#BAFTA nominated Middle Man

[denimbex1986]

'Fleabag‘s Hot Priest, the Irish actor wowed everyone with his one-man production of Hamlet. Well, almost everyone.

The Irish actor has big-screen, stage and TV successes to his name, but the pinnacle of his thespian career possibly came when he appeared in Robert Icke’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet at the Almeida Theatre in 2017.

The powerhouse performance secured Scott an Olivier Award nomination, critical praise and audience adoration. But, it wasn’t all smooth sailing, as he recalled during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused film podcast with Josh Horowitz.

After the host asked whether he had ever been thrown by someone in the audience, the BAFTA-winning actor laughingly recalled one memorable performance where a man pulled out a laptop during the play.

“I was in the middle of ‘To be or f**king not to be’,” Scott said. “I was pausing and [the stage team] were like ‘get on with it’ and I was like ‘there’s no way’ and he [the audience member] didn’t realise.”

Scott re-enacted the threatening glare he shot at the unsuspecting theatre-goer. Eventually, after lots of nudging from the woman beside him, the laptop owner snapped the lid shut...'

[nextstopwonderland]

I’m seeing a lot of current takes that Andrew Garfield has “always been underrated” or “is finally getting recognition” or “is only becoming big now” and I’ve got to take a lot of issue here. This current framing that he is now getting his “big break” after being in an mcu movie is not only both ridiculous and patently false, but it’s also flat out insulting and carries with it a subtext of “relevancy only occurs once you’re in an mcu movie.”

Andrew Garfield received tons of critics awards for The Social Network; he was nominated for a BAFTA and the golden globe. he won the British film evening standard award for the combination of both the social network and never let me go because in his breakout year he released not one by two movies and was on a press tour promoting both of them while receiving critical acclaim for the pair of them. His breakout out year was 2010, not 2021. Prior to that he’d already received awards and praise for his performance in Boy A in 2008 and he performance in Red Riding was being talked about, especially because of the upcoming release of TSN. He was not overshadowed by Jesse Eisenberg or Justin Timberlake. Everyone was talking about him. He was cast in Spider-Man in 2011 was still in the middle of doing TSN press. Oscar snubs happen all the time and the Oscars themselves do not and have never reflected the best performances/films of each year. Sure, we all want him to finally win one despite this, but conflating success with an Oscar win is terribly short sided. That being said, he then went on to receive an Oscar nomination for Hacksaw Ridge in 2017. He has won a Tony for his portrayal in Angels in America and he’d already been nominated for one back in 2012 for Death of a Salesman. He received awards and acclaim for Silence and Hacksaw Ridge, again two movies that came out in the same year and so he was competing against himself during the awards season race. There is an entire wiki page dedicated to all the awards he’s received/been nominated for.

tl;dr : Andrew Garfield is not underrated/“his talent is finally being recognized” just because you’re now finally paying attention to him.

[whileiamdying]

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands

Certain films have the power to transport an audience, enticing us to leave the theater and book the next flight to its desirable location. Bruno Barreto's Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands is one such film, and in 1978 it captured the imagination and heart of international audiences as it still does today. "When I make films, I think it's essential to make them very specific and unique about where they take place, and at the same time, I want to make sure that international audiences will get it. So that's a significant concern for me," said Barreto, who grew up in Brazil watching American and European movies. "I felt transported, like I was in the American west, in Paris or the French countryside when watching a Truffaut film, or in Rome or Milano or Naples watching a Pietro Germi film. So, I always wanted my audience to feel the same way.

Dona Flor's backdrop is Pelourinho, the historical center of Salvador, Bahia, in the northeast of Brazil, and many scenes are shot in its colonial squares and buildings. Dona Flor's home in the movie is so iconographic that cineaste tourists still seek out its precise location. Barreto has said, jokingly, "There was only one thing I couldn't get on film, which is the aroma of Bahia and Flor's cooking." In addition to his eye for location, Barreto augments each scene with soundtracks by Brazil's musical giants. In the case of Dona Flor, he used Chico Buarque; and in his 2000 film Bossa Nova he used, of course, Tom Jobim.

Barreto was twenty years old when he directed Dona Flor, which is based on the novel by Jorge Amado. When initially released in Brazil in 1976, Dona Flor became   numbers only topped thirty-five years later. Released internationally in 1978, Dona Flor received nominations for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award, and in the US. it held its rank as the highest-grossing Brazilian film for over twenty years.

As a love story, Vadinho and Flor's passion is the incarnation of the sacred and the profane. The beauty of the film rests in the fact that its eroticism is simultaneously imagined and real. This is primarily due to the extraordinary form of glamour embodied by a young Sonia Braga as Dona Flor. As in the novel, Barreto's film plays with the juxtaposition of the solid middle-class customs of Salvador, Bahia, which Flor inhabits in the 1940s, and the licentiousness of the blond malandrinho (a naughty but appealing guy) Vadinho, portrayed by José Wilker. Murilo Salles' camerawork floats between the two principal characters, and, at some point, the viewer realizes that Vadinho is the camera at those times when we see the scene through the dead man's eyes. The visual virtuosity of the cinematography creates a distinct presence that the audience is privy to. Observing Dona Flor through the lens of her immense grief, the viewer is transported into a romantic space of epic proportion. Seduced, we can offer no resistance to their passion, even though we know it is a total fantasy.

The German cultural critic Sigfried Krakhauer once stated, "Photography is the redemption of physical reality." This has never been more accurate than in this film, and Barreto's relationship to photography is not accidental. He has said he was a photographer first and had to start directing his films in order to have the chance as a cinematographer. Much has been made of Barreto's young age when he made Dona Flor, his third feature film. For a director, like Barreto, who helmed his first feature at seventeen, a youthful vocation often suggests that the budding recipient now has a full-time job and a career path to pursue. But perhaps even   more interesting is that the late teenager experiences a nascent identity and sense of self that comes through in this early work.

Color is the lingua franca of Brazilian culture. The film's authenticity is reinforced by its color palette; the distinctive colors of Salvador's colonial walls, tiles, cobblestone streets, and churches, are beautifully rendered by cinematographer Murilo Salles' poetic lens. This new digitally restored version has augured well for Dona Flor and has a consistency that enhances the framing, composition, and internal dimension of the entire drama and its characters. Movies on analog raw stock, shot on film, often benefit from enhancing digital technology. Colors long since faded come back to life, bringing an extraordinary contemporary sensibility.

The art direction and costumes by Anísio Medeiros contribute to the narrative of Flor's transformation from an inhibited woman of the 1940s into the passionate partner of the scoundrel Vadinho. Braga's body adds a sensuality to the bourgeoise styles of the time and to her widow's weeds. Towards the film's ending, when Dona Flor attempts to exorcize Vadinho from her life, she wears an ethereal pink organza robe. The robe's transparency echoes his corporeal disappearance as his spirit returns to the dead. This scene is the only time we see her clothed while having sex with Vadinho after his death, and it lends a considerable erotic charge.

Two religions, Candomblé, based on the West African Yoruban religion brought to Brazil by enslaved people, and Catholicism, are featured prominently in the film. The book's author, Jorge Amado, frequently refers to Candomblé's rituals and beliefs. Amado was proud to hold the title of Oba at the candomblé Ilè Axé Opô Afonjá, in Bahia. According to Barreto, "We are the largest Catholic country in the world. So, sex, and sexuality, is like a ghost. Very, very hidden and disguised, but very strong precisely because of that. And very potent." As previously mentioned. the film is set in the historic center of Salvador, Bahia, a UNESCO World Heritage site sometimes called the city of a thousand churches. As the first capital of Brazil, from 1549 to 1763, Salvador de Bahia is famous for its syncretism of Portuguese Catholicism with African Candomblé. Therefore, it is not surprising when Flor, wracked by quilt over her otherworldly affair with her dead husband, seeks help from her priest AND a Candomblé priestess. She asks her friend, the prostitute Dionísia, for a ceremony to be performed to exorcise Vadinho. The priest is useless, whereas the Mãe de Santo, the head of the Candomblé house, is entirely familiar with the problem, and is successful, until a bereft Flor calls Vadinho back into her arms. Of note are the authentic renderinas of this Candomblé house and its ceremony. Adding a healthy dose of religious cynicism is a scene where the obsessed gambler Vadinho goes to the church attempting to cage a loan from the priest Dom Venâncio.

While not an overtly political film - with a book by Jorge Amado and a soundtrack by Chico Buarque - love. loss. and death as a metaphor for exile cannot help but be an underlying theme. As a young man, Barreto was a part of a generation listening to Tropicalia. Some of its major musical artists, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Chico Barque, left Brazil in the late 1960s after the military dictatorship's Act Number Five, which eventually led to institutionalizing torture and repression. The novel Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands was published in 1966, but the story takes place in the 1940s. As a communist militant, Jorge Amado left Brazil for Argentina and Uruguay from 1941 to 1942. In the famous song written for the film, O Que Será, Chico Barque's Iyrics transform his leaving Brazil and his criticism of the dictatorship into a song that expresses Flor's pain and longing. Barque transfigures Flor's love and loss into a larger picture of the human condition - speaking of religion, government, and the people of the streets - the prostitutes, poets, prophets, and lovers.

Carnival is a festive Catholic season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent and the resurrection. As a communist in his youth, Jorge Amado saw the Brazilian Carnival as a suppression of the masses, and he starts the novel with a descriptive carnival scene. The film's opening carnival scene of singing men dressed as women signals that a delightfully libertine experience lies in store for the audience.

An enormous tension is created between the sexy, beautiful Sambista in gold, signifying the rhythms of life, just as the main character dies of debauchery. The dancer stays in the center of the screen, continuing to writhe over his body. Following the titles and credits, the carnival dance resumes as the camera floats over the revelers in the street to the open window of Dona Flor's house, where we see the pale and very dead Vadinho lying in his coffin. And off we go, transported by the film into the libidinous mind of the beautiful young Dona Flor.

After this spectacular overture, our characters settle into quotidian life. However, Vadinho, who goes out every night, feels he can continue his relentless pleasure- seeking fortified by the comforts of the fine meals cooked by Flor. He forces her to stay at home, and she runs her profitable culinary school, which funds his gambling. Vadinho was based on one of Amado's real-life friends, who he says used "to lose money and win women." Halfway into the film and tired of grieving over Vadinho's untimely death, the young widow Flor finds herself in the position to marry the socially solid pharmacist, Dr. Teodoro Madureira (Mauro Mendonça). However, she soon becomes bored with her new husband's conventional lovemaking. She calls back the phantom of Vadinho, and the sexual sparks fly across the screen with even greater intensity than before. Eventually exhausted by Vadinho's constant appearance and feeling guilty about his ridiculing of her square husband, Flor is at her wit's end. The film's final scene, whose international poster image has become synonymous with the film, shows Sonia Braga walking out of the church, arm in arm with her new husband and a naked Vadinho, who, as they turn, has his hand on her... The End.

MARY JANE MARGASIANO is a New York-based programmer, producer, and costume designer for films, theatre, and dance, working extensively in Brazil. She is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at Cinema Tropical, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit media arts organization presenting Latin American cinema in the United States and co-curated their 2019 Brazilian film series "Veredas: A Generation of Brazilian Filmmakers" with Film at Lincoln Center.

[scotianostra]

Happy 40th Birthday, the popular STV weather man Seán Batty.

Born in Paisley in 1982, he spent some of his early childhood, here in Falkirk and attended Carron primary school in the town before moving back to Paisley where he went to  Castlehead High School and studied Meteorology at Reading University.

His interest in meteorology began when he was only seven years old, after receiving a BBC weather kit for his birthday. Batty became the weather forecaster for the School newspaper as well as the regional newspaper, The Paisley Daily Express for a few months during the summer of 1996.

Batty joined the Met Office as a weather observer at the school of Army Training at Middle Wallop airbase near Andover, Hampshire. He later worked with the ITV Weather team preparing TV weather graphics and maps for S4C, UTV and ITV.

In 2004 he joined the BBC as a broadcast assistant. Seán has been working in Scotland for STV Weather since August 2007.

Batty was nominated for the BAFTA Scotland Lloyds TSB Scotland Award for Most Popular Scottish Presenter in November 2008, losing out to Lorraine Kelly.

Seán learnt Gaelic in preparation for the National Mòd in his home town of Paisley in 2013. He has been a supporter and Judge for part of the Breast Way Round Charity event since 2008. He is also an ambassador for the TV charity, The STV Children’s Appeal and haa raised money by cycling, running, walking and hiking his way around the country since it started in 2011.

In 2019 he was given his own show ‘Sean’s Scotland’, taking viewers on a journey around our beautiful country over the course of 7 weeks. The programme covered weather, environment, the people and wildlife. He is often seen with his wee dug, Harris, in 2021 he also brought us his  Don't Waste Scotland show, where he  he met people making Scotland greener.

If you are on twitter Batty is a must to follow, you will get the best pics of the Scottish weather and some great banter.  He is a trainee pilot for his Private Pilots License learning to fly at Glasgow Airport.

During the lockdown Seán presented the forecasts from his home, mostly in his garden, but he has also got an abundance of helpers he calls his “mini me’s” who have been sending him their forecasts every day.

In 2012 Seán suffered homophobic abuse on twitter.  The teen  admitted he posted the offensive remark and insists he felt 'awful' about it the next day. He was prosecuted and handed an 18-month Community Payback Order.

[nclkafilms]

My 2022 Oscar Predictions

Cinema is back! The last year since the 2021 Oscars were handed out in April 2021 has given us big blockbuster experiences: “Dune”, “No Time To Die”, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and latest “The Batman”, which of course will have to wait until next year’s Oscars to fight for the awards. While the three aforementioned 2021 Blockbusters are all up for Oscars, it is only “Dune” that really is part of the biggest races with no less than 10 nominations only surpassed by Netflix’ “The Power of the Dog”, which highlights another trend of 2021: the atmospheric slowburner. Apart from Jane Campion’s take on the West, we were given beautiful slowburners such as “Drive My Car”, “Nightmare Alley” and “Mass” (which sadly hasn’t been nominated for anything). Other trends were the comeback of musicals with films like “In the Heights” (not nominated), “Cyrano” (one nomination) “Tick, tick…BOOM!” (two nominations) and of course Spielberg’s long awaited remake of “West Side Story” (7 nominations) and some true feel good stories as we got in “King Richard” (6 nominations), “CODA” (3 nominations) and “Licorice Pizza” (3 nominations). Finally, as a Dane, I of course HAVE to highlight the historic presence of “Flee”, which is the first film ever to score trio nominations for Best Animated Feature Film, Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature Film. 

All in all, however, I personally find last year’s slate of films to be stronger. There were simply more films I loved last year. Although, I still like a lot of the films from this year, “Flee” is actually the only one of them all to get a 5/5 score from me on Letterboxd. In all 53 films were nominated and I ended up seeing 50 of them with only a couple of short films sadly missing from my watchlist. In no way a sign of devaluing the shorts, unlike what The Academy has done to those three categories along with Film Editing, Make-Up and Hairstyling, Production Design, Score and Sound. A shameful decision forced by ABC’s negligence of the crafts without which there would be no films to celebrate. I hope to see plenty of artists, presenters and winners protesting this decision on the red carpet, during the show and after the show, so the decision will be rolled back before next year’s awards.

So who will win? Here are my predictions: (In parenthesis are my personal ratings of the films from 1-5)

Best Picture

Belfast (3,5)

CODA (4,0)

Don’t Look Up (4,0)

Drive My Car (4,5)

Dune (4,0)

King Richard (4,0)

Licorice Pizza (4,5)

Nightmare Alley (4,0)

The Power of the Dog (4,5)

West Side Story (3,5)

It started off as being Belfast’s to lose. Then that slowly disappeared out of the race and for a long time it looked like it would be a one horse race with The Power of the Dog as the obvious winner. However, that only until the entire cast of CODA hit the stage at the SAG Awards to collect their SAG Ensemble award. Since then CODA has taken home adapted screenplay at BAFTA (ahead of British Belfast) and WGA as well as PGA. Some heavy weight awards to walk into the Oscars with. And it looks like it very well could be enough for CODA, who might also have an advantage in the preferential ballot system. I have a clear idea that CODA is easier to love and it is to hate, whereas The Power of the Dog might be hard to love and easier to dislike. I doubt many people will have The Power of the Dog in the middle of their ballot - it will either take a top spot or a bottom spot, whereas I think CODA will take top spots and middle spots as people tend to put their hated or disliked films in the bottom. Ultimately, however, I think - right now - that The Power of the Dog still have the widest support within the Academy, although I might very well change that five or six times in the run in to show start. It is that close!

Personally, I didn’t directly dislike any of the ten nominees. I was truly impressed with the visual and sonic work in Spielberg’s West Side Story, but I simply never bought the central love story making it a somewhat cold experience for me, which I was surprised by. Maybe it will change on a rewatch. I rated a lot of the films 4 out of 5 stars of which I want to highlight Dune, which I was truly impressed by, but I couldn’t stop feeling it was a long trailer for a much bigger film; awards will rain on the sequel, I’m sure. Nightmare Alley is beautiful and atmospheric but a bit too slow in its second half, and King Richard is one of the best biopics of recent years. CODA is as heartwarming as it gets and a truly well-acted audience pleaser with some much needed and important representation! On a rewatch I changed my score for Don’t Look Up from a 4,5 to a 4, but McKay’s furious bulldozer subtle satire still works surprisingly well for me, although it is still clearly far from the masterpiece The Big Short. Belfast is a nice and lighthearted depiction of war through the eyes of a child featuring some stunning acting and a super interesting sound design, but I lacked some character development and a deeper connection to the story to appreciate it further. The Power of the Dog is in many ways a masterful film, although it might suffer a bit from the same limitations as previous Netflix films from masterful directors such as Alfonso Cuaron (Roma), Martin Scorsese (The Irishman) and David Fincher (Mank) in the sense that it is  a bit closed, albeit nowhere near as much as the other films mentioned. With 12 nominations it clearly has widespread and well-deserved support and it grew on me on a rewatch too, taking my third place. My two personal favourites, however, are Drive My Car, which really moved me on a deeper level and was a truly impressive adaptation from Hamaguchi, and Licorice Pizza, which simply is one of the best times I have had in a cinema the last year. Neither of the two stand a chance, though. Personally, I would have loved to see at least one of the following: Flee, Spencer and/or The Worst Person in the World.

