ITALY: FILM STAR MICHAEL DOUGLAS AND DIRECTOR JAMES IVORY PROMOTE THEIR LATEST FILMS AT THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

Record ID: 387745

  • Title: ITALY: FILM STAR MICHAEL DOUGLAS AND DIRECTOR JAMES IVORY PROMOTE THEIR LATEST FILMS AT THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL
  • Date: 4th September 1998
  • Summary: VENICE, ITALY (SEPTEMBER 4, 1998) (RTV ACCESS ALL) ( ** BEWARE FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY **) MICHAEL DOUGLAS ARRIVING AT EXCELSIOR HOTEL PAPARAZZI DOUGLAS DISEMBARKS WATER TAXI CROWDS WAVE VENICE, ITALY (SEPTEMBER 5, 1998) (RTV ACCESS ALL) DOUGLAS POSES FOR MEDIA, JOKING WITH PRESS NEWS CONFERENCE DOUGLAS SAYING: (SOUNDBITE ENGLISH) "BEING A VILLAIN IS THE MOST FUN
  • Embargoed: 19th September 1998 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: VENICE, ITALY, FILM LOCATIONS
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Communications
  • Reuters ID: LVA3RTLN3C275C4QJUJ1Z3NPMMZ5
  • Story Text: The Lido, an idyllic Italian islet just off the coast of Venice, hardly seems the place for "The Perfect Murder".
    But then appearances are often deceiving.The sunny resort town, hosting the Venice Film Festival, was the out of competition showcase for the movie "The Perfect Murder".
    Running alongside it, at a gentler pace, was "A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries", the moving story of an American family living in France, and forced to uproot and return to their homeland.
    Michael Douglas, star of slick thrillers "Fatal Attraction" and "Basic Instinct" played the perfect part of an international movie star this weekend.
    Clowning with the media, at the International Venice Film Festival, Douglas could not be further from the control-freak he plays in "A perfect murder.
    Douglas plays a man who terrorises his young wife, Emily played by rising star Gwyneth Paltrow, who played the lead in "Emma"
    and
    "Sliding Doors".
    Speaking at a news conference on Saturday (September 5), Douglas said Paltrow's father was a long-time friend who didn't like the idea of him playing a romantic scene with his daughter.
    "A Perfect Murder", which was shown out of competition on Saturday is a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder".
    Shift the action to New York, cue smart urban heroine and add a love triangle and a Wall street wizard and there you have a revamped Hitchcock thriller for the nineties.
    Another film also shown out of competition on Saturday, but without the blood-shed was James Ivory's "A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries".The film tells the story of an American family living in Paris in the sixties and seventies.
    Jesse Bradford, who plays the grown-up son Billy, says Ivory was exact to the finest detail in his direction.
    The story is told from the point of view of the daughter Channe, played in two parts -- first as a child by Luisa Conlon -- and then in her teenage years by Leelee Sobrieski.
    The Father, Bill Willis, (Kris Kristofferson) is a successful expatriate writer, who is haunted by his experiences in the second World War.Kristofferon says he could relate to his role, as he's a father himself.
    The movie is based on the book by Kaylie Jones, daughter of author James Jones, who wrote the novel "From Here to Eternity".Jones based "A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries" on her own experience of growing up in Paris with her famous father.
    Ivory was charmed by the book.He said he decided to make a film about it as it was quintessentially French -- and also because it offered him yet another opportunity to work in France.
    The Merchant Ivory partnership has already won numerous accolades, including three academy awards for "Room With a View".
    The long-time union continues to influence film-makers but as Ivory says, low production doesn't always have to equal low quality.
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