By: LARRY ROHTER
Source: http://www.nytimes.com
Category: Film School Online
Once the red carpet follies were over, the war correspondent Christiane Amanpour introduced the film, calling it “remarkable and courageous” while warning that there was “no way to sugarcoat” the atrocities it portrays. The afterparty, at a nightclub high atop a hip New York hotel in the meatpacking district, complete with the usual supercilious doormen, rotating disco ball and thumping music, was co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the human rights group Women for Women International. That was the atmosphere on Monday night at the New York premiere of “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” a harrowing look at the fratricidal Bosnian war of the 1990s: an unusual convergence of foreign policy seriousness and Hollywood glamour. But that is the way that Angelina Jolie, who wrote, directed and co-produced the film, operates these days.
“I’ve had fun as an actress,” Ms. Jolie said in an interview over the weekend at the Waldorf-Astoria. “It’s a very fun job, and I’ve had great experiences. But my heart has been on these foreign policy issues, and my interests are there. So to be able to combine them and be part of international affairs that way, working toward solutions and being part of a good dialogue with good people, felt like a nice evolution to me.”
“In the Land of Blood and Honey,” which opens on Dec. 23 and is Ms. Jolie’s directorial debut, tells the stories of Ajla, a Bosnian Muslim woman, and Danijel, a Serbian police officer, who meet in Sarajevo just before the war starts. Through them it examines the broader conflict, which killed more than 100,000 people, displaced 2 million more and introduced the term “ethnic cleansing” to the lexicon of war. Ms. Jolie, who chose not to act in the film, said that among the experts she consulted while making the film were Richard C. Holbrooke, the architect of the Dayton accords, which ended the conflict in December 1995; Gen. Wesley Clark, the former NATO commander; and the foreign correspondent Tom Gjelten, who covered the Balkan wars for National Public Radio.
When the war broke out in 1992 Ms. Jolie, now 36, was, as she put it, “a young punk” who “wasn’t paying too much attention” and was “not very politically involved or aware.” (Her breakthrough role, in the HBO movie “Gia,” was still six years away, and her days as catnip to glossy magazine editors and gossip columnists everywhere had not yet arrived.) But in recent years, even as news media accounts breathlessly followed every twist of her life with Brad Pitt and their six children, she has drawn much attention for her work as a good-will ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and her lobbying on behalf of displaced people.
She and cast members described her new film as stemming from the same humanitarian impulse. “It’s another one of her missions, actually,” said Rade Serbedzija, a Croatian Serb actor who has played villains in Hollywood productions like “Mission: Impossible II” and “The Saint” and plays a malevolently nationalistic Serbian general in Ms. Jolie’s film.
But Ms. Jolie is also aware that, given her image as a Hollywood star, her pursuit of more weighty matters may expose her to ridicule. For every critically acclaimed movie by George Clooney or Sean Penn, there’s a mercilessly mocked Madonna or Kevin Spacey vanity project.
“Maybe people will see this film and judge it differently, in a negative way, because I made it,” she said. “But at the same time, I don’t think I could have gotten it made unless I had a strong career.”
Without her involvement, she added, the film, which cost under $15 million, “might not have been made at all, especially because of this subject matter, which in Hollywood is famously difficult.”
As she views it, her celebrity is both blessing and burden. She is on the cover of Newsweek this week and is scheduled to appear on “Charlie Rose” this month, trying in every appearance to get the public interested in her film and the issues it raises, including rape as a war crime and the ethics of international intervention.
“I’d like it to be good for something,” she said of her fame. “When you’re young, and somebody sits you down for an interview, you don’t know what to say or why you’re there, because you haven’t formed yourself. I still don’t completely know what to say or do, but I at least have some focus, purpose and direction as to what can be put out in the world that is thoughtful and helpful — as opposed to just what you’re wearing.”
Ms. Jolie laughed, as if at the absurdity of her situation, then said that trying to advance causes that interest her “makes more sense of the madness of it all — because it is such a weird world.”
But she also noted that “with certain outlets and certain reporters it is an uphill battle” to deflect focus away from her and onto her film and its cast. Indeed, on the red carpet on Monday night, cast members had to field questions about what it was like to work with Ms. Jolie and how much time her children spent on the set. And then there was this: “Angelina has a lot of tattoos. Did you see them?”
