dom at V-W!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*