USA: DIRECTOR /ACTOR JOHN MALKOVITCH TALKS ABOUT HIS LATEST FILM " THE DANCER UPSTAIRS" PREMIERED AT THE SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

Record ID: 392351

  • Title: USA: DIRECTOR /ACTOR JOHN MALKOVITCH TALKS ABOUT HIS LATEST FILM " THE DANCER UPSTAIRS" PREMIERED AT THE SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
  • Date: 1st January 2002
  • Summary: PARK CITY, UTAH, UNITED STATES (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) SMV SOUNDBITE) (English) JOHN MALKOVICH SAYING: "But the more we sort of talked and the fact that Javier has a kind of ageless quality in a way. I finally thought, no, I knew he could do it and I knew he was a great actor, and in fact when I first met him I was surprised that he was so young having seen "Jamon
  • Embargoed: 16th January 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PARK CITY, UTAH, UNITED STATES
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVAF2YTN14HH63OAL7DYWF7RSCP3
  • Story Text: John Malkovich -- movie star, co-founder of Chicago's Steppenwolf theatre company, and actor's actor, is now director of his first feature film, "The Dancer Upstairs,"
    starring Javier Bardem, which had its premiere recently at the Sundance Film Festival.
    Getting inside Malkovich's head was the premise of the 1999 film "Being John Malkovich," and for filmgoers who prefer more philosophical pursuits in the cinema over a good car chase, Malkovich's first effort should not disappoint.
    But his fans also should not think of "The Dancer Upstairs," which is based on a novel by Nicholas Shakespeare that revolves around the rise of the Shining Path revolutionary movement in Peru, as all art and no play.
    The actor will take parts in big studio flicks as happily as low-budget indies, and as a director he has crafted an old-fashioned political thriller and love story into an epic-style film that borders on a mainstream movie.
    If "Dancer Upstairs" featured big-name stars over Spanish actor Javier Bardem and Italian Laura Morante, Malkovich's fans might swear it was a Hollywood movie, instead of an indie.
    "I don't know what an important film is, meaning this is a film I really like, I believe I would like it if someone else did it, I believe I would like it in ten years," he told Reuters in an interview on Sunday.
    "Dancer Upstairs" tells the story of one man's struggle with his own conscience as he steers his career upward inside a corrupt police department and morally bankrupt government.
    As in the novel, the story is set in a fictional South American country that is a thinly-veiled version of Peru in the 1980s and 1990s when President Alberto Fujimori was fending off the Shining Path and its mysterious leader Abimael Guzman.
    In the film, the Guzman character's name is Ezequiel, and as Guzman did, Ezequiel has fomented a communist-style uprising among the poor and indigenous people of his country.
    The central character is Ezequiel's pursuer, Captain Rejas, played by Bardem, an award-winning superstar in his home country but relatively unknown in the United States until last year's critically-hailed performance in Before Night Falls."
    At home, Rejas is bored with his middle-class life. He aspires to loftier heights than a small apartment in the city that he shares with his wife and daughter.
    At work, he is disgusted with the bribery and blackmail among government officials, but he knows that to move up in rank he must often turn his back on corruption.
    Early in the movie, Rejas is assigned to track down Ezequiel, but in the months that follow the revolutionary's power only grows. When the movement begins threatening the country's capital city, the president declares martial law.
    In despair, Rejas turns to his daughter's ballet teacher, Yolanda (Morante), a beautiful woman with a passion for art that excites Rejas and allows him to escape his own life.
    But as the hunt for Ezequiel heightens and government officials above the captain break laws in order to capture the revolutionary, Rejas begins to question his own morality.
    Malkovich initially thought Bardem to be too young for the middle aged Rejas. "But the more we sort of talked and the fact that Javier has a kind of ageless quality in a way. I finally thought, no, I knew he could do it and I knew he was a great actor, and in fact when I first met him I was surprised that he was so young having seen "Jamon, Jamon."
    Malkovich worked with author Shakespeare for five and a half years, developing the screenplay, and he admits to over-editing in some cases. He and Bardem poured over the character of Rejas for months, collaborating on the movie's scenes before shooting them. "We went through the script, I did the most horrible reading you can ever imagine and I said to myself 'this is the end' but no, he (Malkovich) said, once more again, one more again, until he said okay, fine you've done it good, let's go, let's do the movie,"
    remembers Bardem.
    As an actor, Malkovich is known as a perfectionist and an artist. As a director, it seems, his mind works much the same way.
    --
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