Who will win: The Power of the Dog

Potential spoiler: CODA

Personal favourite: Licorice Pizza

Should have been there: Spencer

Actor in a Leading Role

Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos (2,0)

Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog (4,5)

Andrew Garfield, Tick, tick…BOOM! (4,5)

Will Smith, King Richard (4,0)

Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth (4,0)

The category that deflated the finale of last year’s Oscars with Anthony Hopkins’ extremely deserved, yet clearly unplanned win, is back with another seemingly clear cut winner in advance this year. Last year, Chadwick Boseman was on everyone’s lips and this year Will Smith’s name is as good as already engraved in the Best Leading Actor Oscar. He is charming and inspiring in King Richard; his best performance since The Pursuit of Happiness and perhaps his career best. The only possible challenger for him seems to be Benedict Cumberbatch who might also give a career best performance in The Power of the Dog; he is as vile as he is fragile and his performance is constantly unnerving. My personal favourite, however, is once again out of tune with the consensus: Andrew Garfield broke my heart in Tick, tick…BOOM! where he sang and performed with all he got as Jonathan Larson. Another career best? The three of them are outstanding! Washington is always good, but yet, to me, he never managed to make The Tragedy of Macbeth more than a(n extremely stunning) visual showpiece. The inclusion of Javier Bardem is honestly insulting to quite a big bunch of actors who gave beautiful, layered performances. Personally, I would have loved to see Nic Cage for Pig, Hidetoshi Nishijima for Drive My Car or one of my personal favourites of the year Peter Dinklage for Cyrano who simply broke my heart with his performance as the titular character; he is one of the most charismatic actors to see and was probably the one closest to getting the nod.

Who will win: Will Smith

Potential spoiler: Benedict Cumberbatch

Personal favourite: Andrew Garfield

Should have been there: Nicolas Cage / Peter Dinklage

Actor in a Supporting Role

Ciaran Hinds, Belfast (3,5)

Troy Kotsur, CODA (4,0)

Jesse Plemons, The Power of the Dog (4,5)

J.K. Simmons, Being the Ricardos (2,)

Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog (4,5)

Another two horse race involving The Power of the Dog and another two horse race where it looks destined to lose. Kodi Smit-McPhee started award season in a strong way, but - as with Best Picture - the moment Kotsur and the CODA cast took the stage at SAG changed everything. Kotsur has won everything since then and he would be a well-deserved winner as his performance in the film is both extremely funny (completely relying on ASL for the laughs) and heartwarming. Add to that his extreme likability when entering the stage and you have one of the most certain winners of the night. I would not complain with a Smit-McPhee win either, though. Plemons is the least showy in The Power of the Dog, but it was still a nice surprise to see him on nomination morning; he will get a lot closer to an Oscar win in the coming years, I’m sure. Ciaran Hinds is extremely charming in Belfast and creates a lovable character. The inclusion of J.K. Simmons, much like that of Bardem in leading actor, is a disaster; his character was one-dimensional and uninspired. Considering the amount of beautiful supporting actor performances we have had this year, his inclusion could only have been topped by the inclusion of Jared Leto for House of Gucci. With all this being said, I have to highlight Jason Isaacs in Mass - it is a crime that he wasn’t nominated. Heck, I honestly think he should be winning. Mike Faist for West Side Story could also have deserved a nomination here and so could Anders Danielsen Lie in The Worst Person in the World, although you could argue that he balances on being a lead.

Who will win: Troy Kotsur

Potential spoiler: Kodi Smit-McPhee

Personal Favourite: Troy Kotsur

Could have been there: Jason Isaacs (Mass)

Actress in a Leading Role

Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye (3,5)

Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter (3,5)

Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers (3,5)

Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos (2,0)

Kristen Stewart, Spencer (4,5)

Just as last year, this category is all up in the air! Before the awards season started everyone had Kristen Stewart as a clear winner, then she lost Golden Globe to Nicole Kidman who took the favourite tag especially as Kristen Stewart missed several nominations. Then Lady Gaga took over for House of Gucci only to not even get an Oscar nomination allowing Chastain to take over  with wins at SAG and Critics Choice. And now, after the release of secret Oscar ballots, Penélope Cruz looks ready for a last minute surge. Who will win??? It looks like Chastain, who I really liked in Tammy Faye, but look out for Cruz or Colman! Both of them deliver amazing work in their films and they are extremely well-liked in Hollywood and I might very well end up going with a surprise last minute win for Cruz. Stewart’s performance in Spencer is in my eyes easily the best performance of the year, but the general lack of love for the film makes it hard to imagine a world where she wins, and Kidman seems to be out of the race again too. Renate Reinsve should have been here for The Worst Person in the World and so should Alana Haim for Licorice Pizza.

Who will win: Jessica Chastain

Potential spoiler: Penélope Cruz

Personal favourite: Kristen Stewart

Could have been there: Renate Reinsve and Alana Haim

Actress in a Supporting Role

Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter (3,5)

Ariana DeBose, West Side Story (3,5)

Judi Dench, Belfast (3,5)

Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog (4,5)

Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard (4,0)

One of the easiest categories to call of the evening. If Ariana DeBose doesn’t win for her scene stealing performance in West Side Story then it is easily one of the biggest shocks in recent Oscar history; she has won EVERY important award until now. While she is very good, my personal favourite of the five nominees is Jessie Buckley who simply gets better and better, and for me, she stole the show in The Lost Daughter. Ellis has some stunning scenes in King Richard and Dunst has rarely been better. Dench is biggest question mark here - she’s just here on merit, right? The fact that she was picked ahead of Caitriona Balfe for Belfast has been widely discussed and righly so - Balfe is the heart of that film and the only possible explanation is that many people placed her in lead… Anne Dowd and Martha Plimpton in Mass really should have been in contention here, albeit Plimpton could have been placed in lead.

Who will win: Ariana DeBose

Potential spoiler: None (but Dunst if I have to pick one)

Personal favourite: Jessie Buckley

Should have been there: Anne Dowd (Mass)

Animated Feature Film

Encanto (4,0)

Flee (5,0)

Luca (4,0)

The Mitchells vs the Machines (4,0)

Raya and the Last Dragon (3,5)

The Disney category is more Disney than ever this year with three of five nominees. Flee is the only masterpiece of this year’s nominees in my opinion, yet I don’t think it will take home any Oscar, because the love for it will probably be split between categories. It’s not my personal favourite in this category either. Encanto looks destined to win with its stunning animation and record beating soundtrack, however The Mitchells vs the Machines is the most playful of the films and Luca packs the most moving story. Raya and the Last Dragon is the weakest the category has to offer, although it in no means is a bad film.

Who will win: Encanto

Potential spoiler: The Mitchells vs the Machines

Personal favourite: The Mitchells vs the Machines

Cinematography

Greig Fraser, Dune (4,0)

Dan Laustsen, Nightmare Alley (4,0)

Ari Wegner, The Power of the Dog (4,5)

Bruno Delbonnel, The Tragedy of Macbeth (4,0)

Janusz Kaminski, West Side Story (3,5)

Perhaps the best line-up of any category this year. Five amazing examples of cinematography. Fraser’s work in Dune is otherworldly and stunning in its many sci-fi vistas, Laustsen continues his atmospheric and dark collaboration with del Toro in Nightmare Alley, Wegner’s grand vistas in The Power of the Dog makes it one of the most stunning films of the year, Delbonnel creates some fascinating images in The Tragedy of Macbeth and Kaminski’s opening scene in West Side Story makes his nomination well-deserved for a film that packs plenty of cinematography magic. I honestly will not complain no matter who wins, but Fraser walks into the night as the favourite perhaps strengthened by people’s admiration for his current work on The Batman. Look out for Wegner, however, as her work is equally stunning and she has picked up a couple of wins. I would have loved to see Claire Mathon recognised for her work on Spencer, but I don’t know what to kick out if I’m honest.

Who will win: Dune

Potential spoiler: The Power of the Dog

Personal favourite: The Power of the Dog

Could have been there: Spencer

Costume Design

Cruella (3,5)

Cyrano (3,5)

Dune (4,0)

Nightmare Alley (4,0)

West Side Story (3,5)

If a film about two fashion designers battling against each other with two very distinct styles, which features a ton of costumes should not win this category, what should? And so it will be; Cruella is destined to take this home and it would be well-deserved. 

Who will win: Cruella

Potential spoiler: Dune

Personal favourite: Cruella

Directing

Kenneth Branagh, Belfast (3,5)

Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car (4,5)

Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza (4,5)

Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog (4,5)

Steven Spielberg, West Side Story (3,5)

Last year was a historic year for this category; the first time that two female directors were nominated in the same year. This year we only have one, but she will undoubtedly win. Jane Campion’s admirable work with The Power of the Dog looks unbeatable and she could have gotten well-deserved female company from Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter) or Julia Ducournau (Titane). However, the biggest snub here is the omission of Denis Villeneauve for his work on Dune; a work often labelled un-adaptable that goes on to get 10 nominations but not for directing? Get out! Hamaguchi’s work is beautiful, but his screenplay is even stronger than his directing. West Side Story and Belfast are clear passion projects, but I definitely think that Spielberg’s direction is the strongest of the two. Finally, PTA just knows how to set up memorable scenes.

Who will win: Jane Campion

Potential spoiler: Steven Spielberg

Personal favourite: Jane Campion

SHOULD have been there: Denis Villeneuve

Documentary (Feature)

Ascension (4,0)

Attica (4,0)

Flee (4,0)

Summer of Soul (…or, when the revolution could not be televised) (4,5)

Writing With Fire (3,5)

If Flee had only been nominated in this category it would have won and frankly, it should win! One of the best documentaries of recent years. However, Summer of Soul looks like the winner, and to be fair it is brilliant film that flawlessly manages to mix the stunning concert footage into a socio-political context to make a both entertaining and thought-provoking film. Ascension was deeply fascinating, Attica was a hard watch and Writing With Fire was deeply inspiring, albeit a bit uninspired film-wise. But a great year for documentaries!

Who will win: Summer of Soul (…or, when the revolution could not be televised)

Potential spoiler: Flee

Personal favourite: Flee

Documentary (Short Subject)

Audible (3,5)

Lead Me Home (2,0)

The Queen of Basketball (4,0)

Three Songs for Benazir (3,5)

When We Were Bullies (have not seen this)

A category that is historically difficult to predict. However, this year The Queen of Basketball seems like quite a good pick in a somewhat disappointing year. Audible is its closest competitor as Three Songs for Benazir felt a bit too short and something felt off with Lead Me Home’s stylish take on its deeply sad focus.

Who will win: The Queen of Basketball

Potential spoiler: Audible

Personal Favourite: The Queen of Basketball

Film Editing

Don’t Look Up (4,0)

Dune (4,0)

King Richard (4,0)

The Power of the Dog (4,5)

Tick, tick…BOOM! (4,5)

We have all the different types of editing in place here. The fast-paced, playing-an-active-part-in-the-film editing of McKay’s satires in Don’t Look Up, impressive action editing in Dune, fast-paced sports and montage editing in King Richard, seemless editing in The Power of the Dog and the more artistic and musical-based editing of Tick, tick…BOOM! A good thing to have in mind when predicting here is the obvious editing for the naked eye. King Richard or Tick, tick…BOOM! look like good bets then, but I have an idea that Dune will come close to a technical sweep and as such it needs this as well, but look out for the two others. West Side Story could have been in the mix here!

Who will win: Dune

Potential spoiler: King Richard

Personal favourite: Tick, tick…BOOM!

Could have been there: West Side Story

International Feature Film

Drive My Car (4,5)

Flee (5,0)

The Hand of God (3,0)

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (3,5)

The Worst Person in the World (4,5)

Drive My Car is up for four Oscars including Best Picture. This race is looking like a non-brainer. Flee is deserving and so is The Worst Person in the World, but they don’t seem to stand a chance. Lunana was a nice surprise and it will get a well-deserved attention boost thanks this nomination. I didn’t care that much for The Hand of God and would have liked it (VERY MUCH) if Titane had taken its place.

Who will win: Drive My Car

Potential spoiler: The Worst Person in the World

Personal favourite: Flee

Should have been there: Titane

Makeup and Hairstyling

Coming 2 America (1,5)

Cruella (3,5)

Dune (4,0)

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (3,5)

House of Gucci (2,0)

The only nomination for the travesty that was House of Gucci and it will not get close to winning it despite its prosthetic work. Prosthetics were done better in both Dune and especially Coming 2 America. I think The Eyes of Tammy Faye will ride on the possible win for Chastain, but look out for the transformations of Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall in Coming 2 America. Cruella is here for the hairstyling but it will settle for its costume win. Again, Titane should have been there!

Who will win: The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Potential spoiler: Coming 2 America

Personal favourite: Dune

Should have been there: Titane

Music (Original Score)

Don’t Look Up (4,0)

Dune (4,0)

Encanto (4,0)

Parallel Mothers (3,5)

The Power of the Dog (4,5)

Some strong scores here, with Zimmer looking like the clear winner for his loud, ominous work on Dune. Iglesias’ score for Parallel Mothers is brilliant and controls the film like no other nominee. Greenwood comes closest to doing that with his work in The Power of the Dog and he should have been here for Spencer as well. However, the scores of Britell and Franco in Don’t Look Up and Encanto are the most listenable outside of their films. 

Who will win: Dune

Potential spoiler: Parallel Mothers

Personal favourite: The Power of the Dog

Should have been there: Spencer

Music (Original Song)

“Be Alive”, King Richard (4,0)

“Dos Oruguitas”, Encanto (4,0)

“Down to Joy”, Belfast (3,5)

“No Time to Die”, No Time to Die (4,0)

“Somehow You Do”, Four Good Days (2,5)

Disney are hating themselves for not letting “We don’t talk about Bruno” compete, although “Dos Oruguitas” is a stunning song that might just ride on the back of the record beating hit to give Lin-Manuel Miranda his EGOT. However, Billie Eilish and Beyonce would want a word in that fight with Eilish looking like the winner. Diane Warren is here again, because you know - apparently she has to, and “Down to Joy” is bland, although it is a plus that it is featured in the actual film. “Just Look Up” should have been there, as should “Beyond the Shore” from CODA.

Who will win: “No Time to Die”

Potential spoiler: “Dos Oruguitas”

Personal favourite: “Dos Oruguitas”

Should have been there: “Beyond the Shore”

Production Design

Dune (4,0)

Nightmare Alley (4,0)

The Power of the Dog (4,5)

The Tragedy of Macbeth (4,0)

West Side Story (3,5)

Five stunning films here highlighted by their corresponding cinematography nominations. While I think Dune will get that one, I think it might just lose this one to Nightmare Alley. Will the Academy go with the extremely impressive world building of Dune or the atmospheric del Toro magic of Nightmare Alley? It will be very close. Cyrano and Spencer could have been there, but who should they replace really?

Who will win: Nightmare Alley

Potential spoiler: Dune

Personal favourite: Nightmare Alley

Could have been there: Cyrano/Spencer

Short Film (Animation)

Affairs of the Art (2,5)

Bestia (3,0)

Boxballet (have not seen it)

Robin Robin (3,5)

The Windshield Wiper (4,0)

The most adult line-up in this category for years. Affairs of the Art and Bestia are quite disturbing, while The Windshield Wiper is stunning and fascinating. Robin Robin looks like the favourite and it is extremely charming and cute, but I am going for a surprise win for The Windshield Wiper.

Who will win: The Windshield Wiper

Potential spoiler: Robin Robin

Personal favourite: The Windshield Wiper

Short Film (Live Action)

Ala Kachuu - Take and Run (4,0)

The Dress (3,0)

The Long Goodbye (4,0)

On My Mind (2,5)

Please Hold (have not seen this)

The Long Goodbye is hard-hitting and can feel slightly un-finished, but it is strong and has the star factor of Riz Ahmed, although that didn’t help The Letter Room (Oscar Isaac) last year. Danish contender On My Mind felt way too constructed and managed to feel overlong despite its 18 minute runtime. Finally, Ala Kachuu and The Dress are hard to watch, but Ala Kachuu seems to have a lot more heart and sympathy for its subject and, thus, it looks like the one to beat The Long Goodbye if one has to. Unless it will be the Black Mirror-ish Please Hold, which I sadly have not seen.

Who will win: The Long Goodbye

Potential spoiler: Ala Kachuu - Take and Run

Personal favourite: The Long Goodbye

Sound

Belfast (3,5)

Dune (4,0)

No Time to Die (4,0)

The Power of the Dog (4,5)

West Side Story (3,5)

Belfast has an interesting sound design as one of its strongest assets and the sound design of The Power of the Dog really helps build its atmosphere. However, it seems like it will be between the remaining three. Of them Dune seems like the strongest, but look out for West Side Story. If Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho should have been anywhere, it probably should have been here.

