FILM FESTIVAL-VENICE/ANOMALISA Kaufman's "Anomalisa" in Venice is an animation - for adults
Record ID:
140124
FILM FESTIVAL-VENICE/ANOMALISA Kaufman's "Anomalisa" in Venice is an animation - for adults
- Title: FILM FESTIVAL-VENICE/ANOMALISA Kaufman's "Anomalisa" in Venice is an animation - for adults
- Date: 8th September 2015
- Summary: VENICE, ITALY (SEPTEMBER 8, 2015) (REUTERS) KAUFMAN AND JOHNSON SEATED FOR INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR CHARLIE KAUFMAN SAYING: "We got an R rating yeah which we're happy with and we were hoping it wasn't going to be NC 17 but it's R, so we already have that rating and we're fine with that. Yeah, I mean we wanted to do it in a way that was emotional, you know, because you know immediately people think puppets having sex is a joke and you know Team America did it and it was done for a joke and we wanted to you know it doesn't fit with our story to be that. It's an emotional moment in the story so we worked really hard to make it that. To make it real and sensitive." JOHNSON SEATED FOR INTERVIEW KAUFMAN'S FESTIVAL PASS (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR CHARLIE KAUFMAN SAYING: "I feel like it's what I write and that's what people see it as. I'm not like thinking oh I'm going to write about identity now it just sort of, I guess, you know, whatever it is that people think it's about identity is some of the stuff I think about. I try to be very subjective when I write because I think that's the way we see the world, there's no objective way to see the world so it's always from inside from whatever your particular situation is that you see things and when I write that way then it looks to people like it's about identity, which I guess it is, but I don't set out to do that." VARIOUS OF NOONAN AND JASON LEIGH SEATED FOR INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR TOM NOONAN SAYING: "Well, that's sort of what life's like. I mean everybody feels alienated and feel the world is just one person who's making their life hell for them. It's not a very unusual feeling." VARIOUS OF NOONAN AND JASON LEIGH IN INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS JENNIFER JASON LEIGH SAYING: "I'm shy so there' s something nice about being even more hidden there's something very freeing about that. They also, they shot us, Duke was always shooting us while we were doing it. So, a lot of the facial gestures or even the hand gestures are things that he captured on a still camera. So, it feels, it feels very much like acting in any other way except that you're sitting very, very still so you don't rustle. And we had to line our sheets of paper up like next to each other and tape them so that we wouldn't have to turn pages and make that noise. You know, like it's all about sound and there's something very liberating and restricting at the same time. It's an art, it really is, there's an art to it and I'd love to do more of it actually. I found it really quite focused and deep and there's something beautiful about it."
- Embargoed: 23rd September 2015 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Italy
- Country: Italy
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVABTKIW27X8FRX4RTL7Z5IV1H5B
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Director Charlie Kaufman's "Anomalisa",a stop-motion animation film shot with puppets, is getting its premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday (September 8).
Kaufman flatly refuses to discuss what any of his films or screenplays are about, but he and co-director and animation specialist Duke Johnson told Reuters in an interview they can live with the film's U.S. R-rating due to an explicit sex scene between two of the puppets.
It means viewers under 17 years of age must be accompanied by an adult.
"We're fine with that...I mean we wanted to do it in a way that was emotional because immediately people think puppets having sex is a joke," Kaufman told Reuters in an interview in Venice, where the film is competing for the top Lion d'Or prize.
"You know 'Team America' did it and it was done for a joke and...it doesn't fit with our story to be that. It's an emotional moment...so we worked really hard to make it that, to make it real and sensitive."
Kaufman, who wrote the screenplays for "Being John Malkovich" and "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", has not been a presence in the cinema since he made his directorial debut with the highly regarded but quirky "Synecdoche, New York" (2008).
He is making his return with this taught 90-minute film focusing on a motivational speaker named Michael who flies into Cincinnati from Britain on a soul-sapping business trip.
Suffering from the type of identity crisis for which Kaufman characters are famous, Michael meets up during his one-night visit with an old flame, who has never gotten over him dumping her, and a woman named Lisa, who has come to hear him speak and who gives Michael new inspiration for life.
The film, which won favorable reviews at the Telluride Film Festival where it was shown before an official premiere in Venice, is voiced by only three people.
Jennifer Jason Leigh ("Fast Times at Ridgemont High") is Lisa, whom Michael decides to rechristen Anomalisa when he falls for her.
David Thewlis (Remus Lupin in "Harry Potter") voices Michael and Tom Noonan ("12 Monkeys" TV series) is everyone else -- from the taxi driver who drives Michael to his hotel, to the receptionist, to everyone, male and female, in the hotel bar and so on.
Having almost everyone in the world speak with the same voice is a statement on who we are, and Kaufman allowed that identity, for him, is a tricky business.
"It's not fixed, I don't think it is for anybody, you know? ...We want to think we're this thing but we're kind of like constantly shifting and depending on who we're with and what age we are and even like at the same moment talking to different people in the same room we become different people, you know? At least I do."
Noonan said portraying a huge range of characters with only his voice was a challenge.
"In the movie you never see me so I can't vary that far from my normal sound so it's a little harder...to communicate," he said.
But Leigh said she'd enjoyed doing voicings for a change and was up for more.
"It's an art, it really is, there's an art to it and I'd love to do more of it actually. I found it really quite focused and deep and there's something beautiful about it."
Kaufman will find out if his movie has won the Golden Lion prize on Saturday (September 12). - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None