USA: WORLD PREMIERE OF THE FILM "HIGH FIDELITY"

Record ID: 389100

  • Title: USA: WORLD PREMIERE OF THE FILM "HIGH FIDELITY"
  • Date: 12th April 2000
  • Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) CUSACK SAYING "I've always thought of music as autobiographical. You have a certain song and it represents a certain time in your life. When you hear a new piece of music and it's great. All of a sudden it just melds to where you are in your life and it's always linked-up. Then, if you still L
  • Embargoed: 27th April 2000 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES AND VARIOUS FILM LOCATIONS
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVA7X55WIS9ZZQ53O1NBPDT5X5V8
  • Story Text: Los Angeles' El Capitain theatre was the venue for the world premiere of actor John Cusack's film adaptation of Nick Hornby's popular novel "High Fidelity."
    High Fidelity, based on the novel of the same name by British writer Nick Hornby, follows record store owner Rob Gordon as he retraces the doomed relationships of his past in an effort to resolve a relationship with the girl of his dreams, played by Iben Hjejle.
    Friends, rejection and music are the backdrops for this movie about the naked insecurities and paranoia of men in relationships.
    For co-writer/co-producer/leading man John Cusack, the fallible leading man is nothing new, as one need look no further than his roles in "Pushing Tin" and "Grosse Pointe Blank".But it was the honesty of "High Fidelity" that attracted Cusack to Hornby's anti-hero.
    "I don't think the other kind of leading man thing, I don't think those people really exist.So, it's fun to kind of have those fairy tales, but it's also good to have movies that sort of reflect that," said Cusack, "You don't have to be Woody Allen to be neurotic.I mean, people go through all this stuff all the time.I think men -- Every guy I know, that read the book, related to Rob.They were like, yup.They night not want to admit it, but they do."
    Co-star Iben Hjejle, who plays Rob's long-time girlfriend Laura thinks it's a story women can relate to as well."I think that finally women get to look inside a guy's brains and say is it true what we always thought?" said Hjejle, "And, yes, I guess it is."
    As a co-writer of a film in which he would star, Cusack admits to taking some liberties with Hornby's Rob."You use your own stuff because you've broken up with girls and had girls break up with you," said Cusack, "You've felt like you're on top of the world.You've felt like you're on the bottom.You know? So, you just sort of use all that stuff obviously."
    Biting humour and great music play a major role in both Hornby's book and the film.Rob and his record store cronies Dick and Barry have a love-hate relationship centered around their passions for their individual tastes in music.
    Whether it's Rob throwing his hands up in disgust as Barry chases away another customer looking for Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called To Say I Love You", Rob re-categorizing his thousands of LP records every time he breaks-up with a girlfriend or rapid-fire quizzing on the top five songs in a category so obscure you'll question your own knowledge of pop culture, music is very much at the centre of the characters' lives and inner struggles.
    "I've always thought of music as autobiographical," said Cusack, "You have a certain song and it represents a certain time in your life.When you hear a new piece of music and it's great.All of a sudden it just melds to where you are in your life and it's always linked-up.Then, if you still ove the song later the meaning changes and you change.And, music's just always been real important to me."
    For director Stephen Frears, who last worked with Cusack on 1990's critically acclaimed "The Grifters", the musical expertise, or snobbery, of his cast was something to behold.
    "Because I'm very, very old, I sort of stayed slightly detached from it," said Frears, "I mean, the people who wrote the film, John, everybody knows everything about music except me.I know very little about music, so I kept sort of out of that.So, they would come to me with material, here's a song, here's a song, here's a song and I would try to work out if it was good for the film.And, I would try and understand what they were saying to me and then kind of balancing it and noticing certain things.So, my part in it, I wasn't involved in choosing it.I said, I will finally select it."
    One cast member intimately involved in the music scene is character actor Jack Black, who takes on his biggest film role to date in Barry.Black, who fronts for the band Tenacious D when he's not involved in a movie project, steals several scenes from his better known colleagues before performing a live rendition of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On"
    as the film comes to a climax.
    "It was kind of the big climax to my character and I knew it was important that it kind of rock," said Black, "So, there was a lot of pressure around that shooting day and actually the first couple of takes were pretty stinky.It was looking like I was all washed up and then at the last second there was a burst of energy.We got a good take it.Whew."
    "High Fidelity" opens across the United States on March 31.
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