Who will win: Dune

Potential spoiler: West Side Story

Personal favourite: Dune

Visual Effects

Dune (4,0)

Free Guy (3,0) 

No Time to Die (4,0)

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (3,5)

Spider-Man: No Way Home (4,0)

Last year I wrote: “A category that would probably have been dominated by films such as Godzilla vs. Kong, Dune and Black Widow in a normal 2020.” Of these, only Dune made it into the category in the end. Free Guy is the surprise addition here with is playful effects, and also this is the only option to give Spidey an Oscar, although Shang-Chi arguably had better special effects. However, Dune looks destined to win this as its effects played an integral part in its world building.

Who will win: Dune

Potential spoiler: Spider-Man: No Way Home

Personal favourite: Dune

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

CODA (4,0)

Drive My Car (4,5)

Dune (4,0)

The Lost Daughter (3,5)

The Power of the Dog (4,5)

While I really liked CODA, I think it is wild that it might just beat (in particular) Drive My Car in this category. That ought to be winning, but The Power of the Dog looks like the one to beat for CODA as in Best Picture. And I actually think it will, even though it might just be the weakest of these five screenplays. 

Who will win: CODA

Potential spoiler: The Power of the Dog

Personal favourite: Drive My Car

Writing (Original Screenplay)

Belfast (3,5)

Don’t Look Up (4,0)

King Richard (4,0)

Licorice Pizza (4,5)

The Worst Person in the World (4,0)

I thought this would be Paul Thomas Anderson’s spot for finally winning an Oscar, but him losing the WGA to Adam McKay for Don’t Look Up was quite the curve ball. Maybe Branagh will take it home for Belfast, although I did have some issues with his writing here. Can McKay do it with Don’t Look Up? It seems too divisive, but it is in no way impossible. The real winner, however, should be The Worst Person in the World and I would love for it to win! Fran Kranz’ screenplay for Mass should have been here easily knocking King Richard out of the five.

Who will win: Belfast

Potential spoiler: Don’t Look Up

Personal favourite: The Worst Person in the World

Should have been there: Mass

I wish everyone the best of Oscar nights! May the best films win!

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Thoughts on Jane Birkin? - Talented elegant actor-musician-model? Overrated at everything but she was pretty? Or, never thought about it, but she did design a nice bag for Hermes?

My thoughts about Jane Birkin is that she is and will always remain an all round feminine icon. Plain and simple.

That’s not just my contrarian view because she was an icon that overlapped into my grandparents’ and parents’ generation of the late 60s and 70s but it’s also the view of many French today too. I knew of her because her songs alongside Françoise Hardy and other French chanteuse were always playing on my parents stereo system growing up overseas. Indeed so well-documented is the love affair between Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, that to picture it retrospectively is to watch a flickering series of film stills in one’s mind. Enter the young British actress in 1970s Paris, basket swinging nonchalantly from one arm, baby daughter clasped carefully in the other, dancing down Boulevard Saint-Germain with the thoughtful French musician’s adoring figure at her side. They loved, smoked and fought fervently, their ten-year-long affair an archetype of that between musician and muse in bohemian Paris, and 40 years after its dissolution, the French still can’t get enough.

As you allude to in your question, she has famously said of herself and Serg Gainsbourg that, “He was a great man. I was just pretty.” Which has led a small minority - especially those in her native England - to be dismissive of her as a long forgotten pretty face of the 70s and who was over-rated because she was nothing without riding on the coat tails of the crooning bad boy, Gainsbourg. On the face of it it was a very disingenuous remark to make because Gainsbourg was indeed a great man (as a musician and French cultural male icon) but she was so much more than a pretty face. I strongly suggest that she was just being her usual self-deprecating Anglo-self and one who remains to be a tad embarrassed at 73 years old to be continued to be lauded as a genuine timeless French style and chanteuse icon.

No one can doubt that Jane Birkin has always had some talent as an artist. Birkin has enjoyed a long career in the arts as a singer, songwriter, actress, and director. Her longevity is one proof of her staying power. Arguably though, it is her reputation as a style icon, and more specifically being the namesake of the iconic Hermès Birkin bag for which she is best known today. She might well have been Gainsbourg’s baby doll (his words) but she was very much her own popular muse and actress.

This may surprise many but Jane Birkin has appeared in over 70 films over several decades. As an actress it is often forgotten how good she is because most of her films were made in France and she rarely did films outside of France.

She was already known even before she hooked up with Gainsbourg. She was born in 1946 to an actress mother, Judy Campbell, and her Royal Navy lieutenant-commander and spy, David Birkin. Her mother was an acclaimed actress of her generation and muse to the older Noel Coward. She had a typical upbringing that one might call comfortably posh upper middle class. She was already married at 17 to film composer, John Barry (yes, the same John Barry who composed all the music for the James Bond films and other Hollywood films (Out of Africa, Dances with Wolves, Cotton Club etc) in 1965 but divorced in 1968 with custody of their daughter. Birkin quickly became part of the swinging London scene in the 1960s and appeared briefly in a handful of films.

Birkin was already well known but it was her nude turn in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow-Up that really put her on the map. Even today it’s seen as one of the iconic films of the swinging sixties.

She famously arrived in Paris unable to speak French with her newborn daughter in her arms. The story goes that she was offered the lead role in the 1968 French film Slogan alongside Gainsbourg after sobbing through her screen test. Starring alongside Serge Gainsbourg, Birkin performed with him on the movie’s theme song. It was on that film set that they would begin their truly passionate relationship as well as artistic collaborations throughout the 1970s.

Indeed a year later in 1969 they both released the song that has forever defined them both to non-French people around the world, the duet  “Je t’aime…moi non plus” which was met with scandal and disapproval by the Vatican and banned in many countries.

It may have solidified Birkin’s status as the British-born emblem of French chic but in all honesty it also drowned out her notable acting talents. Although Birkin took a brief hiatus from acting to return as Bardot's lover in the 1973 film Don Juan or If Don Juan Were A Woman (for which she got rave reviews because she held her own against Bardot),

it was only until 1975 in Gainsbourg’s own first film Je t’aime…moi non plus that her acting was properly honoured. Again, because of the damn song, people forget that she was nominated for Best Actress César Award (The French version of the Oscars or the Brit’s version of the BAFTAs). To be nominated for a César as best actress in a culture of truly talented actresses is saying something.

This wasn’t a flash in the pan. She was nominated again in 1984 for Best Actress César Award for her role as Alma in La Pirate  - directed by her then partner, Jacques Doillon with whom she did another critically acclaimed film La Fille Prodigue (1981). Her work led her to work on stage with critically acclaimed directors such as Patrice Chéreau. She worked with director Herbert Vesely on Egon Schiele Exzess und Bestrafung in 1980, appearing as the mistress of Austrian artist Egon Schiele, played by Mathieu Carrière. Jacques Rivette collaborated with her in Love on the Ground (1983). The jury of the 1985 Venice Film Festival recognised Birkin's performance in Dust as amongst the best of the year, but decided not to award a best actress prize because it was decided by the jury that all of the actresses they judged to have made the best performances were in films that already won major awards - Dust won the Silver Lion prize so she lost out.

In 1991 she was again nominated for a César Award but this time as best supporting actress in the classic La Belle Noiseuse directed by Jacques Rivette and starring Michel Piccoli and Emmanuelle Béart.

She did of course English films but much more sporadically. She put in a famous turn in both the delightful Hercule Poirot movies starring Peter Ustinov, Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun. She also appeared in Merchant Ivory's A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (1998) (which also used her song "Di Doo Dah”). In 2016 she had the lead role in La femme et le TGV, a short film directed by Swiss filmmaker Timo von Gunten. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. I believe after it was widely reported that she had no plans to return to acting.

I think it’s the parochialism of the Anglo cultural world that has led to this misconception that she wasn’t an actress of note when in fact she has always been up there with the best of French actresses of her generation.

As a singing icon she has been frozen in time. Her fame for one song have clouded a proper critical appraisal of her singing talents. And I think here I have to be honest and say that her critics - from a purely singing technical point of view - might have a point her being over hyped. Not that Jane Birkin ever said she was a great singer as she described herself self-deprecatingly as singing through more keys than a locksmith.

As a singer, Birkin is of course is known for that song that cheekily and perhaps even enviously reinforces the tropes the non-French world have about the French and amour. In 1969, she and Gainsbourg released the duet "Je t'aime... moi non plus" ("I love you ... me neither"). Gainsbourg originally wrote the song for Brigitte Bardot. But Bardot famously declined to sing the track because she found it "too erotic" and she was married at the time.

Although Birkin started out in films, she preferred to focus more on singing than acting. This was primarily because of Serg Gainsbourg who saw Birkin as his muse and wrote songs for her. She released an album in 1975 entitled Lolita Go Home and in 1978 called Ex Fan des Sixties, with the help of Gainsbourg's songwriting. Her music was successful in France, but not in her home country of England. She has made more than a dozen albums, nearly all in French and perhaps one or two in her native English. 

One cannot escape the nagging feeling when I listen to some of her albums - really the later ones - that if she had attempted a career as an English recording artist, she would have stayed a minor singer. If fished out of her small pond and dropped into the music ocean, then Birkin would surely in the words of one music critic, “be engulfed by the plankton of mediocrity”.

And so the troubling truth that must be faced is that because she has been granted access to the ranks of the iconic, it is more because of our interest in the intriguing liaison she had with the maverick Gainsbourg more than anything else.

There is no doubt that her marshmallow accent, reedy voice and modern look made Jane Birkin a singing idol. She has a sense of discretion that is inversely proportional to her dazzling repertoire, which is studded with such astounding masterpieces as ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’, ‘Swimming Pool’, ‘The Pirate’ and ‘Les dessous chics’. But her later recordings such as Le Symphonique, in which she is accompanied by a 90-piece orchestra - are mostly re-worked recordings of her songs with Gainsbourg who had died in 1991. Or take her 1996 album Arabesque which featured re-workings of Gainsbourg’s music, along with instrumentals backed by five Arabic musicians. Nearly all her later albums are quite mediocre.

This isn’t her fault so much as it is the musical artistry of Gainsbourg. He was the puppeteer behind the promulgation of this 'veule aesthetic', this aesthetic of weak plaintive croaking. But he was perhaps the first French singer who knew that manipulating the media would lead to manipulating record sales. Gainsbourg once had a job punching holes into métro tickets on Paris' underground before this ‘poinçonneur de lilas’ went on to almost single-handedly drag France's chanson tradition into the postmodern age. He sat in the opposite corner to the great chanson Musketeers: Leo Ferré, Georges Brassens and Jacques Brel. Gainsbourg is known in France for having cast himself in twin roles: Gainsbourg the musician and Gainsbarre the provocateur.

But there is also a definite divide in his musical production with a pre-1971 period that has a foot in chanson with driving melodies and Boris Vian narratives and the other foot in the fledgling pop tradition, and a post-1971 period that was driven more and more by dodgy electronic drumbeats, tiresome perpetual punning, and repetitive allusions to la femme enfant and Lolita-esque love (his last partner, Bambou, was 30 years his junior).

It remains difficult, therefore, to see how anyone with an ear for melody could think that much of Gainbourg's non-chanson output is melodiously pleasing. Much of his production seems so excruciatingly the work of an ageing pervert with personal hygiene issues.

My French friends, including one of my apartment neighbours in particular - of an older generation with whom I’ve grown close to - will put me through the wringer for saying anything bad about Gainsbourg and Birkin as singers. I just feel no one should be above a critical appraisal. Worse, it becomes very difficult to say anything critical for fear of being told that you just have not understood Gainsbourg's genius (surely Jarvis Cocker and Portishead can't be wrong!) But in reality there is very little to understand. He gave up trying to sing early on - the songs I really do like and find interesting - and quickly became the one-trick pony until his unfortunate death in May 1991 at 62 years old: a suggestive lyric about a questionable relationship here, a pun on every other word as an excuse for poetics there, slurred together with the voice of a sneering old man. The man stood out, broke away from troubadour-like folklore, but ultimately a tad mediocre.

The truth is Birkin without Gainsbourg was never much of a truly great singer. Combined with their public spats, Birkin reportedly grew tired of Gainsbourg's drinking and melancholy habits, so much so it became impossible to live with. They separated in 1980 despite never being married, despite reports of the contrary. Birkin later said that their friendship and his songwriting improved after they split. “You could talk back to him for once,” she said. “You were not just his creation any more.” As much as she was his muse, she was Pygmalion to his Prof. Henry Higgins. But the sad and prosaic truth is that without his unique style of songs to carry her limited singing range she was dreadfully exposed outside of Gainsbourg’s repertoire.

This was brought home to me when I listened to her cover version of Cohen’s iconic song, ‘Hallelujah’. Cohen's lyrics tell of David composing a song in praise of God, he describes the euphony that 'hallelujah' forms in his prayer, "the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift." Birkin on the other hand warbled her way through. As she said once of her singing, she went through more keys than a locksmith.

Does Jane Birkin fare better as a style icon? Yes, she does. Absolutely.

To understand the Birkin bag one has to understand how Jane Birkin a Parisienne fashion style icon without her necessarily wanting to be one.

The quintessential trope of Parisienne woman is a conflation we likely owe to the framing of the 1950s and ’60s mavens of French popular culture like Françoise Hardy, Catherine Deneuve, and Brigitte Bardot as French icons, but who remain eminently tied to Parisian mythology - their reverence to a billion-dollar fashion archetype (thank you LVMH) is as reductive to the real women of Paris as it is to the women aspiring to be them. Of course this kind of Parisienne chic exists - a walk down the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in the 8th arrondissement of Paris should satisfy the many star struck ‘American Emily’s’ coming to Paris (what a God awful Netflix drama it is). 

But like London or New York or even Rome and Milan, there is no such thing as one Parisian style. There’s a plurality of Parisian styles and personalities - that’s obvious from walking the different arrondissements of Paris.

Jane Birkin in her day brought her own style to fit her British personality that was a far cry from the elegantly and expensively dressed mavens. From her laissez-faire fringe, to her layered necklaces, vintage denim, peasant blouses and white t-shirts, she wowed Parisienne women.

Today if you ever wander around Paris looking at the younger girls - or look at French young girls sporting their Paris street chic style on instagram or other social media - they call it Paris street chic. It’s not fashion, it’s a street style.

It’s really bunch of every day clothing items and accessories stylishly thrown together. So it’s not surprising to learn that the original source of French street chic started with Jane Birkin. It was Birkin who ‘pioneered’ the kind of off-duty dressing you now see all over the streets of Paris. I say pioneered but the truth is she dressed for herself without even wanting or trying to become a French style icon.

Still as fashionistas will tell you, Birkin was always several decades ahead of the style curve (easy for them to say). It was stylish but above all it was timeless. It amuses me no end that when one sees doe eyed American girls who are so enamoured by French girl fashion but don’t realise they owe their thanks to an English girl.

I’m sure it amuses Birkin too because she always thought her Haute-hippie style and free spirit was her way to insulate her personal insecurities about how well dressed and stylish haute bourgeois Parisian women were in their Chanel and YSL clothing. Her style is her own, as she said to Vogue, “I buy things often, but I sleep in them for two weeks, and then they really look quite rough.”

If there is common ground between the elegantly dressed mavens of high end brand fashion houses and the ultra casual minimalist street wear it is around the very simple Parisian quality of simplicity. Simplicity - not necessarily in colour or print but in the total look. Simple but important enough for a younger generation of Parisienne women should be free to express themselves free  from the grips of a generations-old myth.

In a nutshell if Birkin’s style and influence endures it’s because her style is about simplicity.

Nevertheless her place as a style icon rests upon a simple straw basket (or wicker basket). However, in 1981 a chance encounter on a plane would result in the straw basket’s replacement by the world’s most desired leather bag - the Hermès Birkin bag.

In the 70s she was mainly known for her use of a straw/wicker basket which she used instead of a regular handbag. She was famous for her straw basket as she went everywhere with it, even dancing at the most exclusive of clubs or eating at the finest dining places. She carried all kinds of bits and bobs, including baby milk bottles, diapers, and baby change wear as well as collecting trinkets on her journeys around Paris. It was seen as a stylish English eccentricity by the Parisians.

There is famous story about Jane Birkin and her straw basket that has entered into legend. The straw basket bag’s anonymous shape and generous size lent it to concealment, so when, during a lavish Christmas evening spent at the famous Parisian Bistro Maxim’s with Gainsbourg, the young English actress slipped a few pieces of the institution’s fine monogrammed crockery into it, nobody batted an eyelid. It was only later, when the basket slipped from her wrist while signing an autograph and sent her stash of china flying across the floor, that she was found out. In a perfect act of Parisian discretion a kindly waiter collected it up for her and replaced it in the basket. “A gift from Maxim’s,” he is reported to have whispered to her. “If you require more, you only have to ask.”

In 1981, Birkin was on a short flight from Paris to London. Carrying her famous straw basket, she placed it in the overhead compartment of her seat. However, the lid of the basket opened, and the contents spilled all over the floor and on the seats around her. Sitting next to her and assisting her in retrieving the contents of her basket was the late executive of Hermès, Jean-Louis Dumas. Birkin complained to Dumas that she was unable to find a suitable leather weekend bag that she liked. According to folklore, the remainder of the flight consisted of the pair designing a bag together and sketching ideas on an air sickness bag.

Fast forward three years and a prototype handbag was developed and presented to Jane Birkin – the Hermès Birkin bag. The bag, crafted from supple leather and handmade in France by a single, highly trained artisan, and takes up to 24 hours to complete. Designed specifically to provide ample room for jet-setting women, the bag quickly became a fashion icon and status symbol for women worldwide. The Birkin bag comes in a range of sizes, leathers, exotic skins, and hardware, with new colours introduced each season and limited edition versions of the bag crafted occasionally.

