FRANCE: Dad-to-be Brad Pitt sends email message as Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu presents 'Babel' at the Cannes Film Festival

Record ID: 1533567

  • Title: FRANCE: Dad-to-be Brad Pitt sends email message as Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu presents 'Babel' at the Cannes Film Festival
  • Date: 25th May 2006
  • Summary: CANNES, FRANCE (MAY 23, 2006) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR GAEL GARCIA BERNAL SAYING: "Film making can put us all together in the same world without us even wanting to, for good or for bad. And it created, it put me and Alejandro together when we first worked and now it puts all of us, Said, Boubker, Cate, Satoshi, Rinko, Adriana, me and so many people, so that from El Carrizo, Tijuana, from Taguenzalt and from Tokyo, we're put together and mingle and it's great."
  • Embargoed: 9th June 2006 03:45
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVABP96WCWDBV482DS26Q950AA4T
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett star in the powerful new film "Babel", an examination of linguistic, cultural and personal barriers that sweeps across three continents and tackles terrorism, immigration and suicide.
    In competition at the Cannes Film Festival, the movie by Mexican "21 Grams" director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is seen as one of the favourites for the coveted "Palme d'Or" prize, although there are eight films still to show.
    Blanchett praised co-star Pitt, who was not in Cannes due to the impending arrival of his child with Angelina Jolie.
    An e-mail from him was read out to journalists before the briefing began.
    "With the imminent arrival of the newest addition to our family, I am unable to join Alejandro, Cate, Gael and the rest of the cast and crew in introducing the film," he wrote, adding that he was "tremendously proud" of Babel.
    Speaking to Reuters after the news conference, Blanchett praised her co-star, whom she said she had been looking forward to work with.
    "He's delicious, he's a delicious human being and it is easy, he's incredibly easy as a person and to be around and to work with, to work with, he's really open and really humble and I think that's what we all needed as actors to do this, because it's not the size of the part it's kind of, it's the juxtaposition of all these small moments that actually create the ultimate power of the film," Blanchett said.
    Director Inarritu was equally impressed with Pitt, and said casting the Hollywood heart-throb in a role he has not been seen in before was exciting.
    "Brad was a very strange choice to play some middle-age man in crisis but I thought that that would be very nicely played by him if he would be able and excited about going there and he was and that excites me, just the possibility of making him doing like that I think was good, was a good thing. I think people will be surprised by it and taking away the celebrity and forgetting that it was Brad Pitt and just a human being suffering, you know, I want the people to feel that," he said.
    Pitt and Blanchett portray a couple on holiday in Morocco when tragedy strikes, and their story is linked to that of two shepherd boys living in a remote village.
    A third narrative takes the audience to the U.S.-Mexican border where a trusted nanny becomes embroiled in a terrifying journey of her own, and in Japan, a deaf and mute girl struggles to get over her mother's death and break down social prejudice.
    Inarritu weaves the plots together into a rich cinematic tapestry, where established actors like Pitt, Blanchett, Mexico's Gael Garcia Bernal and Japan's Koji Yakusho appear alongside little known actors from northern Africa.
    Misunderstanding and miscommunication appear on every level, between father and son, husband and wife, police and civilians and country to country.
    While the film is mainly about barriers on a personal level, it sends clear messages about political problems including misunderstandings on the U.S.-Mexican border and those surrounding the issue of religious extremism.
    A shooting incident involving the characters played by Pitt and Blanchett is immediately seized upon by the world's media as an attack by Islamic radicals, but the truth is far less sinister if not less tragic for the victim.
    Shooting across three continents, many of the actors met for the first time during Tuesday's news conference.
    But, despite not having met before, Garcia Bernal, who also worked with Inarritu on 'Amores Perros', said there was a sense of unity amongst the international cast.
    "Film making can put us all together in the same world without us even wanting to, for good or for bad. And it created, it put me and Alejandro together when we first worked and now it puts all of us, Said, Boubker, Cate, Satoshi, Rinko, Adriana, me and so many people, so that from El Carrizo, Tijuana, from Taguenzalt and from Tokyo, we're put together and mingle and it's great," he said.
    Babel is one of three South American films among the 20 in competition in Cannes this year. The others are "Pan's Labyrinth" by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro and "Cronica De Una Fuga" by Uruguayan director Israel Adrian Caetano.
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