ITALY: Fans go wild for Hollywood super couple Jolie and Pitt at Venice Film Festival for premiere of "UJesse James " film

Record ID: 220419

  • Title: ITALY: Fans go wild for Hollywood super couple Jolie and Pitt at Venice Film Festival for premiere of "UJesse James " film
  • Date: 7th September 2007
  • Summary: VENICE LIDO, ITALY (SEPTEMBER 02, 2007) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR BRAD PITT SAYING: "No, I have no desire to direct and mainly for health reasons, I'm too much of a perfectionist, I would go crazy, it would take me away from my family for too long and I would agonise over every detail it wouldn't be, it's not a good match. And the second part is that I think there's so many good people doing it, I'm certainly not needed. But the production side I like very much. It's getting stories to the screen that are relevant for the time and may not get there without some help."
  • Embargoed: 22nd September 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Reuters ID: LVA52R2BDYJ3NCCKCVJVFBIC56HR
  • Story Text: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie received a warm welcome from excited fans as they attended the world premiere of Pitt's new movie 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Fox' at the Venice Film Festival.
    Hollywood super couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were greeted by hundreds of screaming fans as they attended the world premiere of Pitt's new movie 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday (September 02).
    Pitt and Jolie were all smiles as they greeted excited fans and signed autographs. They were joined on the red carpet by the film's director Andrew Dominic and actor Casey Affleck, who in the film plays Robert Ford, the man who killed Jesse James.
    Earlier in the day Pitt told Reuters he had been fascinated with James's celebrity status and with how little things had changed since the late 19th century.
    "There is, I guess the reflex of the world around him once Jesse was killed and there was a great fan fare. The approach didn't seem much different to me from today, just that there is more of it today, much, much more."
    "I identified with being hunted and a bounty on our head, so to speak. Of course it's not life and death and he was much more involved and maybe had to be at the time, as I said, in perpetuating his own myth. Me, I let it ride," he added.
    In the film Pitt plays the fabled U.S. outlaw Jesse James. The film is based on the days leading to his death at the hands of young protege Robert Ford.
    The Hollywood star portrays James -- a bandit and heroic Robin Hood figure to many during his life and long after his demise -- as a man tired of life on the run, who foresees his end is nigh and appears to hasten his death as a way of escape.
    While James has more fame than he wants, Ford dreams of filling his hero's shoes one day.
    A social misfit who is constantly teased and bullied, he gradually sees that his easiest path to stardom would be to kill the man he idolises, and in the film he is hired by the governor of Missouri to bring James down.
    The film takes in the intimate interiors of log cabins and saloons of 1880s America and pans to stunning shots of plains and rolling hills through the seasons.
    The 43-year-old actor, who arrived in Venice with his partner and fellow Hollywood A-lister Angelina Jolie and their children, was also a producer on "Assassination".
    When asked if he might try his hand at directing, he told Reuters: "No, I have no desire to direct and mainly for health reasons, I'm too much of a perfectionist, I would go crazy, it would take me away from my family for too long and I would agonise over every detail it wouldn't be, it's not a good match. And the second part is that I think there's so many good people doing it, I'm certainly not needed. But the production side I like very much. It's getting stories to the screen that are relevant for the time and may not get there without some help."
    Early critical reaction to the historical drama has been mixed, with journalists in Venice generally enthusiastic about the film but the Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt calling it pretentious and vacuous.
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