Since the creation of the very first Birkin bag, Jane Birkin had always carried one. However, true to her unique style and fashion, she continually customised her bags with beads, trinkets, protest stickers, and other titbits to create a unique look. Birkin even defaced her namesake’s bag on Japanese TV in 2008. The fashion icon repeatedly stamped on a tan-coloured Birkin bag to make it look “unique.” 

Not surprisingly, the customisation of the Birkin bag caught on quickly and “defacing” Birkin bags is now a modern and trendy pastime practiced by D list celebrities including Kim Kardashian, Tamara Ecclestone, and many of today’s so-called fashion icons and social media style influencers.

Commendably Birkin auctions off her complimentary Birkin bags from Hermès for charitable causes. She often works with Amnesty International on humanitarian issues and donates her yearly royalties for the Birkin bag (approximately $50,000 per year) to a charity of her choice. Jane Birkin has said she now rarely uses the famous handbag that bears her name. In an interview with the BBC she told the BBC that if, like her, she used to fill the bag with "junk... and half the furniture from your house, it's a very, very heavy bag. Now I fill my pockets like a man, because then you don't actually have to carry anything."

In typical Jane Birkin style, she doesn't own one.

Jane Birkin will always be France’s favourite “petite Anglaise” as she was often known. And therein lies the clue why she remains beloved French icon despite her being English for two main reasons that come to mind.

Firstly, I suspect it’s because of her remarkable quality to be down to earth and cheerfully optimistic in public. Above all she displays a wonderful talent for mocking herself and not taking herself seriously. When for instance she was invited to take a role in a theatre production of a play by the 17th-century French writer Marivaux, she thought she was in a play by Marie Vau! The French have always been beguiled by her because of the stardust of the Sixties.

Despite Birkin being diagnosed with leukaemia in 2002, she said she conducted her life and love affairs with “an absolutely unfounded optimism”. That is not in doubt. With the recent publication of her diaries (Munkey Diaries 1957-1982 - a fantastic read) a more fuller picture has emerged that have further endeared her to the French.

Birkin was always riddled with insecurities, “I think I’m nothing, I’m persecuted by women who I love more than myself... Oh for the face of Nastassja Kinski, of Fanny Ardant, oh, the talent, the courage, the qualities. I have nothing interesting to say...” Above all she was convinced she was “suffering from mediocrity and no personality”, and wanted above all was to be loved. England never gave her that love, France did so happily. Even today France openly loves her.

Secondly, the French, especially the Parisians, love her because she embraces the French way of life with gusto and gaeity. Birkin speaks French fine but she stumbles in her heavily accented French. But she doesn’t mind and neither do the French. She was schooled in England into a culture where it’s okay to stumble, to try and fail, to be less than perfect. However, the old, rote, didactic, shame-based French schooling system dies hard. French people are often afraid to speak English unless they can feel assured it is impeccable at the same time - alomost in contradiction - they feel put out by foreigners who simply speak English to them without even having the courtesy to speak a little French, they think it rude and respond accordingly. But Birkin is so transparent and open to falling flat on her face that I think the Parisians find it strangely endearing.

Birkin is that living truism that you don’t have to be French to be a Parisian icon of style and especially when beauty pertains to age.

Outside of native born French women, Brigitte Bardot, Françoise Hardy, Catherine Deneueve, Jeanne Moreau, Fanny Ardant, Juliette Binoche, Inés de la Fressange and one or two others (Isabelle Huppert is an outlier of arthouse chic style), there have been other non-French women besides Jane Birkin who have personified Parisian chic and style: Sylvia Vartan, Charlotte Rampling, Nastassja Kinski, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Carla Bruni, to name but a few. Each has come to embody ‘Parisian style’ without ever being raised here but now very much live and breathe the Parisienne spirit.

Just as importantly Paris, like French culture as a whole, values beauty especially as it ages. There are many seasons to women as there are to make fine wine. This is one reason why Jane Birkin endures even at the age of 73 years old. Style icons like Jane Birkin and others like Inés de la Fressange (who was the face of Chanel for so long and is now going strong at 63 years old) have given a well deserved middle finger to the notion that there is a codified set of rules for fashion and beauty for women over 50 years old.

Indeed this is one of the secrets of living in Paris, it knows how to renew and refresh itself without losing its unique identity e.g. the model and actress Jeanne Damas, is arguably this current generation’s Jane Birkin and all power to her.

The stylish contributions of all these iconic women, and especially Jane Birkin, is a testament of why the allure of Paris as a cultural centre will continue to endure seamlessly because it values the aesthetic truth that true style is beauty that timelessly matures.  

Birkin said once she was in no doubt she would always be best known for her erotic record Je t'aime, moi non plus. Of course she under sells herself as she has always done because she is so much more.

Compare her to modern style icons. Kim Kardashian would be the nearest but her fame as a style icon rests on one cynically contrived (and boring) sex tape, a narcissistic family TV reality show, and being married to a grossly deluded rap singer. I don’t think the modern day airheads are true style icons but fashion victims because as Yves Saint Laurent once memorably put it, “Fashions fade, style endures”.

Jane Birkin will endure. Her contribution to French cultural life has been immense. The gap-tooth smile that looks irrepressibly cool, the messy fringe, the long string bean legs, the ability to elegantly wear denim for any and every situation, the reason she made a lowly wicker basket her bag of choice all year long. We may never know why, but honestly it’s not worth questioning at this point because it was so seriously chic - is one even allowed to say the word chic again? When it comes to Birkin, it’s a word that bears repeating.

Birkin might cheerfully be accepting of the fact that for an older generation much of her fame still rests on one scandalous song but for the contemporary generation it will be the Hermès Birkin bag.

"It's a rather extraordinary record," Birkin said once. "Perhaps more interesting than the bag." I daresay Serg Gainsbourg would agree about the song and the bag.

Ah yes that bag. The Birkin bag. To me it’s not a fashion item but a life saver.

From mothers juggling diapers and milk bottles whilst chasing after their toddlers in stores to busy career women hurriedly scooping up and stuffing in reams of files, phone and lap top while rushing off their feet to their next meeting all can thank ‘la petite Anglaise’ for her Birkin bag.

I know I do. I use mine for a work lap top, mobile phone, work files and folders, pens, chewing gum, girls stuff (make up kit and tampons), a spare pair of knickers, sun glasses, gloves, an apple, a bottle of water, playing cards, a cigar case (and cutter and lighter), and a few books to read when I fly on a business trip.

Thanks for your question.

[path-of-my-childhood]

Director Taylor Swift and Rodrigo Prieto on Making “The Man”

By: Samantha Dillard for American Cinematographer Date: June 17th 2020

[Excerpts]

In her latest single, “The Man,” Swift challenges her audience to imagine what her life might look like if women were afforded the same privileges as men - and in the music video, her solo directorial debut, she takes the concept even further. To bring her vision to life, Swift hired cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC. Swift tells American Cinematographer:

“Rodrigo was at the top of a dream list of DPs I had put together for this video, but I never dreamed he would be available or interested. I had referenced his style, his versatility and his approach as an example of what I was looking for. I’m a huge fan of the work he’s done, and I still can’t believe my luck, having gotten to work with him.

From the moment Rodrigo walked into the room, everyone on our team felt immediately like he was our friend and enthusiastic collaborator. He was so excited, friendly, warm and thoughtful. I like to work with people who love to create as much as I do, and having that energy brought to the table by Rodrigo elevated the entire crew.” 

Prieto was immediately interested when production company Superprime approached him about the project, but “it was a tricky time for me because it was the middle of awards season, which can be intense,” he says, referring to his Academy, ASC and BAFTA award nominations for The Irishman [AC Jan. ’20]. He ultimately found he had just enough time to shoot “The Man” between the BAFTA and Oscar ceremonies. “It was good to focus on creative work during that time!” he says. On collaborating with Swift, Prieto says: 

“She asked our opinions on many things, but she was very clear on what she liked and what she didn’t. She was very open to input, and I think that speaks to her own security. Sometimes directors are dictators because they’re actually insecure. As a cinematographer, you want someone who will be open to your suggestions and ideas, but will have a clear perspective of their own. Then you build on that and help support them. Taylor was like that, and it was a joy to work with her.

I appreciate the message she’s putting out there, and that millions of people are listening to that song and seeing our video. I believe that helps move the needle a little bit. [With respect to the film industry, he adds] I think we do need to make a conscious effort to hire into our crews more women and, of course, people of color and minorities. You usually hire only people you already know, plus additional crew based on recommendations. We need more women and minorities in crew positions to better represent our society. And the only way to change that is if there are more women and minorities in crew positions. And the only way to do it at this point is to push it. I do think it’s our responsibility, and I’m trying. I haven’t been the best at it, I must admit, but I’m hoping to push it even more.”

[thecrownnet]

Photo: Dan Kennedy/ The Hollywood Reporter

'The Crown' Star Vanessa Kirby Hits Fall Festival Circuit With Two Buzzy Indies: "I Felt Ready to Lead a Movie"

After breaking out in Netflix’s hit global series and stealing scenes in 'Mission:  Impossible' and 'Hobbs & Shaw,' the British actress about to display her range with frontier romance 'The World to Come' and gut-wrenching drama 'Pieces of a Woman.'

Vanessa Kirby was two days away from shooting Mission: Impossible 7 in Venice — reprising her role as the glamorous gunrunner known as the White Widow — when Paramount halted production. It was late February, and Italy had just recorded Europe’s then-worst outbreak of the novel coronavirus, at the time not officially labeled a pandemic. Tom Cruise’s billion-dollar blockbuster franchise had become the first major Hollywood casualty.

Seven months on, and with the film industry appearing irreversibly changed, Kirby is preparing her return to Venice. But it’s not for Mission: Impossible (she starts shooting that later in September). With The World to Come and Piece of a Woman, filmed almost back-to-back in late 2019 and early 2020, the British star, 32, has the rare honor of having two films compete against each other in the Biennale, the first A-list film festival to physically take place since cinemas — and much beyond — shut their doors.

Appearing alongside Katherine Waterston and Casey Affleck in The World to Come — a frontier romance set against the rugged and patriarchal terrain of the mid-19th century American Northeast — Kirby plays flame-haired Tallie, who sparks an intense and liberating affair with a farmer’s wife, played by Waterston.

Photo: Andre Chemetoff/Cinetic

But it’s Pieces of a Woman — also heading to Toronto — and her quietly powerful and gut-wrenching turn as Martha, a woman dealing with towering loss after a home birth that goes wrong (shot in one hugely impressive yet frequently hard-to-watch half-hour take), that marks yet another new chapter for the actress, who already has condensed what many would consider a lifetime’s worth of career milestones into just a few years. A critics’ favorite on the British stage; Emmy-nominated and BAFTA-winning for her global screen breakout as Princess Margaret in the opening seasons of Netflix’s smash hit The Crown; part of two of the biggest action franchises around (she also appeared in Fast & Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw last year); and, for her next act, independent cinema’s newest leading lady.

Even before the reviews come in, Pieces of a Woman — also starring Shia LaBeouf, Ellen Burstyn and Sarah Snook — has found a fan in Martin Scorsese, who recently came aboard as executive producer.

“I haven’t stopped smiling,” says Kirby, speaking from the south London home she shares with her sister Juliet (a theatrical agent) and two close friends. “It’s such a mind-blowing thing.”

The actress was originally shown the script in L.A. by filmmaking couple Sam and Ashley Levinson (Ashley is producing the film for Bron Studios). Within 24 hours, she'd jumped on a plane to London, then Budapest, to meet director Kornél Mundruczó. “You know when you’re supposed to do something. ... It felt so right,” she says. “I wanted to show up and tell Kornél face-to-face how much I loved it and how much it touched me.” [...]

Photo: Pieces of a Woman/ Venice Film Festival

The Crown creator Peter Morgan recalls going “rogue” when he chose Kirby, overruling the other show execs’ preferred choice for Princess Margaret. She had turned up to the audition looking like what he describes as a “catastrophic mess”; fake tan smeared haphazardly on her shins and hands stained orange (she’d forgotten to wash them after applying the tan).

“But she had an electrifying presence. ... You realized you were in the company of a rare and special talent,” he says, adding that her chaotic appearance plus visible nerves evoked the essential vulnerability he was looking for. “It was very Annie Hall.”

Subsequent screen tests — and the public reaction — confirmed what Morgan first saw, that Kirby was a “high-impact booking,” much like the royal she was taking on. “There was no room in which you were not conscious that Princess Margaret was there.”

To craft her Margaret, in which Kirby laid the largely unknown foundations that would support the royal’s more brash and defiant public persona in later life, she absorbed everything she could, seeking out footage where the princess thought cameras had stopped rolling, plastering her walls in photos and even listening to her favorite music on repeat (including a version of “Scotland the Brave” played on the bagpipes, much to her housemates' dismay).

“It was so exciting to play someone that was so complicated and so conflicted, who was really struggling with a sense of who she was,” she says. “But I also had to chart this journey carefully, across 20 years of a person's life, and try to make it believable and also set her up for the rest of the seasons that were coming.”

Photo: Robert Viglasky/ Netflix

Mission: Impossible came off the back of The Crown, sometime in the middle of season two. “I think Tom had watched it, because he watches everything,” says Kirby, who was surprised to be warmly welcomed into the “Mission Family” during her first meeting with Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie. “On my way home I rang my agent going, ‘I think I got the job, I’m not sure.’” 

[...] Kirby has also used the months of lockdown to consider her next creative step and dream: setting up her own production company.“I feel so excited by the thought that there’s so many female stories that haven’t been told. And so many that have examined the psychology of a man in a particular situation, but not the woman,” she says. “I feel like there’s so much opportunity for that and that we do actually have a responsibility. Changing that space is very important to me.”

This story first appeared in the Sept. 2 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

It is also announced today that Joel Edgerton, Marion Cotillard, Mark Rylance, Sebastian Stan & Vanessa Kirby To Lead Brady Corbet’s Sweeping Immigrant Drama ‘The Brutalist’ (Deadline Exclusive)

[a-decent-steve-coogan-blog]

Steve Coogan Reaches the End of ‘The Trip’

New York  Times 20.05.2020.

He plays a version of himself in the movie series, which is ending with “The Trip to Greece.” In reality “I’m not quite as precious as I come across. But there’s certainly a lot of truth in it.”

As fans of “The Trip” movies know well by now, Steve Coogan has a shelf full of Baftas, the British equivalent of the Oscars. It’s a feat turned running gag throughout the films as he flaunts it at virtually every opportunity.

So when Rob Brydon, his traveling companion and comic foil, asks Coogan what he’s proudest of in “The Trip to Greece,” the answer is perhaps not surprising.

“My seven Baftas,” Coogan says.

“For me, it would be my children,” Brydon says.

“Well, because you haven’t got any Baftas,” Coogan replies.

“You have got children,” Brydon retorts.

In “The Trip to Greece,” opening Friday on video on demand and some theaters, the preening Coogan and laissez-faire Brydon, playing slightly exaggerated versions of themselves, come to the end of their decade-long series of gastronomic excursions. The structure is familiar: They drive through breathtaking scenery on their way to multi-star restaurants and hotels, peppering their conversations with bon mots, celebrity impersonations and insults.

Only this time, the director Michael Winterbottom has given the men six days to retrace Odysseus’ 10-year journey from Troy to Ithaca, while finding their own ways back home.

In a Zoom session from his house in Sussex, England, a mustachioed Coogan, 54 — who in real-life received two Oscar nominations for “Philomena” (2013) along with those seven Baftas — spoke about staying relevant in middle age, imagining where his character winds up, and quarantining with his 23-year-old daughter, Clare, and her boyfriend.

“I’m just this kind of slightly annoying dad that comes in and goes, ‘What are you guys doing?’” he said, with a flash of goofy laughter. There wasn’t a Bafta in sight.

These are edited excerpts from our conversation.

How have you been coping during quarantine?

I’m lucky that I’m in lockdown with my daughter, who’s just a fantastic cook. Each night I go, “Oh my God, this is the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life.” And I’ve been writing a lot, because that’s one thing that we are still able to do. We already isolated ourselves.

What have you been churning out?

I’m a bigamist writer; I’ve got various partners. I’m writing a post-woke comedy-drama — a sort of romance, really — with a female writer in L.A. We’re navigating the rocks of the new sexual political landscape, shall we say. I’ve also written a drama about a hippie commune in Wales in 1969. And Jeff Pope and I wrote about the woman who found the body of Richard III in a car park. This is the third screenplay we’ve written since “Philomena,” and it’s quite odd that two middle-age men write stories about female empowerment. [Laughs] We’re desperately trying to hang on by writing things that are proper, modern.

I’ll write another Alan Partridge, too [a reference to his vain talk-show host character]. It’s nice to do stuff that’s pure comedy because then when you write it, you laugh a lot. And when you laugh, it releases endorphins — or is it serotonin? Pleasure chemicals, I get them confused. [It’s endorphins.] But anyway, it makes you feel good.

With “The Trip” movies, you’ve eaten and written your way through northern England, Italy and Spain. How did you, Rob and Michael decide that Greece would be your last adventure?

Four felt right. And Greece, it was a classic. The Greek philosophy and mythology lent themselves to this huge, contemplative quality, and having me returning home and mimicking Homer’s “Odyssey” to this sort of conclusiveness. We also felt on a level, “Let’s quit while they’re still good.” That’s not saying we’d never do another one, but it feels like we should wait. Right now our thing is middle-age angst, but pretty soon it will just be old-man angst.

These movies are a showcase for Steve’s attempts at erudition. Do you actually have all that knowledge rattling around in your head?

I do prep work, but I’m naturally curious. I had a quite good education, I would say. I went to a Catholic school, which in this country was a bit like a free private education. The curse is, if you’re from very humble origins and you haven’t had a good education, you don’t know what you don’t know. Then if you’re half well-educated, the curse is that you’re aware of the knowledge you don’t have. That’s what I felt I was. In answer to that, I love to learn.