Ms. Jolie said, “It baffles me that with so many people we’ve had to ask, ‘Don’t you want to meet such an extraordinary group with such an extraordinary history?’ ”
For example, Vanesa Glodjo, a Bosnian who was raised outside Sarajevo and plays Ajla’s older sister, was wounded by shrapnel in the head, leg and hand when a mortar hit her house during the war. Fedja Stukan, who plays a particularly thuggish Serbian soldier, fought for two years in Bosnia, then feigned insanity and fled to Germany.
For them, both as citizens of what was once Yugoslavia and as actors, Ms. Jolie’s desire to make a film about their experience came as a welcome surprise. They were particularly pleased that she decided to shoot two versions of the film — one in English and the other in Bosnian.
Cast members described Ms. Jolie on the set as a calm presence, mindful of gaps in her own knowledge of the war and open to their suggestions. Mr. Serbedzija drew a parallel to Clint Eastwood, who directed him in “Space Cowboys” more than a decade ago.
“She reminds me very much of his style, because both of them are so gentle, so quiet, without any performing,” Mr. Serbedzija said. “They are not directors trying to explain too much. No, it’s understanding actors, almost whispering what to do.”
For her part, Ms. Jolie seemed ambivalent when asked whether “In the Land of Blood and Honey” could be the start of the kind of second career as a director that Mr. Eastwood and Robert Redford have had.
“I loved being on the other side of the camera, watching the other actors,” she replied. “I loved the experience of doing it, but I’m not confident yet that I am good at it. So I don’t know.”
Nevertheless, she said she had started on another script, one that the producer Graham King, who worked with her on “In the Land of Blood and Honey” and “The Tourist,” her previous film, has asked about.
“He came up to me and said, ‘What’s the next one?’ ” she recalled, “and I said, ‘Afghanistan.’ And he started laughing, and I said, ‘I’m not kidding.’ ”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/movies/angelina-jolies-first-directing-effort-is-serious.html
Source: http://www.nytimes.com
Category: Film School Online
Once the red carpet follies were over, the war correspondent Christiane Amanpour introduced the film, calling it “remarkable and courageous” while warning that there was “no way to sugarcoat” the atrocities it portrays. The afterparty, at a nightclub high atop a hip New York hotel in the meatpacking district, complete with the usual supercilious doormen, rotating disco ball and thumping music, was co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the human rights group Women for Women International. That was the atmosphere on Monday night at the New York premiere of “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” a harrowing look at the fratricidal Bosnian war of the 1990s: an unusual convergence of foreign policy seriousness and Hollywood glamour. But that is the way that Angelina Jolie, who wrote, directed and co-produced the film, operates these days.
“I’ve had fun as an actress,” Ms. Jolie said in an interview over the weekend at the Waldorf-Astoria. “It’s a very fun job, and I’ve had great experiences. But my heart has been on these foreign policy issues, and my interests are there. So to be able to combine them and be part of international affairs that way, working toward solutions and being part of a good dialogue with good people, felt like a nice evolution to me.”
“In the Land of Blood and Honey,” which opens on Dec. 23 and is Ms. Jolie’s directorial debut, tells the stories of Ajla, a Bosnian Muslim woman, and Danijel, a Serbian police officer, who meet in Sarajevo just before the war starts. Through them it examines the broader conflict, which killed more than 100,000 people, displaced 2 million more and introduced the term “ethnic cleansing” to the lexicon of war. Ms. Jolie, who chose not to act in the film, said that among the experts she consulted while making the film were Richard C. Holbrooke, the architect of the Dayton accords, which ended the conflict in December 1995; Gen. Wesley Clark, the former NATO commander; and the foreign correspondent Tom Gjelten, who covered the Balkan wars for National Public Radio.
When the war broke out in 1992 Ms. Jolie, now 36, was, as she put it, “a young punk” who “wasn’t paying too much attention” and was “not very politically involved or aware.” (Her breakthrough role, in the HBO movie “Gia,” was still six years away, and her days as catnip to glossy magazine editors and gossip columnists everywhere had not yet arrived.) But in recent years, even as news media accounts breathlessly followed every twist of her life with Brad Pitt and their six children, she has drawn much attention for her work as a good-will ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and her lobbying on behalf of displaced people.
