- Title: FRANCE: Joaquin Phoenix, Marion Cotillard bring the American dream to Cannes
- Date: 22nd May 2013
- Summary: FESTIVAL LOGO LIGHTS ON RED CARPET / RED CARPET CROWDS GUESTS CLIMBING STEPS CARS WITH POLICE ESCORT ARRIVING GRAY ARRIVING VARIOUS OF COTILLARD SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS ACTOR JEREMY RENNER GREETING COTILLARD GUESTS ON RED CARPET ACTRESS KRISTIN SCOTT-THOMAS ON RED CARPET VARIOUS OF CAST AND CREW POSING FOR PHOTOS PHOTOGRAPHERS CAST AND CREW POSING AT THE TOP OF STEP
- Embargoed: 6th June 2013 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France
- Country: France
- Reuters ID: LVA4BLLK2EY9HAYEEE0YNCOPAZPF
- Story Text: Marion Cotillard and Joaquin Phoenix brought the American dream across the Atlantic on Friday (May 24) with the story of a Polish immigrant struggling to find her feet in early twentieth century New York.
"The Immigrant" by U.S. director James Gray premiered in Cannes where it is in competition for the Palme d'Or, the much-coveted prize which will be awarded at the close of the glitzy film festival on Sunday.
New York's Lower East Side, with its noisy streets filled with seething humanity, creaky tenements and rough bars is vividly portrayed in the film, which received mixed reviews.
Oscar winner Cotillard stars as Ewa who battles throughout the film to have her sick sister -- detained by authorities at the border for having tuberculosis -- freed by authorities, all the while being exploited by unscrupulous theatre director and pimp Bruno (Phoenix).
Speaking at a news conference on Friday, Gray told reporters how Cotillard had landed the role.
"When I met Marion, I confess I did not know her work but she threw a piece of bread in my face over dinner because I didn't like some actor or something that she liked and I thought she had an amazing face," he said.
Adding to the authenticity of the period piece, lengthy scenes are shot in Polish, a language French speaker Cotillard had to pick up from scratch.
"I have 20 pages in Polish, this is insane and I remember one day, James came and he told me 'You have a lot of Polish in this movie right?' and I was like 'Yeah, I have 20 pages, you wrote them yourself!,' she said.
"That was definitely my biggest challenge," she added.
The silent and shadowy star of the movie is Ellis Island itself -- the sight of a huge processing centre for newly-arrived immigrants -- which Gray battled to portray authentically.
"We did shoot it at Ellis Island and it was not without its difficulties. One of the things that you forget is that it's an island so all of a sudden you say 'Oh I want to shoot on Ellis Island, it's going to be great' but then you realise it's a museum, it's open virtually 365 days a year, maybe for Christmas it's closed and they will not close down for you so all of that stuff in the great hall was shot at night," he said.
The story of the island is central to the American psyche, said Gray, whose grandparents themselves arrived there from eastern Europe in 1923.
Premiering his film as the U.S. Congress debates legislation that could affect 11 million illegal immigrants, Gray weighed into the debate, telling reporters that the criticisms of Italians and Jews at the turn of the century were today being used against Mexicans.
"I guess I'm unabashedly pro-immigration, I feel like immigration is the thing that keeps a country vital and interesting and flexible and growing and is new blood," he said.
Filming for another project prevented Phoenix from walking the red carpet with co-stars Cotillard and Jeremy Renner ahead of the movie's evening screening. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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