So yes, I do my homework. Rob doesn’t do his homework, but that’s almost deliberate, because he can trivialize my quest for the truth, as it were.

This time around, Steve’s father is seriously ill. You lost your own father two years ago. What was it like tapping into such personal memories?

Funnily enough, I did a version where I was very emotional. I wept as I would when I re-emulated some of those scenes. Then Michael wanted me to do it again and just hold it all back. I think it’s probably better for that, because audiences don’t like completely candid displays of emotion, whether happiness or sadness. Audiences like to look for stuff. And painful stuff is where you find good art, I suppose. Otherwise you end up with some vanilla-flavored mediocrity.

What misconception might viewers of “The Trip” have about you?

I’m not quite as precious as I come across. But there’s certainly a lot of truth in it as well.

Onscreen, Steve grapples with relevancy in middle age. And offscreen?

Right now I’m probably the happiest I’ve been — with the proviso that there’s no such thing as a state of big happiness. I’d like to work a bit less, to be honest. But I’m grateful that I’m able to make creative choices based purely on whether I believe in the thing I’m doing. Also, weirdly, this lockdown meant that I discovered a parallel universe in my daughter that I hadn’t really been aware of before, because I’ve not spent this long with her since she was a child. That’s a kind of strange blessing.

What life do you imagine for Steve now that his journey has ended?

When I shot that scene of going home, it felt strangely poignant — almost as if, I said to Rob afterward, I got dementia in my old age, I might imagine that that was my life. It felt real. And in my head I suppose it plays out that he does come home, he does return to the stability of those people that love him. Craving the stability more than the excitement of being rootless, of being nomadic. Yeah, it’s a funny little thing, playing a version of yourself.

[vanessakirbyfans]

After breaking out in Netflix’s hit global series and stealing scenes in 'Mission:  Impossible' and 'Hobbs & Shaw,' the British actresses about to display her range with frontier romance 'The World to Come' and gut-wrenching drama 'Pieces of a Woman.'

Vanessa Kirby was two days away from shooting Mission: Impossible 7 in Venice — reprising her role as the glamorous gunrunner known as the White Widow — when Paramount halted production. It was late February, and Italy had just recorded Europe’s then-worst outbreak of the novel coronavirus, at the time not officially labeled a pandemic. Tom Cruise’s billion-dollar blockbuster franchise had become the first major Hollywood casualty.

Seven months on, and with the film industry appearing irreversibly changed, Kirby is preparing her return to Venice. But it’s not for Mission: Impossible (she starts shooting that later in September). With The World to Come and Pieces of a Woman, filmed almost back-to-back in late 2019 and early 2020, the British star, 32, has the rare honor of having two films compete against each other in the Biennale, the first A-list film festival to physically take place since cinemas — and much beyond — shut their doors.

Appearing alongside Katherine Waterston and Casey Affleck in The World to Come — a frontier romance set against the rugged and patriarchal terrain of the mid-19th century American Northeast — Kirby plays flame-haired Tallie, who sparks an intense and liberating affair with a farmer’s wife, played by Waterston.

But it’s Pieces of a Woman — also heading to Toronto — and her quietly powerful and gut-wrenching turn as Martha, a woman dealing with towering loss after a home birth that goes wrong (shot in one hugely impressive yet frequently hard-to-watch half-hour take), that marks yet another new chapter for the actress, who already has condensed what many would consider a lifetime’s worth of career milestones into just a few years. A critics’ favorite on the British stage; Emmy-nominated and BAFTA-winning for her global screen breakout as Princess Margaret in the opening seasons of Netflix’s smash hit The Crown; part of two of the biggest action franchises around (she also appeared in Fast & Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw last year); and, for her next act, independent cinema’s newest leading lady.

Even before the reviews come in, Pieces of a Woman — also starring Shia LaBeouf, Ellen Burstyn and Sarah Snook — has found a fan in Martin Scorsese, who recently came aboard as executive producer.

“I haven’t stopped smiling,” says Kirby, speaking from the south London home she shares with her sister Juliet (a theatrical agent) and two close friends. “It’s such a mind-blowing thing.”

The actress was originally shown the script in L.A. by filmmaking couple Sam and Ashley Levinson (Ashley is producing the film for Bron Studios). Within 24 hours, she'd jumped on a plane to London, then Budapest, to meet director Kornél Mundruczó. “You know when you’re supposed to do something. ... It felt so right,” she says. “I wanted to show up and tell Kornél face-to-face how much I loved it and how much it touched me.”

Mundruczó, a Cannes regular who won the top prize in the 2014 Un Certain Regard sidebar for White God, also was taking something of a career leap, Pieces of a Woman marking his first English-language feature. But he found the right partner with whom to “take the big risk together,” likening Kirby to his favorite screen siren, Catherine Deneuve. “She’s someone who can express emotion for the unseen, and that’s very difficult,” he says. The World to Come director Mona Fastvold is equally praising of her star, describing her as an actor “who can truly disarm us” and their work together “one of most fulfilling creative partnerships I've had so far.”

Kirby, who cites Gena Rowlands as her cinematic idol (she has a photo from Rowlands’ 1980 drama Gloria in her room), says she had been “biding her time” waiting for such an opportunity: “I felt ready to lead a movie for a long time, but to actually do it was such a gift. Now that I’ve done it, it feels like a new stage for me.”

While there were few thespian genes in her family (her father is a top prostrate surgeon and her mother once edited Country Living), an 11-year-old Kirby caught the bug after watching a production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. “I suddenly realized the power of telling these stories is that they can make you feel differently about yourself when you leave,” she says. “And I think that’s always been a goal for me since.”

Countless school plays — including an all-girl Hamlet (Kirby as Gertrude) — would follow, continuing on into college, where spare periods and evenings would be spent relentlessly rehearsing and putting on shows with friends (including Alice Birch, who recently adapted Normal People for TV). Audience numbers didn’t matter – several struggled to make it through a four-hour Eugene O’Neill adaptation, while there were definite walkouts when a group of them took Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to Edinburgh (“Why would you take Julius Caesar to a comedy festival?” she laughs).

It was all for the discovery, experience and thrill, which is why — just a few years later — when Kirby received her first paycheck, having picked up an agent and signed on for her first three professional productions, it felt strange.

“I still have the vision in my mind of holding that white paper and being like, why are you paying me? Someone’s paying me for this? Because I’ve done it so much.”

Performances of As You Like It, Edward II and A Streetcar Named Desire and collaborations with directors like Benedict Andrews would quickly establish Kirby as one of the U.K.’s hottest stage talents in the early 2010s. But by this point, screen had already come calling. BBC drama The Hour — a small part as a troubled young aristocrat alongside a pre-Bond Ben Whishaw — was her TV debut in 2011, landing four years before being cast in her most famous role to date.

The Crown creator Peter Morgan recalls going “rogue” when he chose Kirby, overruling the other show execs’ preferred choice for Princess Margaret. She had turned up to the audition looking like what he describes as a “catastrophic mess”; fake tan smeared haphazardly on her shins and hands stained orange (she’d forgotten to wash them after applying the tan).

“But she had an electrifying presence. ... You realized you were in the company of a rare and special talent,” he says, adding that her chaotic appearance plus visible nerves evoked the essential vulnerability he was looking for. “It was very Annie Hall.”

Subsequent screen tests — and the public reaction — confirmed what Morgan first saw, that Kirby was a “high-impact booking,” much like the royal she was taking on. “There was no room in which you were not conscious that Princess Margaret was there.”

To craft her Margaret, in which Kirby laid the largely unknown foundations that would support the royal’s more brash and defiant public persona in later life, she absorbed everything she could, seeking out footage where the princess thought cameras had stopped rolling, plastering her walls in photos and even listening to her favorite music on repeat (including a version of “Scotland the Brave” played on the bagpipes, much to her housemates' dismay).

“It was so exciting to play someone that was so complicated and so conflicted, who was really struggling with a sense of who she was,” she says. “But I also had to chart this journey carefully, across 20 years of a person's life, and try to make it believable and also set her up for the rest of the seasons that were coming.”

Mission: Impossible came off the back of The Crown, sometime in the middle of season two. “I think Tom had watched it, because he watches everything,” says Kirby, who was surprised to be warmly welcomed into the “Mission Family” during her first meeting with Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie. “On my way home I rang my agent going, ‘I think I got the job, I’m not sure.’”

Hobbs & Shaw arrived via another route, Kirby approached by creative duo David Leitch and Kelly McCormick after she led a 2018 summer run of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie at the National Theatre.

While different adrenaline-fuelled vehicles, Kirby used both blockbusters to creatively “subvert” the usual expectations for female characters in action films, particularly within the typically masculine Fast & Furious world. “I was like, I don’t want to have to be saved ever, I don’t want to have to wear anything compromising, I want her to have her own emotional journey.” Her efforts were rewarded when a journalist wrote that Hattie — Kirby’s fearless MI6 operative in Hobbs & Shaw — had been her son’s favorite character. “How cool is that?” (She found the writer’s email to thank her).

As Kirby waits to start on Mission: Impossible 7 (and also 8 — she says the White Widow will likely “float in and out” of upcoming storylines), and for audiences in Venice and Toronto to see her first lead role, this philosophy is set to continue into what could be yet another career progression.

Alongside a daily film club with her housemates (with titles ranging from a list she found of the Dardenne Brothers’ favourite films to the cult so-bad-it’s-good hit The Room), Kirby has also used the months of lockdown to consider her next creative step and dream: setting up her own production company.

“I feel so excited by the thought that there’s so many female stories that haven’t been told. And so many that have examined the psychology of a man in a particular situation, but not the woman,” she says. “I feel like there’s so much opportunity for that and that we do actually have a responsibility. Changing that space is very important to me.”

[denimbex1986]

'Andrew Scott did not receive an Oscar nomination, more disturbingly not even a BAFTA, I mean what the hell, for portraying Adam in All of Us Strangers.

All of Us Strangers tells the tale of a middle aged writer starting a new relationship while seeming to be able to visit his deceased parents as he knew them as a child.

Andrew Scott plays the writer as we open the film in his lonely room in a high-rise London apartment complex. Scott's performance in the opening is a man operating in his loneliness as the innate state of being. I think what is essential in his performance is he doesn't open with some overwrought note of suffering, rather what Scott portrays is almost a, not quite comfort, but a settled state of being as he moves around his apartment thinking about life, occasionally writing but also just listening to music or inane television. Scott's work has much within the silences about this as Adam goes about in his way, that just is, it isn't happiness he's exuding, nor is it this constant sorrow either, it is rather this long state of being where Scott alludes to as being something years the making. The first time we see him speak is when he opens the door to find seemingly his one neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal) knocking at his door, seeking company, romantically likely but also more directly just connection. Scott's performance in this scene portrays Adam's state for likely years at this point as he greets Harry with a very kind of reduced delivery. It isn't that he is being rude, or aggressively dismissive towards the man, he's rather being in this state of the self that feeds into the state of being alone. Scott responds just enough to everything Harry says, but only just enough to just be as pleasant as he'll be, until Harry tries to invite himself into Adam's apartment. Scott's reaction in this moment is genius in a way because there's so much there, even as it is relatively modest in terms of the "loudness" of performance, but there is so much texture. There's a glint in his eye of being intrigued, then in the same second there's a tightening, a sense of a man avoiding any potential wound the man could suffer from opening himself up to connection again. Scott shows in this moment Adam choosing to stay lonely but lonely in this way he's come to understand.

The crux of the film comes into being as Adam begins to think of his childhood for his writing and begins to visit his old house. Scott's silent work is consistently great in creating a tangible sense of the emotional state of Adam in each instance, and doesn't allow any dead air of pensive staring. Scott always develops this with purpose, and in the initial scene it is with this sense of confusion mixed in with a kind of pondering discovery as he, perhaps fantasy literally or metaphorically, sees his father as he knew him as a boy who beckons him to come along. Scott's performance is so important in not making this silly, because he creates this sense of discovery as he goes about it and this is a real man entering into this dream. Which initially it is as his family welcoming home as though he'd been on a long many year long trip away coming home after so much time. Scott's performance is so good by making it always so unbearably tangible in every conversation we see between him and his parents. The way he reacts to them is with this interest initially, this sense of "what is going on" but also the embracing of a discovery in the moment. In his initial scene, Scott's performance brings a nonchalance initially that in itself works so well in the man essentially trying to explain his life to his parents, who beam with pride at hearing that he's in London and a writer. Scott brings this simple modesty about Adam that is able to articulate both the son who doesn't want to seem boasting about his parents, perhaps even feels he hasn't lived up to enough dreams at times, while also not sure yet to make sure of this situation he finds himself in either. Scott's delivery of explaining himself not be a writer of particular note of any kind, with a blunt honesty about it, that reflect a man who still isn't sure of himself in so many ways, that contrasts so beautifully against his parents who are just in love with every word he is saying, as he seems to be living above and beyond the dreams they might've had for him. The scene being the ideal support for Adam to open new pathways for himself.

Meanwhile back in his apartment it appears as though Adam is finally opening himself to anything as he tries to incite Harry into an invite again, which seemingly he rejects at first before later accepting and the two do begin a relationship. These scenes where I think Scott very much gives purpose for every encounter that we see between Harry and Adam, because there is more going on with the man. As what Scott performs so well is showing the way the lonely man who had settled opens himself to this experience. He articulates through every step so well, as even in the first encounter with the fairly direct, though not aggressive Harry, Scott has these perfectly implemented subtle moments where you do see surprise, a little hesitation in the man, before giving into the idea showing the man basically needing to learn to make connections again. Scott gives such a weight to the progression of each scene with Harry because he shows just how deep of a hole Adam was in, and slowly but surely we see Harry push him out of it. He and Mescal have great chemistry with one another, by the connection being a given but more so the dynamic that is crafted between the older gay man who lived through the far more prejudiced and dangerous era to Harry who could be more open in his life and experience. The scene where they speak to their mutual experiences, Scott's performance is again outstanding in underplaying the emotion while finding so much truth in it, because the past of his experience as a gay man is in the past, yet it isn't at all gone from his mind. Rather what Scott is able to portray is this sense of reasoning the past from himself, there's so much pain in Scott's expression but pain he's held in, he's adjusted, he's calibrated to where he is now, but still pain all the same. While never wasting hearing Harry's own story, as more accepted yet still an outsider, where Scott articulates every thought Adam is going through in his own experience, understanding and even falling into the memories of his parents.

His next return to his parents is when only his mother (Claire Foy) is home, who at first is just excited to see her son again and commenting how much he looks like her father now that he is all grown up. Scott's performance again is so great because he not only makes the fantasy tangible, he makes it so strikingly powerful. In this case we have the son discovering his mother best he can and trying to reason with her, as she quickly comes to ask about his relationships, where Adam essentially comes out to her where she is taken aback, almost acting in denial to the statement. Scott is so great in the scene because his reaction in part is holding a lot in showing the man trying to almost forgive his mother for not accepting him right away while also being so evidently frustrated all in the same momentary reaction. His delivery is so good as he challenges her each time because Scott really brings this sharpness while not becoming overly aggressive. There is this sense of disbelief in every line that his mother can't accept him, but also this painful sense of almost an expectation as well. Scott articulates the moment so effectively because he is playing so much at once in trying to break down his mother's constrained perspective. Scott is challenging but challenging in a way in which he's almost angry at the whole prospect of having to ask. There's so many amazing moments as you just see Scott trying to not hate his mother, while wanting to entirely hate his mother at the same time. His eyes do so much in going between each phase, and his way of explaining every question of hers, as an almost "well duh" way of pointing out the obvious, while also kind of going slightly mad at the same time when having to have this conversation with his mother. The scene could've been easily overwrought if it had been just one note, but Scott goes through so much life, that every second of it feels brutally honest.

The next moment he visits home he sees his father (Jamie Bell) alone rather than his mother. Where his mom was so blunt in her emotion he's instead dealing with his father who actually offers initially some comfort by saying his mother will get over it. Scott's great in the more guarded way he comes in first in his way in just asking as he can, which his dad bluntly breaks when saying he knew because "he couldn't throw a ball for shit". Scott's reaction with Bell, as fantastical as the situation is, feels so natural as they manage to naturally laugh in the moment even if the rather brutal reasoning on his dad's part. Scott's amazing though in the way he speaks to his dad so differently, where Scott shows in some ways trying to be more controlled, more direct, more like his dad's expected son. His delivery is more precise, more short, his attempt to hold the emotion in is more exact. His way of trying to peer into his dad's thoughts while also maintaining a certain control. Even when asking why he didn't come into his room when he heard him crying, Scott holds in so much anguish in the moment, and in such a bluntly convincing way in showing the man putting on the brave face for his father speaking so much to their relationship rather than his mothers. When his father attempts to offer his own apology in his way, Scott's shift to the good things they had in his memories, Scott speaks from the heart with such warmth to just the simple memories of enjoying the family Christmas decorations and trying to ease the tension in such a natural way. The two kind of maintain their distance, then proceeds to tear my heart out, as both break as his dad apologizes for not comforting him as a child, and Adam trying to say it is okay. With both actors bringing such beautiful honesty and comfort to the scene, of the father and son embracing after so many years of distance.

