JAPAN: TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL PREMIERE OF MOVIE BASED ON OFF BROADWAY MUSICAL "HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH"

Record ID: 392303

  • Title: JAPAN: TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL PREMIERE OF MOVIE BASED ON OFF BROADWAY MUSICAL "HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH"
  • Date: 29th October 2001
  • Summary: TOKYO, JAPAN (OCTOBER 29, 2001) (REUTERS) VARIOUS, PEOPLE ENTERING THEATRE FOR PREMIER OF "HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH" (2 SHOTS) (0.10) WIDE OF DIRECTOR JAMES CAMERON MITCHELL WALKING ONTO STAGE (0.17) SCU (SOUNDBITE)(English) MITCHELL SAYING: "I like this rock and roll mike stand. That means nothing to you because you have not seen this film. It is very rock and roll" (
  • Embargoed: 13th November 2001 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: TOKYO, JAPAN
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAAZ907WB6ZJII3EQGWOFLZNYV3
  • Story Text: The life of Hedwig, an internationally ignored, transvestite rock songstress, graces the screen of the Tokyo International Film Festival at the premier of the movie based on the off-Broadway hit "Hedwig and the Angry Inch".
    Movie fans and drag queens flocked to to the special screening of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" in Tokyo on Tuesday (October 29) which also offered a glimpse of the screenplay writer, director and main actor of the film, James Cameron Mitchell.
    Dressed in a crimson jacket and striped pants, 38-year-old Mitchell warned the audience before the screening, his movie was loud.
    "I like this rock and roll mike stand. That means nothing to you because you have not seen this film. It is very rock and roll," he said.
    The movie is an adaptation of a critically acclaimed off-Broadway rock theatre hit about Hedwig, a rock singer from East Berlin who was born a boy named Hansel. Hansel undergoes a sex-change to become "Hedwig" and to marry an American G.I.
    who promises to take her over the Berlin Wall.
    The sex-change operation doesn't quite work. But Hedwig does go to the United States and left with an "angry inch", she is abandoned by her husband and embarks on a career of music deep in the heart of Kansas.
    By day, the dynamite blond with Farrah Fawcett hair, babysits, but at night she becomes the flamboyant star of roadside diners and bars, where Hedwig performs with her band "The Angry Inch".
    Eventually Hedwig meets an aspiring teenage musician whom she renames Tommy Gnosis and grooms into a rock star. But Gnosis steals her songs and climbs the steps to stardom alone.
    Hedwig with her many blond wigs and band follow Gnosis all over the United States with hopes that he will repent. But while he plays at stadiums filled with screaming fans, Hedwig croons in dilapidated diners.
    Rather than at theatres, Mitchell performed the drama version of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" at nightclubs with a live band. Mitchell said the hardest part about adapting the play for the silver screen was recreating the energy so it would fill the theatre, a space which is much larger than a bar.
    "The energy of a rock band in front of your face, you can't really fully recreate that on screen. We did what we could. I recorded, some, about half of the songs with live vocals for the camera which helps," said Mitchell.
    "You know, the lip-synching doesn't help with punk rock element and but I really just relied on wonderful collaborators, wonderful designers and actors to do the work that I used to have to do alone," he added.
    In addition to the drama of a man who becomes a woman in a quest to find freedom and love, the movie boasts of a repertoire of music ranging from country-western to punk.
    The movie "Hedwig" was released on January 19, 2001 and has since won awards in film festivals around the world.
    Mitchell told reporters in Tokyo that he was now working on two projects.
    "I am actually here with my collaborator for my next film which is a children's story for film that has an element of fantasy that also has an element of death, as all good children's stories should and has a a lot of animation. I am also working on another film that, where I wanted to explore sex, explicit sex in an narrative way, in a way that I have not seen it used well, that is something that I am just beginning and trying to find the actors who can act and have sex at the same time. I don't know how I am going to do that. There must be somebody, please spread the word," he said.
    People who saw the film generally enjoyed the colour and noise and some were touched by the emotional facets of Hedwig's complex life.
    "The love and hate elements come together in the movie.
    You find out what the 'angry inch' which is in the title of the movie is all about. I thought it was great that the inch that is left gives Hedwig the power to do what she does"
    said Cherie (one name).
    "I really felt the rock spirit of the film and it was very interesting," added Vivian, drag queen and bar owner.
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