She and cast members described her new film as stemming from the same humanitarian impulse. “It’s another one of her missions, actually,” said Rade Serbedzija, a Croatian Serb actor who has played villains in Hollywood productions like “Mission: Impossible II” and “The Saint” and plays a malevolently nationalistic Serbian general in Ms. Jolie’s film.
But Ms. Jolie is also aware that, given her image as a Hollywood star, her pursuit of more weighty matters may expose her to ridicule. For every critically acclaimed movie by George Clooney or Sean Penn, there’s a mercilessly mocked Madonna or Kevin Spacey vanity project.
“Maybe people will see this film and judge it differently, in a negative way, because I made it,” she said. “But at the same time, I don’t think I could have gotten it made unless I had a strong career.”
Without her involvement, she added, the film, which cost under $15 million, “might not have been made at all, especially because of this subject matter, which in Hollywood is famously difficult.”
As she views it, her celebrity is both blessing and burden. She is on the cover of Newsweek this week and is scheduled to appear on “Charlie Rose” this month, trying in every appearance to get the public interested in her film and the issues it raises, including rape as a war crime and the ethics of international intervention.
“I’d like it to be good for something,” she said of her fame. “When you’re young, and somebody sits you down for an interview, you don’t know what to say or why you’re there, because you haven’t formed yourself. I still don’t completely know what to say or do, but I at least have some focus, purpose and direction as to what can be put out in the world that is thoughtful and helpful — as opposed to just what you’re wearing.”
Ms. Jolie laughed, as if at the absurdity of her situation, then said that trying to advance causes that interest her “makes more sense of the madness of it all — because it is such a weird world.”
But she also noted that “with certain outlets and certain reporters it is an uphill battle” to deflect focus away from her and onto her film and its cast. Indeed, on the red carpet on Monday night, cast members had to field questions about what it was like to work with Ms. Jolie and how much time her children spent on the set. And then there was this: “Angelina has a lot of tattoos. Did you see them?”
Ms. Jolie said, “It baffles me that with so many people we’ve had to ask, ‘Don’t you want to meet such an extraordinary group with such an extraordinary history?’ ”
For example, Vanesa Glodjo, a Bosnian who was raised outside Sarajevo and plays Ajla’s older sister, was wounded by shrapnel in the head, leg and hand when a mortar hit her house during the war. Fedja Stukan, who plays a particularly thuggish Serbian soldier, fought for two years in Bosnia, then feigned insanity and fled to Germany.
For them, both as citizens of what was once Yugoslavia and as actors, Ms. Jolie’s desire to make a film about their experience came as a welcome surprise. They were particularly pleased that she decided to shoot two versions of the film — one in English and the other in Bosnian.
Cast members described Ms. Jolie on the set as a calm presence, mindful of gaps in her own knowledge of the war and open to their suggestions. Mr. Serbedzija drew a parallel to Clint Eastwood, who directed him in “Space Cowboys” more than a decade ago.
“She reminds me very much of his style, because both of them are so gentle, so quiet, without any performing,” Mr. Serbedzija said. “They are not directors trying to explain too much. No, it’s understanding actors, almost whispering what to do.”
For her part, Ms. Jolie seemed ambivalent when asked whether “In the Land of Blood and Honey” could be the start of the kind of second career as a director that Mr. Eastwood and Robert Redford have had.
“I loved being on the other side of the camera, watching the other actors,” she replied. “I loved the experience of doing it, but I’m not confident yet that I am good at it. So I don’t know.”
Nevertheless, she said she had started on another script, one that the producer Graham King, who worked with her on “In the Land of Blood and Honey” and “The Tourist,” her previous film, has asked about.
“He came up to me and said, ‘What’s the next one?’ ” she recalled, “and I said, ‘Afghanistan.’ And he started laughing, and I said, ‘I’m not kidding.’ ”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/movies/angelina-jolies-first-directing-effort-is-serious.html