Meanwhile we see the progression with Harry's relationship where Scott's performance articulates this gradual removal from himself from that self-imposed exile of self from connecting to others in each subsequent scene. Scott always being so genuine, such as a simple moment such as requesting Harry not watch him undress, despite the two having had sex already, filled with sincerity that speaks to Adam as very much finding a pathway out of his shell he's put himself into. The moments of them speaking growing in the sense of comfort in their interaction, and that malaise that had defined Adam before that point in being lost as he is alone. There's a simple power in the moments of the two speaking to each other in their tender calm they have in their experience with one another. This opens up as we watch the two go clubbing, which could just be a scene about direction and visual imagery, but Scott's performance still stands out within this. As in every little interaction we see through the sequence speaks so much more to the sense of Adam going to go enjoy life in a way he hasn't in some time, or maybe even simply hasn't it. Scott's great because he doesn't play it with a simple ease, rather he shows the man discovering every moment of each experience, and embracing it that builds this at first little bit of joy that expands. Expanding in a way that is so potent in Scott's performance because we've seen where this man was in the opening scenes, and he shows this growth in such a natural and wholly captivating way.

There is a shift though in the scenes with his parents which is a kind of regression for Adam as we see him with his parents, and Scott's performance again takes a big risk that if not pulled off perfectly, would be kind of terrible, of course it's the former. That is portraying this almost infantile manner he begins as he returns to his parents again in Christmas, as his physical performance is much smaller, emphasizing more of a child's size but also deferring state to his parents, and looking up to his parents celebrating Christmas, with both of them wholly embracing him, Scott manages to show Adam kind of giving into the pleasantries of the past by indeed being a child again. Scott makes a heartwarming moment in the way you see how much Adam appreciates getting to live this experience again with the sense of nostalgia in his eyes, while also showing the danger as he is indeed giving into the idea of the fantasy. With the moments where now his traveling between the kinds of worlds he's experiencing he's in a way much more lost and needing than he had been in a way, as he becomes dependent on the visits. His moment of trying to stop his parents from going out, where they are destined to die in a car accident, Scott's delivery of "promise me you won't go out", is incredible work as again it is the combination between the sort of child's worry in his voice but with the sense and knowledge of the adult. Scott manages to be neither purely one way or the other, and is both at once in a way that shouldn't work perhaps, though entirely does.

The following scene with his parents Scott is magnificent in his ability to be able to kind of show both the dangers and beauty of being stuck in the past, and the struggle to reckon with it. The scene where he explains to his own mother, his life after he died, his initial delivery is so poignant because he does speak like a little kid just recounting something to his mom in the night, yet with so much more emotion of the man who knows so much more behind each word. Scott brings this unique vulnerability as his mother apologizes to him for her actions, and he tries to comfort her. And another scene that perhaps also just rips out my heart once again, when Adam tells his mother what he would've done with his parents through his life if they had lived. Scott's performance is so heartbreaking because there's such a wistful dreaming quality that speaks so much to the boy just wishing for the simple joys of a family. Even noting they had to fight but with a smile as just part of being a family and being together being the important point. Scott's kind moment of realization of the pain within it all being so heart wrenching as again his performance, just uncovers the level of vulnerability as the man needing to realize the truth of his loss. His breakdown back as the "adult" Adam being just all of the blunt sorrows in a moment that Scott opens up as the most tremendous wound being opened up. His detailing of the entire death is great acting, as again the adult, where the adult tries to distance himself from years past, where Scott is carrying so much shaking horror of every thought of thinking of the terrible death of their parents. Scott putting the years into it with every word filled with all of the searing pain beneath it, but the man attempted to articulate his defense of being isolated from his parents.

A merging occurs where Adam brings Harry in an attempt to meet his parents, though his parents refuse to let him enter. Scott's extraordinary in the scene in showing sort of the mania of Adam on the brink of trying to deal with the loss of his parents again in his experience. Scott being filled with the manic desperation attempting to be the young man attempting to bring his loved ones together. Scott shows the man trying to live all his lives at once, and becoming lost. Which leads to a great scene with both parents trying to be tough love of having them say that they have to let him go and he has to let them go in order for him to be able to move on. Scott is so great in the scene because through every moment you see in his eyes a man trying to live out the joy of his parents, and just closing himself up from the reality that he must separate from this fantasy. Scott brings within his performance this aggressive force of the man just trying to hold off on the pain just that much more, being almost brat in a way when physically trying to silence his dad as the boy who doesn't want to have to grow up. As natural though in so meekly delivering "it's not been long enough" as still the little boy just hoping to be with his parents just a little more time than he had been able to be granted in life. Scott again being so outstanding by being the man and the boy, not as two separate parts but as one going through the grief. To ease the blow, the parents invited him out to the mall for one more time together. I love Scott's reaction to their invite, as he shakes his head stubbornly as the child, but the man's eyes recognize it as what needs to happen. Scott decides to rip my heart out one more time for good measure in their sequence of a final goodbye, where every moment of Scott's performance is some of the most moving acting of 2023. As every moment of realization of his loss again, with just the simple appreciation of being with them, and articulation of the mix between the man trying to hold on yet realizing he must move on. Scott's fluctuation between what should be such unbelievable extremes just are the most genuine sincerity that deliver every bit of poignancy to this moment of the man and the boy accepting their deaths finally, as best as he can. Scott's "I love you very much dad" and comfort to his mom, as she finally comforts him, is wonderful as it has such complex emotional truth to the interaction yet feels effortless in Scott's devastating performance. Scott showing every bit of love that was there from the son to the parents, as a boy, as a man, but with every sense of the loss interwoven innately in one final stunning tapestry of the relationship with his parents. Scott never shying from the beauty of the simplicity of the love of parents and child, but also finding every hint of nuance in the complexity of it all the same. It is never just one thing, but everything, that delivers such a tragic poignancy and not only makes the fantasy tangible, it makes it so powerfully incisive.

The final "twist" of the film, which I think is necessary from how Harry is written in what comes out, though I don't think was entirely necessary in terms of the overall film, that spoilers being Harry is also dead the whole time and has merely been speaking to his ghost as well, as just this film really isn't about the "gotcha" to begin with, regardless, it still mostly works for me due to the performances of Mescal and Scott. What Scott uses in this moment is to articulate the final true growth of Adam in the moment in trying to finally embrace others out of his loneliness despite having in fact lost another opportunity to do so. Scott's great by very much playing the reaction to Mescal's performance, of the dying man destroyed by his own loneliness, while Scott brings such a poignancy in his understanding, comforting and alto together self-actualized manner as he explains his earlier fears that prevented from reaching out. Scott's "I found you" to give any sense of care to the man in his final moments brings such a beauty in just the idea of human connection in any way, and Scott's expression that shows the power of in a way simply being seen and acknowledged. The final scene shows Scott embracing fully another, even within these circumstances, as someone who can reckon now with his past, and embrace his life even as he helps yet another dead person move on. Speaking now with this certain emotional confidence that is life affirming with each word, and his look into the other man now fully being without fear or being stuck within his terrible grief. This is masterful work by Andrew Scott, as there simply is not a false moment in the entire film. And this is a performance that manages every difficult emotional scene, every strange shift in style or circumstance, that not only makes them work, it makes them feel entirely profound and only ever intensely impactful. It is very complex work in terms of all that Scott needs to portray, take in and illustrate, yet never does feel anything but wholly genuine in its simpler core elements that binds everything together. It is a tremendous performance in every sense, that breaks my heart in a way few performances ever do.'

[brooklynislandgirl]

I saw something on my dash and I feel the need to respond. I am not @ the person who wrote it because she is a lovely person who is just expressing her opinion, and mine of course drastically differs. It isn’t a call out post so much as a...different view which is necessary.

~*~ JJ Abrams: Is great at beginnings. He is very strong at creating an introduction but the man couldn’t follow through if he were given a map, a compass, a sherpa and put inside a wet paper bag. Plot bunnies have never been wrangled and in depth character work is not his strong suit. An excellent example of this is both Lost and the Star Trek series, another fandom that I have lived in practically all of my life.

Rian Johnson: Never heard about him before TLJ and I am absolutely certain I don’t want to have anything else to do with any of his work. Strong Character dynamics was touted as his strong suit and from what I saw in TLJ, there was more character dynamics in Seasame Street. As for Experimental Works, the key word is experimental, and sometimes the experiment fails. As for Original plots, well...there wasn’t anything original. I saw this movie twice over growing up and done better than what he did.

George Lucas: Great at coming up with a verse, phenomenal vision and desire to bring back/recreate the action-adventure series of the past and dropped us into the middle of a vibrant and intriguing world. Yes, the dialogue was occasionally clunky but forgivable. The FATHER of modern special effects, and it makes me wonder what would have happened if they HAD used his ideas and outlines for the Sequel Trilogy, rather than having his contributions scrapped. Just remember kids, if it wasn’t for George, we wouldn’t HAVE Star Wars. {Or Indiana Jones, Or American Graffiti or.....}

~*~

As for ‘people need to stop acting as if Star Wars is this award-worthy fanchise’, uhm shall we not mention the 7 Academy Awards, 8 Saturn Awards, the Baftas, the Nebulas, the People’s Choice Awards, and the LA Film Critic awards won by the original trilogy, or the 5 Oscar Nominations of the Prequel Trilogy? Cause I mean I can pretend they don’t exist, but that doesn’t mean that they will be miraculously erased from reality.

Yes, the Franchise IS about Space Wizards and light sabers and princesses and pirates, but it is also a mythological treatise for a modern age, an in depth attempt to recreate both the nostalgia of past media and based on cultural/psychological archetypes far exceeding JUST being movies. And whether or not that was George’s intention, it has taken a life of its own and has now influenced at least 3 generations of human beings. Possibly more. 

The ST is far less developed, yes. Because no one cared. They only had to scavenge the best bits of the OT and PT and paste them together in whatever pseudo-order they could make fit, and added in things that made absolutely NO SENSE when they couldn’t. Specifically most of Luke’s “characterisation”, Rose-whomeverthehellshewas, and I mean to answer this I would have to write an entire other post. Was it boring? Yes. Was it Cookie-Cutter, you could say so, with a few minor exceptions, and if those were MY cookies, I’d have thrown them out. Oh. Wait. I DID.

I would also like to point out that a good 3/4ths of the novels if not more were written to cover the galazy AFTER Return of the Jedi. Any one or more of those stories would have been far better to adapt that what the ST trilogy has given us.  As for “The ST takes place over less than 1 year” and “TLJ specifically occurs in a period of less than 24 hrs” in regards to the PT and OT:

Attack of the Clones takes place over 6 days, in film. Revenge of the Sith takes place over the course of 5 days in which I don’t think Anakin really gets any sleep at all.

We must assume that all the films therefore occur within a week or less. Slivers of important events. We don’t get to see Anakin being trained over Ten years. We don’t see Luke going and training in the dark side before he appears on Jabba’s barge, and yet these things happened.

~*~

Bunny, no no no. Rey is NOT just Luke as a female with abandonment issues. Luke didn’t know how to use a light-saber when he first saw one. He didn’t know how to use the Force, and had to be trained by Kenobi and Yoda. Rey...didn’t need anything. Neither did Finn, actually. Luke was a good guy, yes, but he had his doubts, his fears, his learning period. Go back and watch the films. Anakin was really good at piloting, he was phenomenal at combat, but he had no social graces, he didn’t ‘people’ well, he struggled with abandonment {both his own and leaving his mother}, the flaws were very real and painfully so.

Anakin and Luke both had to undergo the Hero’s Journey, like Frodo and Siegmund and really, pretty much name any fantasy character that has ever been written. Rey has everything handed to her on a platter, doesn’t have any growth or struggle or really makes any choices of her own. She might have been a great character had she been handled with any degree of forethought or sincerity. Alas, we will never know.

If you’re going to quote George, quote him right, he specifically says “Twelve year olds” which is the age of the kids I work with on a daily basis and they do not have simple moralistic wold views. They have the seeds for very complex thought and I am often amazed by their ability to understand and expand on ideas in ways I hadn’t even imagined.

And maybe if you want to see black-and-white morality in Star Wars, that’s fine but it isn’t really the whole point. If it was... Anakin would never have fallen to the Dark side. He would have started there. Luke would never have left Yoda on Degobah to rescue his friends because that was NOT the right thing to do. The films are about choices, write or wrong, made by people in desperate situations. It is about how those choices shaped their history, how it made them into the people they are, but ultimately, they are about how important hope is, and how even someone who has made very bad choices, can ultimately find their way back.

Star Wars, the movies, is about Anakin and his Legacy.

And archetypes? They are the definition of depth, which is why they cross cultural/religious/gender norms. They are universal ideas that can be transitioned across but not changed from their fundamental existence.

TLDR: The Sequel Trilogy really is glorified bad fanfic and is trying to erase it’s legacy so that the Mouse can make money. We all know the Star Wars film series was really “The Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker” and how bout we all stop pissing on that. If the past must die then let them have their dignity.

[myfunkybdaytv]

SUPERMODEL EUNICE OLUMIDE, BECOMES TEAM NIGERIA UK AMBASSADOR

SUPERMODEL EUNICE OLUMIDE, BECOMES TEAM NIGERIA UK AMBASSADOR

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Actress, Supermodel and broadcaster, Eunice Olumide has become Team Nigeria (UK) International goodwill ambassador, as announced by the grassroots organization management executives, led by UK based, Nigerian born international sports administrator and pundit, Mr. David Doherty.

Since Eunice Olumide’s debut in BAFTA nominated Middle Man, she is one talent about to take the world by storm. Appearing in Lucas Films “Rogue One” as The Rebellion Leader, other roles include “After Louise” with esteemed actor, Greg wise to name a few.

Eunice Olumide also was selected for a featured cameo in “Ab Fab” The Movie and is the ambassador for the current 2016/2017 body shop “In Our Hands” campaign. 

Olumide is known for her versatility across a variety of genres including action, drama and comedy roles, which have taken her across the globe.

Over the last few years, she has grown as a talented actress and presenter, appearing on both BBC and SKY television, with a sellout show at The Stand Comedy Club, during the Edinburgh international fringe festival.

Originally born in working class area in Edinburgh, Scotland. She has been booked all over the world including UK, U.S.A, Japan, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Germany and U.A.E.

Scouted at the age of 15, Eunice Olumide has been twice nominated by the Scottish fashion awards and vogue.com as Model of the year.

She has also appeared in both National and international campaigns, fashion weeks and editorials like Hunger, W-AD, ID Magazine, Dazed & Confused, Oyst, Paper Cut, New York Magazine, Italian Vogue, British Vogue, Bahrain Confidential and many more.

She has also graced the catwalks and modelled for top couture powerhouses including Prada, Alexander Mc-Queen, Mulberry, Christopher Kane, Henry Holland, Vivienne Westwood, Darris Tweed e.t.c.

Much of her personal time is spent on fund raising for numerous charities including Children’s Hospice Scotland, The Well Foundation and The Columbus Hospice.

She is also the ambassador for Breakthrough Breast Cancer TLC, joining the likes of Kate Moss, Edith Bowman, Twiggy, Alan Carr, Sharon and Kelly Osbourne.

In the past, Eunice Olumide has been signed with several top agencies including Ford, IMM Düsseldorf, Viva & Laagecia, Amq, The Model Team and Mega to name a few.

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Dare Gbadebo www.naijaonlinetv.co.uk

Author: Dare Gbadebo is the publisher with the trademark darebaba.net is a versatile writer who had his media training based on photography at PEFTI film institute and has written for many top media houses in Nigeria. Stay tuned for your favourite celebrity news political updates and paparazzi. Darebaba on social media Facebook | Instagram | Google+

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SUPERMODEL EUNICE OLUMIDE, BECOMES TEAM NIGERIA UK AMBASSADOR SUPERMODEL EUNICE OLUMIDE, BECOMES TEAM NIGERIA UK AMBASSADOR

[scotianostra]

Happy 38th Birthday, the popular STV weather man Seán Batty.

Born in Paisley in 1982, he spent some of his early childhood, here in Falkirk and attended Carron primary school in the town before moving back to Paisley where he went to  Castlehead High School and studied Meteorology at Reading University.

His interest in meteorology began when he was only seven years old, after receiving a BBC weather kit for his birthday. Batty became the weather forecaster for the School newspaper as well as the regional newspaper, The Paisley Daily Express for a few months during the summer of 1996.

Batty joined the Met Office as a weather observer at the school of Army Training at Middle Wallop airbase near Andover, Hampshire. He later worked with the ITV Weather team preparing TV weather graphics and maps for S4C, UTV and ITV.

In 2004 he joined the BBC as a broadcast assistant. Seán has been working in Scotland for STV Weather since August 2007.

Batty was nominated for the BAFTA Scotland Lloyds TSB Scotland Award for Most Popular Scottish Presenter in November 2008, losing out to Lorraine Kelly.

Seán learnt Gaelic in preparation for the National Mòd in his home town of Paisley in 2013. He has been a supporter and Judge for part of the Breast Way Round Charity event since 2008. He is also an ambassador for the TV charity, The STV Children’s Appeal and haa raised money by cycling, running, walking and hiking his way around the country since it started in 2011.

Last year he was given his own show ‘Sean’s Scotland’, taking viewers on a journey around our beautiful country over the course of 7 weeks. The programme covered weather, environment, the people and wildlife.

If you are on twitter Batty is a must to follow, you will get the best pics of the Scottish weather and some great banter. Seán is training to be a pilot

During the lock down Seán  has been presenting the forecasts from his home, mostly in his garden, but he has also got an abundance of helpers he calls hi "mini me's" who have been sending him their forecasts every day.

In 2012 Seán suffered homophobic abuse on twitter, the 16 year old was prosecuted and handed an 18-month Community Payback Order

[decandantfics]

Just the Two of Us - Part 2

                                        It’s All Over Now

"Al, have you seen me bowtie?" a mellow voice echoed down the hall. "On the armoire, dear," Ali replied lightly, eyes smiling as she heard her husband scurrying around in the room opposite where she was seated with their 8-month old baby, Isla, reading her daughter's favorite book about a hungry caterpillar that ate everything in sight. A few minutes later, Dec emerged from their bedroom, resplendent in his tuxedo and shiny shoes, eyes sparkling with excitement. "You sure you'll be okay on your own here?" he questioned, eyes clouding with concern and a hint of guilt as he took in his wife's tired features. "Yes, love, we've been through all this before," Ali smiled. "Anne-Marie's coming over around 3 to help out with Isla, and then we're going to watch the BAFTAs together – keep an eye out for your cheeky faces on the big screen!" Chuckling, Dec walked over to where his wife was sitting with their daughter, and kissed and hugged them both fondly. Hearing the honk of a horn outside, Dec gave his girls one last cuddle, and bounced out of the room with a cheery wave, trotting down the stairs – taking two at a time – before shouting "Love ya!" up the stairs and quietly shutting and locking the front door behind him. Hopping into the car, Dec gave Joe, their driver, a sunny smile and settled down for the journey, pulling out his phone to send a quick text.

Half an hour later, the car pulled up outside a discrete Wimbledon residence. A black-haired man wearing a cheesy grin was waiting at the gate, and quickly climbed into the car after being enthusiastically accosted by his slightly shorter friend, who had insisted on jumping out and giving him a warm, welcoming hug before Ant could even take one step away from his gate. Dec was now sitting in the middle seat, right next to Ant, chattering excitedly about the day to come. Ant could only smile in amusement at his friend who, quite frankly, greatly resembled a hyper, overexcited puppy right at the moment. It was adorable, and it warmed Ant's heart to know that he was the reason for Dec's exuberant animation right now. He knew his friend had struggled mightily with his extended absence last year, and he still felt guilty about everything he'd put him through, but days like today reminded him that Dec really did rely on him a great deal for his own happiness. Ant was excited about attending today's BAFTAs, too, but he had to admit he was a little bit nervous about it as well. In the end, though, he couldn't help but get swept up in Dec's boyish excitement, and found himself looking forward to this day out with his best friend just as much as Dec clearly was.

Another 30 or so minutes later, their car arrived at the Royal Festival Hall, pulling up at the drop-off site for those walking the red carpet. "Here we go, then, Ant. You ready?" Dec questioned gently, seemingly just now becoming aware that Ant might be a bit nervous about today's event. "Yeah, I'm fine," Ant grinned, his eyes meeting Dec's, which, although they were still sparkling with excitement, held a deep hint of concern. And to be fair, Ant was actually feeling quite fine indeed, Dec's high spirits having rubbed off on him, making him almost sort of giddy. Apparently convinced as to the honesty of Ant's reply, Dec squeezed his wrist gently before opening the door of the van and climbing out, Ant following close behind. Meeting Simon Jones as they exited the vehicle, the boys got a quick briefing of what to expect as far as media interviews, photocalls, etc., and then they were off. Both Ant and Dec had been insistent that they didn't want to focus on red carpet interviews and photo ops today, but instead wanted to spend as much time as possible with their fans, giving back to those who had helped them through the toughest year of their life.

As they made their way onto the red carpet, dispensing multitudinous autographs and selfies to adoring fans, Ant and Dec just couldn't stop smiling. Ant couldn't help but notice how Dec was staying close by his side protectively, like an overzealous guard dog, never letting more than a few strides separate them at any one time. It was quite heartwarming, really, although the thought of Dec as a small but mighty guard dog brought an amused smile to Ant's face – Scrappy Doo! Catching Dec looking at him curiously, Ant just shook his head at him and grinned. Even though their day at the BAFTAs had only just begun, it already felt like it had been a great day. To see and feel the love and support of their fans close up and personal was quite moving for Ant, since there had been many days when he had questioned whether he would be welcomed back. Dec had always insisted that everyone was missing him, but there had always been that seed of doubt in Ant's mind, making him wonder if he could still be accepted by the public after what he'd done. So to be amongst such an outpouring of love from their fans today was very special, and Ant was immensely grateful to the fans and to his loyal friend – still glued to his side – who had helped him through his darkest days.

Eventually reaching their first photocall area, Ant and Dec stepped in front of the red carpet backdrop. Dec couldn't help but be reminded of the previous year's horror as he walked up to the backdrop, and shuddered as he remembered the never-ending nightmare last year's BAFTAs had turned out to be. Feeling Ant's concerned gaze on him, Dec met his eyes, trying hard to squash down the sadness that had come over him with that sudden, unwanted memory. "It's nothing," Dec said, as casually as possible, trying to downplay his inner distress as he knew it would only make Ant feel guilty. Clearly unbelieving, Ant raised a skeptical eyebrow at him, but couldn't continue with his questioning due to the shouts of photographers. Realizing Ant hadn't believed him – really, how did he ever think he'd fool him, anyway! – Dec decided he wasn't going to let the ghosts of last year's event haunt him today. This was their day out together, just the two of them, and they were going to enjoy it. With that thought, Dec glanced at Ant again, a genuine smile on his face this time. Understanding dawned on Ant's face as he realized Dec had had a flashback to last year – 'Bloody hell, it's impossible to hide anything from him,' Dec thought to himself – and he smiled reassuringly at his smaller friend. He understood well enough the struggles Dec was continuing to have with his mental health – Ant himself still had flashbacks which would occasionally result in small setbacks in his recovery, but both men's wounds were healing, slowly but surely. "At least your date's a heck of a lot prettier this year!" Ant quipped, while camply fluttering his eyelashes at Dec, making him throw his head back with laughter, his eyes sparkling like the night sky with love and joy. On the sidelines, Simon Jones smiled – Ant and Dec were back.

They had finally made it into the Royal Festival Hall and taken their seats. Dec had joked that maybe they should sit the wrong way 'round, just to confound everyone, but they laughingly decided that that would be too disruptive to the British public's sanity, so sat in their normal formation, Ant on the left and Dec on the right. Dec was basking in all the close physical contact with Ant today. One of the things he had missed most in the past year was Ant's presence next to him – not having Ant to lean on, grab onto, hold him, hug him. It was terribly destabilizing to reach a hand out or lean to his right, only to find nothing but thin air there. Ant had already gently teased him for being "clingy" a couple of times today, but that certainly wasn't going to stop Dec from getting more than his fair share of "Ant time." Dec was currently leaning on Ant slightly, their upper arms pressed up together, as they held a whispered conference on the merits of 'Killing Eve'  vs. 'Bodyguard.' Dec was hoping Killing Eve's leading actress, Jodie Comer, would win the Leading Actress BAFTA tonight – Ant had forced it out of him that he had a bit of a crush on her – while Ant was hoping Bodyguard would take home at least one or two BAFTAs tonight. Most of the award categories up until this point hadn't been all that interesting and the boys had become bored, so started chatting to each other, much to the amusement of the teams from their three shows – all of which were nominated for awards tonight – who were sat in the rows surrounding them. Ant and Dec were basically dead to the universe at this point, completely wrapped up in their own world – made up of each other – and didn't immediately notice that one of their team members was tapping them both on the shoulder from the row behind them, trying to get their attention.

"BGT and Takeaway are up next!" the lady whispered, nodding towards the screen. 'Oh, right, when did that happen?' Dec wondered, again reminded of last year's awards ceremony that had seemed to drag on for hours. Now the time had just flown by. Ant nudged him with his shoulder as their first category of the night was announced, and they glanced at each other, sharing a nervous grin. Both men's hearts raced as the clips of the nominated shows were shown one by one. Both Ant and Dec were really hoping Takeaway would win this year since it had been such a big series, what with the 100th episode and all that. Dec was rather more optimistic about their chances tonight than Ant was – Dec had defiantly stated in one red carpet interview that they could sweep all three awards tonight, while Ant had been rather more reserved, cautioning Dec that they could also be the biggest losers of the night. But Dec was still holding onto the hope that they would pick up at least 2 of the 3 awards tonight. He wanted this to be a special night for Ant, a night where he would realize that not only the fans, but also the industry, his peers, were welcoming him back and accepting him despite everything that had transpired over the past couple of years. So it was to Dec's great delight when Britain's Got Talent was announced as the winner of the Entertainment Programme. His arms itched to wrap around Ant in a celebratory hug, but Ant was already off, hugging everyone on their team, so Dec had no choice but to head down to the stage, knowing Ant would be close behind him. A massive grin etched onto his face, Dec strode up onto the stage, accepting the proffered award and taking his place behind the podium, turning to wait for Ant. His eyes shining, Dec beamed at Ant as he came to stand next to him.

"Well, thank you very much!" Ant started off, before becoming more hesitant. Only then did Dec realize that he and Ant hadn't actually discussed this award – he had just assumed they'd do the acceptance speech, since that's what they'd always done over the years. "I guess we're speaking on behalf of everybody?" Ant addressed Dec, a slightly nervous look on his face. "It looks like it," Dec rejoined, a bit concerned now as Ant let out a stressed-sounding, "Okay!" But Dec needn't have worried, as Ant's quicksilver mind started firing immediately and they fell into easy banter between the two of them, taking the Mick out of the judges, and playing up their own role on the show. Dec could tell Ant was nervous, so took the reins a bit whenever he felt Ant was unsure of what to say next. Finishing off with a completely in sync, "Thank you very much!" the boys made their way off stage, congratulating their team as they went. Once off stage, Dec enveloped Ant in a massive bear hug, whispering a "Well done," in his ear. Ant grinned fondly at him as they pulled away, patting him on the back before lightly pushing him forward. They had decided to do a very brief backstage photo op for BGT before letting the rest of the team go on to the main photograph session and press room interviews. There wasn't a whole lot of time between the first two awards they were nominated for, and they didn't want to miss anything on the off chance they won something else tonight.

Ant, Dec, and the BGT team were lining up backstage – not quite in order yet, it had to be admitted, as Dec was on Ant's right instead of the other way around – when someone cracked a bizarre, somewhat inappropriate joke. It particularly tickled Ant, who broke into fits of laughter, leaning his chin on Dec's shoulder – their heads touching – he was laughing so hard. In that moment, Dec could have burst with happiness. This is what he'd been hoping for tonight. Yes, he was mainly excited because he and Ant would get to spend some quality time together, but he also really wanted Ant to just be Ant again. He wanted to feel like things were back to normal, that the past was no longer haunting them, that they were just plain Ant and Dec again. It might seem a simple and unimaginative wish to the outsider, but that feeling of normality was something Dec had craved incessantly throughout the weird solitude he'd had to endure for most of 2018. So now, with Ant leaning on him, his raucous laugh resounding in his ears, another previously gaping wound in his heart and mind healed over. His Ant was back – normality had been restored.

I'm a Celebrity... was now up, and Dec could sense Ant's tension. Dec had been dreading this award a bit, since it would be rather awkward for both of them if they won. Holly Willoughby had come along today – to be fair, who wouldn't if there was a chance of their winning a BAFTA – and she would be coming up on stage if they won. But Ant would be, too – Dec had insisted that he should be up there, too – leaving Dec with a slightly odd feeling of betrayal. Yes, of course he understood that Holly fully deserved to be on stage – she had been a life saver last year and had been fantastic – but Dec still felt like he would be betraying Ant by even just having Holly join him at the podium. He knew it was nonsensical, but that's just how his brain worked. His place was at Ant's side and vice versa – it would just be odd for them to be on the stage at the same time but separated. Groaning softly to himself, Dec shifted uncomfortably in his seat as the nominations were read out for the Reality and Constructed Factual award. Feeling a stare on him, Dec tilted his head to find Ant giving him a quizzical "What gives?" sort of look. With Holly sitting right behind them, Dec couldn't say anything, so just shrugged noncommittally before turning back to the screen.

"I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" Oh, goodness, they'd only gone and won it. Dec's face froze in shock for a moment, a slight grimace turning into a wan smile as he remembered there would be cameras trained on him now. As Ant cheered and clapped beside him, a grin found its way onto Dec's face, although it felt sort of pinched. Dec was torn – he was beyond happy that their show had won a BAFTA, but upset because now he'd have to navigate what his mind deemed to be a very tricky situation of having the only two professional partners he'd ever had up on stage with him at the same time. Twisting around to look at the celebrating IAC team behind him, Dec caught Ant's eyes, relieved to see a genuine gleam of delight dancing in those green irises he adored. Suddenly remembering Holly behind them, Dec turned the other way to see Holly handing her purse to her sister in preparation to go on stage. Sensing Ant standing up beside him, Dec rose, swiveling on his heels to watch Ant yet again. Dec was so worried about this – he didn't want Ant to feel left out or like he was second best – and found himself studying Ant's face as his friend leaned over the back of their seats to give Holly a warm hug. Right, here came the awkward bit. After pecking Holly on the cheek, Dec headed down the aisle towards the stage, sucking his lips in in a grimacing smile, the expression on his face belying the earthquake that was happening inside.

Mind going into automatic mode, Dec helped Holly up the stairs before jogging forward to accept the award. Without even really thinking about it, he stood on the left side of the podium, leaving a wide space to his right. Oh, this was painful. Dec's eyes were trained on Ant, who was standing well behind the podium while greeting the award presenters and congratulating the team. An intense anxiety filled Dec's heart and mind – this was like going solo again, except this time, his rightful partner was standing on stage with him but couldn't say a word. Ant had been so reluctant to even come up on stage for this award tonight, but Dec had refused to even countenance him not being there, so Ant had eventually agreed to Dec's demands. Right now, it seemed like Holly was going to stand back with the rest of the team. That might make things a bit less weird, Dec thought, before deciding he really ought to say something now. He was meant to be accepting the award, after all! Hearing Ant's voice, Dec turned to see him pushing a slightly unwilling Holly forward, placing her next to Dec behind the podium. Letting out an awkward laugh and trying to make a joke to ease the tension, Dec tried to get on with the speech, but his eyes were drawn to Ant again, who was now standing next to Saul Fearnley, their producer friend who worked on both SNT and IAC.

It was as if Dec's mind was frozen – he couldn't quite spit out the words that needed to be said. His mouth drier than a desert, Dec began with, "Thank you, BAFTA," his voice catching on the last word, sounding slightly tremulous. His hands shook as he played with the heavy gong. Cringing inwardly at his own clumsy words, Dec tried to stutter out his thanks to their team, before deciding to take the bull by the horns. "I'd like to say thank you to Holly...{awkward pause}...for helping me out last year, who did a fantastic job...." He just couldn't do this, he couldn't ignore him, couldn't pretend he wasn't there. "...Erm...standin' in for Ant, who has reluctantly come up here tonight." Dec tried to look around Holly in order to see Ant, Holly quickly stepping out of his way. Grinning as Ant waved at him, Dec turned again to the microphone, "There he is," while letting out a little laugh. Only a handful of laughs rang through the auditorium – oh, this was so awkward! – and Dec was painfully reminded of all the haters, all the people who would make a fuss about Ant coming up on stage with the team, all those who felt Ant didn't even deserve to still be alive, much less on the telly. Feeling a fierce need to protect his friend, Dec continued, an uncomfortable but defiant tone to his voice, "Because he's part – still part – of the team, obviously, and we wanted him up here to celebrate with us as well." There, that should do it, right? That should shut up the idiots! Finishing off with a special shout out to Medic Bob and another awkward joke that didn't quite land, Dec tried to wrap it up as quickly as possible. He couldn't bear much more of this. He honestly just felt like crawling in a hole at the moment. This was so ridiculous. Why couldn't things just go smoothly for him for once?!

Dec and the team had just entered the backstage area when a body collided with his, gentle arms pulling him close and rocking him from side to side. "Well done, kidda," a warm voice whispered into his ear, "I'm so proud of ya." Melting into the embrace, Dec felt tears come to his eyes, his anxiety momentarily receding as he found safety in Ant's arms. Finally pulling away, he and Ant shared a long look that, to even the most casual of observers, could only be classed as a look of love, each finding reassurance in the other's gaze. Dec now had to attend both the photocall and the press room for 'I'm a Celebrity...' and it was something he'd been dreading. Ant accompanied him and the team to just behind the photo backdrop – pausing to cheekily poke his head around the curtain and give a thumbs up to all the photographers, which had the desired effect on Dec: genuine laughter bubbled out of him, and a wide grin appeared on his face. Their moment of fun over, Ant smiled, "I'll be outside, Dec – just going to have a vape. You know where to find me." Squeezing Dec's arm and giving him a wink, Ant sauntered out, heading towards the outdoor area he had traditionally gone to in past years whenever he needed a smoke.

Inwardly, Ant was worried about Dec – hence telling him where he would be – as he knew questions might come up in the press room that Dec would rather not answer. Dec was still exceedingly emotional about the past year's events, and would start crying at the drop of a hat – even in public – if he was forced to relive what he had gone through. Ant wasn't entirely unaware of how poorly Dec had coped with the BAFTAs last year, either, having one day dragged information out of Saul Fearnley about everything that had happened. Saul had been extremely reluctant to reveal Dec's secret rush to the toilet at the previous year's event, but Ant had refused to let it rest until he knew every last detail. He had wept, unashamedly, when Saul had finally divulged what little he knew of the cause behind Dec's overwhelming distress: "All he said was that he 'missed you so much'," Saul had carefully stated, resting a hand on Ant's arm as he broke down. And now Dec had to face the photographers and press all on his own. Again. Sighing, Ant pushed open the fire exit door and stepped out into the cool air, thoughts revolving around his friend who was currently having to face his demons alone.

Dec felt decidedly self-conscious as he stood next to Saul on the far end of the team – he had outright refused to stand in the middle, giving the excuse that it would look odd to have Becca (one of the executive producers) standing anywhere but in the center, adding that she was very much prettier anyway. His grin felt forced, and he had a strong sense of déjà vu to the previous year's photocall for BGT. There was a herd of elephants rampaging up and down the walls of his stomach, and it felt like a massive bullfrog was lodged in his throat, making it hard to breathe. Trying to squash down the rising panic, Dec forcibly pushed the corners of his mouth up, keeping that false grin in place for as long as it took to get these wretched photos done. Ant should be standing next to him – they should be in the middle like they normally were, putting on their best smiles for the camera. Instead, here he was again, all alone. Oh, how longed for those few moments backstage with the BGT team, when everything had seemed to be back to normal. He hated this, and the thought of what was facing him in the press room made him want to vomit.

Pictures finally finished, Dec and the team filed into the press room, Dec's wobbly legs taking him to the microphone where he – completely unconsciously – stood far to the left, leaving a wide berth where someone else, namely Ant, should be standing. No one came to his rescue – this was his battle to fight, and his alone. The first few questions were benign enough. He hated having to think back to that first show with Holly – they had both been so nervous, Dec also fighting the feeling of cheating on Ant – but he could deal with it if he didn't dwell on it too much. His face still held a mildly painful look, though, as he remembered the days leading up to his debut with a new, albeit very temporary, partner. Then came the kicker. The one question he had been hoping against hope no one would dare ask: "What was the past year like for you?"

Heart wrenching in his chest as the floodgates of painful memories rushed open, Dec paused for a moment, his mind paralyzed by what he was experiencing internally. "Um...It was...Er...a...a...a tough year...um...personally, and professionally," Dec stuttered, daring the tears in his eyes to remain where they were and not embarrass him by rolling down his cheeks. Behind him, Saul Fearnley took a deep breath and shared a despairing glance with another of the producers, before fixing his concerned gaze on Dec yet again. This wasn't going well. Staring up at the corner of the ceiling, Dec blinked several times, while continuing, "Erm...So, yeah, but you know, I just....I...I kind of...I went out and...just tried to do my best and...and k- keep the shows warm for him when he was ready to come back...erm...." Dec was just barely keeping it together, the pain of the past year overwhelming him with its fierceness. Right, focus on that last bit – Ant is back now – Dec commanded himself, willing away the iron fist that was clutching at his throat. "...So...I...I...just tried to deliver as best I could..." Finally winning a partial war with his mental agony, Dec tried to deflect any further questions on the subject by ending with a bit of playful self-praise: "...and, thankfully, they- they've both won BAFTAs tonight, so how cool am I?"

To his great relief, the room burst into laughter, while one of the producers loudly proclaimed, "You really are the world's best mate!" causing Dec to laugh even harder, kicking the floor nervously as he shifted from side to side. Unbeknownst to Dec, Simon Jones had been holding a whispered conference with the lady directing the order of questions from the press while Dec was struggling to answer that terribly unsympathetic query. Simon had ordered that there could only be one further question, and then his client would be leaving. He was a close friend of both the boys, and he hated to see either of them hurting; it was his job to protect them from the press when needed, and that was exactly what he was doing right now. The final question was fairly straightforward, regarding the upcoming live shows for BGT, and Dec could put his feet on solid ground again, answering it easily. With that, he was ushered out of the room by Simon, while Saul fell into step with him for a moment, reaching out to pat his back comfortingly. Saul had never mentioned last year's BAFTAs incident to Dec again, pretending it had never happened to save Dec from embarrassment and further pain, but he knew Dec hadn't forgotten. And he was slightly worried now that there might be a repeat performance, given the fragility of Dec's features and the unnatural sheen to his eyes.

Dec couldn't take it anymore. Giving his team a hurried, grateful glance, he choked out, "I'll be back," before jogging towards a fire exit, not caring that others milling about backstage were staring at him curiously. Barging through the door, Dec burst into tears as he was immediately engulfed in a tight hug, the warmth and familiar hold of his best friend breaking down his defenses and leaving him a helpless, crying mess. Ant honestly didn't know what to say, tears coming to his own eyes as his friend sobbed in his arms. He had suspected Dec might need some time away from the rest of the crowd after having to deal with the press room all by himself, and had devised his "going for a vape" plan, knowing Dec wouldn't suspect anything as it was a perfectly normal thing for Ant to do. But he hadn't quite expected Dec to be this distraught, and it hurt to imagine how much Dec must have been struggling internally as he attempted to answer whatever awful questions they'd tortured him with. Stroking Dec's back comfortingly as he held him close, Ant finally found his voice, murmuring, "It's all over now, it's just the two of us, love." Dec snuggled closer to him at that, breaths slowly evening out as a warmth spread through him, re-sealing all of the metaphorical bullet holes with which that wretched question had riddled his still-recovering heart and mind.

"Yeah, just the two of us," Dec repeated, voice recognizable as his own once again, no longer strangled with untold pain and suppressed emotion. Dec pulled away first, finding Ant's gaze bashfully as Ant wiped his tears away, holding Dec's face in his palms for a moment before gently patting his cheeks and letting his arms fall to his sides again. "Y'all right now?" Ant asked carefully, scrutinizing Dec's face for any continued signs of needing his comfort. As Dec nodded silently, they turned as one to reenter the building, both heading to the gent's – one to relieve himself and the other to wash his face – Ant with his arm slung around Dec's shoulders supportively. If anyone dared stare at them as they made their way to the restroom, Ant glared at them, tightening his arm around Dec protectively. After surviving a year of bleak solitude, Dec finally had his fierce protector back by his side, the one person who would fight to the death for him. He was no longer facing the world alone.

Later on that night, Ant and Dec were leaving the BAFTAs after party. In the end, they'd both had an incredibly fun day – winning 2 out of 3 awards – despite it being quite emotionally charged at times. After having greeted a few waiting fans, both men tiredly clambered into their car, settling down for the long journey ahead. Once their car had left the grounds and they were safely out of reach of any paparazzi, Dec unbuckled his seat belt and slid over towards Ant. Having predicted Dec's move, Ant lifted his left arm automatically at the first sign of movement on the other end of the seat. Snuggling into Ant's side, Dec let out a contented sigh and laid his head on Ant's shoulder, murmuring, "This was the best day ever." Raising an eyebrow, Ant questioned, "Really? It didn't seem all that great for you at times..." trailing off as he remembered the way Dec had completely broken down in his arms only a few hours prior. "Yeah, I know, but that's just me, innit," Dec replied softly. "But you were right, what you said earlier. 'It's just the two of us, love,' you said, and that's what today was all about." Voice warming further, Dec continued, "Today was about you and me being back together, just the two of us, how it used to be. Yeah, we had to deal with some stupid stuff, but just being with you, spending the whole day with you....It was the best day ever, Ant. Just the two of us." Somewhere in the middle of Dec's heartfelt soliloquy, Ant had rested his head on top of Dec's, and now simply nodded, knowing no words were needed in way of a reply. Gently squeezing Dec's shoulder, Ant moved his head briefly to drop a kiss onto his friend's hair as the true meaning of Dec's words hit home. It was just the two of them­­ again – and that meant the world.

[tessa-quayle]

full text: 2019 Telegraph piece

check out the pictures here from @ralph-n-fiennes

the article by Hermione Eyre (official link - registration required for a free trial)

Ralph Fiennes does Ralph Fiennes so well. During our interview he delivers everything one might hope for: sensitive introspection, charm, pathos, a touch of mystery and even a (partial) defence of late Soviet Russia. ‘A lot of people didn’t experience it as repressive…’

This in the context of the stunning new film he has directed, called The White Crow, about the defection of Rudolf Nureyev from the Soviet Union in 1961. Oh, and he also impersonates a horse for me. Beautiful whinny. Sensitive nostrils.

‘It’s how I feel as the house lights go down and I can feel the expectation from the audience. You can see it in horses before a race.’ 

As we begin, in a Shoreditch loft studio not far from his home, he seems professorial, in a woolly cardigan, neatly arranging his spectacles, notebook and copy of the latest London Review of Books. When he is ready he gives me that trademark encouraging smile – half little boy, half crocodile.

Career-wise, he has it all. Family life, not so much. His greatest luxury? ‘My independence. I lead quite a solitary life.’ When I ask him if he’s a good uncle to his siblings’ progeny – Mercy, Titan and Hero, to name a few – he says flatly, ‘I could be better.’

His sister, the film-maker Sophie Fiennes, says her son Horace, now eight, really enjoyed the sword fighting in his Richard III, which is, if you think about it, a good outcome for a small boy going to see his uncle play Richard III.

His presence is a mark of quality in a film. Both the Bond and Harry Potter franchises, where he plays M and Voldemort respectively, brought him in for gravitas. Since Rada, he has run the gamut of Shakespeare, from Romeo in 1986 to his award-winning Antony & Cleopatra last year at the National, opposite Sophie Okonedo.

‘She was spectacular. I miss Antony. I found him very moving in his brokenness; his masculinity falling away and him trying to cling on to it. He’s male and middle-aged, and he keeps saying, “I’ve still got it, haven’t I? Haven’t I?”’

Does he recognise that? ‘I am 56 and I try to stay fitter’ – he does cardio and morning yoga – ‘but I can feel myself getting… old. Little shifts of energy and ambition, little impulses. You get tired more, you want to take it easy more.’ Then summoning mercurial energy in that actorly way, he explodes, ‘But I can feel myself fighting that, like, “I’m not gonna let go! Come on, come on. Yeah!” There are plenty of virile 56-year-old men.’

When I ask if he’s got a motorbike yet, like Ralph Richardson, he isn’t impressed. ‘No, my brother Joseph rides a motorbike. He can do fast cars and handle boats.’ Joseph, now 48, will for ever be the young Bard wooing Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love, just as Ralph single-handedly made Herodotus hot, that spring of 1997 when we all went to see The English Patient and wept.

Antony gives everything up for sex. ‘Yes, he does, that’s a very real erotic connection, and it’s very emasculating for him.’ Does sex make the world go round? ‘Erm, sex produces more human beings, mostly.’ Nice deflection.

Fiennes married Alex Kingston, his great love from Rada, in 1993. Their marriage ended when he left her in 1995 for the actor who was playing Gertrude to his Hamlet, Francesca Annis, 17 years older than him. Although the relationship broke down in early 2006 amid reports of his alleged infidelity, they still talk, have a deep, mutual professional respect and go to each other’s first nights.

Kingston has since gone on to have a daughter, Salome, with her second husband and Annis already had three children; Fiennes has never wanted his own family. ‘Never say never,’ he demurs. ‘But I don’t feel that’s imminent at all. I love the family and community of plays or the cast and crew of a film.’

He recollects his lines from Man and Superman, the Bernard Shaw play, ‘where Jack Tanner [whom he played] rather brilliantly pours scorn on the idea of happiness: “No family, no marriage, spread your seed, but no marriage!” I love the mischief in that.’

He says, ‘I am the eldest of six,’ as if it explains everything. The Fiennes children were born within seven years. Martha and Sophie make films; Magnus is a composer; Joseph is an actor and his twin Jacob is a gamekeeper in Norfolk. Their foster brother, Michael, now an archaeologist, came to live with them when he was 11, Ralph was two and their mother Jini was only 24.

‘My wonderful parents [Mark Fiennes, a farmer, and Jini Lash, a writer] were pressured by tough financial situations and a very erratic income,’ says Fiennes quietly. ‘They were extraordinarily courageous in giving us love and a sense of home, but also a feeling, early on, of what it is to be a burden on your parents – somewhere I think that’s affected my choices.’

‘We experienced family life with bells on,’ says sister Sophie, who’s currently working on a new series of the brilliant Pervert’s Guide to… documentaries with philosopher Slavoj Zižek. ‘You have lived that and you don’t need to replicate it.’ She remembers that as a child Ralph ‘really liked getting away from us all and being alone’.

He adored his Pollock’s toy theatre and insisted his siblings formed an audience, ‘furious’ if they didn’t comply. He set up footlights in matchboxes. ‘It was magical, very Fanny and Alexander,’ says Sophie, referencing the Bergman paean to childhood.

Ralph always had ‘a love of practical jokes’, she remembers. When they lived by the sea, on the Sheep’s Head peninsula in Ireland, he stood on a rock at high tide and pretended to be drowning.

‘Gave our mother a fit.’ He also called their neighbour to say his wife had been changing a light bulb and was now hanging from the ceiling, twitching. ‘It was April Fool’s. Our neighbour was furious.’

As a young man Fiennes became, after Schindler’s List, the intellectual’s pin-up. Is ageing harder when you’ve been a heart-throb? ‘Look, there’s lots of heart-throbs out there. You see it in younger actors who are having their moment, there’s a new one and they’re written up, how beautiful they are… You see the waves and the breaks, that person had that moment, or that opportunity. There are a handful of actors and directors who stay [the course], but mostly it’s ups and downs.’ In other words, the challenge is to convert being a heart-throb into something more meaningful and lasting.

Such as directing. He directed himself in 2011’s Bafta-nominated Coriolanus with Vanessa Redgrave as his mother Volumnia; in 2013 he directed and appeared as a passion-struck Dickens opposite Felicity Jones in The Invisible Woman.

His latest is The White Crow, based on Julie Kavanagh’s biography of Nureyev. He spent months touring Russian ballet schools before finding Oleg Ivenko, a young unknown from the Tatar State Ballet company, who is devastatingly good as the dancer. Fiennes plays his mentor Pushkin.

I didn’t really want to be in it,’ he says. ‘But I felt this creeping pressure and although I had a cast of wonderful Russian actors and dancers, the Russian producer said to me, “If you want Russian investment then we need Western names, why aren’t you in it?”’

He will dig deep to make the films he wants to make: has he put his own money in? ‘I have done, yes.’ Would you again? ‘No! I’ve had to put money into all the films I’ve made. They don’t sparkle with commercial appeal.’ Did the money come back? ‘No.’ Harry Potter helps? ‘Definitely. I don’t regret doing it. I have the resources and I believe in the project. You get one life, so f— it.’

The script of The White Crow is by David Hare, who questions the view of Nureyev’s defection as a ‘leap to freedom’, showing instead a certain nostalgia for the Nikita Khrushchev era.

Hare and Fiennes spoke to friends of Nureyev from 1950s Leningrad, twin dancers Leonid and Liuba Romankov, now in their 80s, who appear in a lunch party scene alongside actors playing their younger selves. ‘Liuba said, “I felt free, I felt happy inside myself at that time.” Nureyev was so nurtured and nourished by the dance school.’

The film doesn’t have anything to say about the propaganda and food shortages. ‘If you say I should have laid out a history lesson of the regime, I say no, I think that would have been heavy-handed. I think an audience is smart. You see the ideological pressure of the regime and the constant surveillance Nureyev was under.’

Do you feel the Soviet approach to the arts got something right? ‘I do, because that was, as I understand it, the philosophy of “we’re all a group”, though of course the individual is stifled. I’ve always been moved by what I feel to be the dedication of the Russian arts ethos, the discipline, the intense seriousness with which people take it.’

His love of Russia began in his early 20s, with him performing Chekhov and reading Dostoyevsky; he is now fluent in Russian, has ‘a lingering fantasy of buying a flat in St Petersburg’ and has been presented to Putin. ‘At the St Petersburg International Cultural Forum, which they hold every year. He was very quiet and listening.’

This was before the Salisbury poisoning. Does Fiennes believe Russia was responsible? Briskly, ‘Yes, yes. It seems to me like it was. Clearly there are problematic things with the current regime to our eyes and I do feel it’s been a tricky time since Salisbury, and that’s a shame and sad.’ Oddly enough he knows the town well, having been to Bishop Wordsworth’s grammar school.

‘I had a mostly happy time there. It was an extraordinarily shocking, cack-handed event, unacceptable and wrong in every way. And in reaction the Brits have made things harder with visas and it becomes tit for tat, and the Russians have closed down the British Council, which was a wonderful enabler of cultural interaction. I don’t know if the British Council is a cover for espionage, maybe it is…’ Bond bells are ringing. But you’re M, you must know! He replies, curtly, ‘But I’m not M, am I?’

We return to the topic of growing older. ‘There are pluses to ageing, you know? You can let go of some shit. The competition falls away. You can see the cycles of your own mistakes, hopefully you’re learning… All the things that have caused you upset:  I hurt that person, I got a bad review. You start to feel: did that really matter? The things you were so concerned about just drift away on the current of life. And your idealism is tempered and your vanity gets knocked…’

He brings up, as an example, the 2002 film he made with Jennifer Lopez called Maid in Manhattan, a comedy fairy tale in which he plays a US senatorial candidate who falls for his chambermaid. ‘I saw in the newspaper they had J Lo’s most successful films and’ – big smile – ‘Maid in Manhattan was there, and it came quite near the top’ – bigger smile – ‘and then I read: “Let down by the fact that Ralph Fiennes seems like a serial killer.” Ha ha ha! I had to laugh.

’Cos my vanity scrolled it and then… bam!’ He gives a proper belly laugh. Didn’t he get together with J Lo while they were filming? ‘No. No. I was set up by her manager and the producer. So a picture was taken of us saying goodnight after dinner and sold to the New York Post. It was a decoy, to take the focus away from the fact that she was going out with Ben Affleck.’ You didn’t mind? ‘I did, actually. I thought it was really crap.’ He shrugs, smiles. The things fame brings.

‘I give my agent all these neurotic phone calls, asking about reviews, who said this, who said that, but then, glass of wine, laugh it off.’

I feel I’ve had a flash of the blazing, naughty, fun side of Fiennes; we have known it’s there ever since we saw his suavely clownish Gustave in The Grand Budapest Hotel, and his irrepressible Harry in A Bigger Splash (complete with gyrating dance routine). There is a fun side to him, then? He smiles enigmatically as we say goodbye. ‘You won’t ever see that in an interview situation.’