“I understand, I’d be a hypocrite to say I don’t…”— Gabrielle Union Gabrielle Union Speaks On “Birth Of A Nation” Remember when we told you that Gabrielle Union offered her take as a sexual assault survivor on the resurfaced Nate Parker rape allegations ? Well Gabby is speaking further on his film “Birth Of A Nation” and stating that while she understands why some folks refuse to watch, she’s still standing behind it. Union plays a slave in the film who’s raped. E! News reports: “I say, for a lot of different reasons this film’s going to be difficult to see for a lot of people, and I get it,” Union, who wrote about her own rape and the Parker controversy in a powerful essay for the Los Angeles Times, tells me. “There are movies I sit out, so I understand and I’d be a hypocrite to say I don’t. “But I would say this movement that this film has inspired includes our issues,” she continued. “That is my sole purpose, and I’ve been by joined by so many advocates and allies on our cast and worldwide who say this is uncomfortable and everything makes me so angry, but I recognize that there is a movement that I want to be a part of, and that movement is education about sexual violence, toxic masculinity, misogyny, rape culture. I want to be a part of that.” Nate Parker also spoke on his film and danced around a question about people skipping out on it. Parker didn’t directly address the sexual assault allegations when I asked about those who have decided to skip what he has called a “labor of love” and a “passion project.” He first praised the 400 people involved in the making of the movie. “My hope is that we can recognize that films are very difficult to be made, and then furthermore, that this film is hopefully more than a film, that it’s an opportunity to be parlayed into a movement that we can look at this and say, ‘Yeah there was the film, but after the film I had this conversation,’” Parker said. “You know, after the film I talked to my kids and said, ‘You know what son, or daughter, this is how you should move forward, or this is what this type of integrity looks like when it comes to standing up for people around you.’” Will YOU be going to see “Birth Of A Nation” on October 7??? WENN Continue reading →
It’s one of the most famous, and most controversial, nude scenes of all time, and 28 years after the film was released, Isabella Rossellini is still talking about her fully nude scene from David Lynch ‘s Blue Velvet ! Hit the jump for more info…
It’s too bad they don’t give Oscars out for individual performances in documentaries because Liv Ullmann’s work in Dheeraj Akolkar’s Liv & Ingmar would be worthy of consideration. The Norwegian actress and filmmaker discusses her 42-year relationship with the late Swedish filmmaking legend Ingmar Bergman with such emotional candor and poetic economy that the movie becomes something much more than just a re-telling of one of the most famous work-love relationships in cinema. Although Ullmann and Bergman — who was 22 years her senior when they fell for each other on the set of Persona in 1965 — lived together for only five tempestuous years, the friendship that they built in the aftermath is very much a love story. And Ullmann’s remembrances of their time together and apart until Bergman’s death in 2007, combined with Akolkar’s sumptuous and artful telling of the story, make Liv & Ingmar a story that can be enjoyed without an immersion course in their work together. Liv & Ingmar is at its essence a story of two people who love each other but cannot live with each other. (Think of it as a real-life Celeste & Jesse Forever .) Ullmann, 73 will attend the U.S. premiere of the film at the New York Film Festival on Monday night, and the Oscar-nominated actress spoke to Movieline about her initial reluctance to participate in Akolkar’s film, her happiness with the result, her rollercoaster relationship with Bergman, and Johnny Carson’s flirting during a Tonight show appearance. Note: The door to which she refers in the interview is located at the house on the Swedish island of Fårö where she and Bergman lived together. On the door’s surface, the couple kept a kind of hand-doodled calendar of their good — and bad days together, and Akolkar repeatedly depicts the drawings as a document of their union. Liv Ullmann and Dheeraj Akolkar Movieline: Liv & Ingmar was clearly an emotional experience for you. Your decision to talk so candidly about your relationship with Ingmar seems pretty brave to me. Was it a difficult one to make? Liv Ullman: Well, I did say no at first, but then I met with the director and the producer here in Norway. They really convinced me I would like to be part of this, but only on a very limited basis: two days to be interviewed and to produce my readings from my book. That was it. I did not have anything to do with how the movie was made. It wasn’t a brave decision because I’ve done so many interviews in my life about Ingmar or Ingmar and me. It was only when I saw the finished movie and saw what it was about that I thought, Oh, if I had know this before, I would maybe would have been more scared because it is so much deeper than I thought based on the interviews I did. The director is a tremendously creative person, and I believe that if Ingmar were alive, he would have liked this version. It’s not how I would have described this relationship, or how he would. But nonetheless, it’s terrifically true. You’re saying that if you had directed this movie, your interpretation of your relationship with Ingmar would have been different? Mine would be different, yes, but I’m not saying that mine would be truer or closer to the truth. It would be my kind of truth. I would have talked more about the memories and the longing, but this is true in a way that I never thought about our relationship. To me, this film is interesting because the person telling the story never met us before. [Dheeraj] only knew me through reading my book Changing and through our brief work together. He never met Ingmar. And yet, Liv & Ingmar may be closer to the truth in some ways because he’s looking in at us and he sees us in a different way than somebody who was completely involved with the experience. That’s interesting. The film left me with the impression that you had worked very closely with Akolkar. No! This movie is his creative work. Except for the interviews I gave, I had absolutely nothing to do with it. We had no discussions beforehand about it. We did not talk while he was editing it or finishing it. We did not talk about music. It was his film. How did Akolkar contact you? He wrote me [to ask if I would participate], and I said, “No.” And I was so glad that the Norwegian people who have money in the film called me and convinced me to meet with him. Sometimes you need to see a person and listen to a person to make your decision. When we met, I saw this young man who was very different from me — a different country and a different religion as far as I know. But I could tell that he was hearing me. We met for one hour, and that’s it. And then we shot two days in Fårö. That’s how much we knew each other. And then when I saw the movie, I just knew this man knows me in so many ways. One of aspects of the movie that I found fascinating was that when your on-camera comments are interspersed with scenes with the Bergman movies you did, the films seem remarkably autobiographical. Was that apparent to you when you were making them? No, I’ve never known this. But that is Ingmar’s genius. The movies may be autobiographical for a lot of people. It’s easy to say, “Oh God, this movie is about us..” But maybe some other woman can say, “Oh, it’s about me, too.” I know a lot of people who’ve said they recognize themselves in these movies. That’s another thing that I really liked about this film: You don’t need to have seen your work with Bergman to feel the emotional impact of this film. It’s a story about a very intense love affair that works on a universal level. Other people have said that to me — that you don’t have to know Ingmar, or me, or our movies to enjoy this movie. That surprises me because the first time I watched it, I thought, maybe this will only appeal to people who have seen the Bergman movies. Liv & Ingmar leaves the distinct impression that you couldn’t live with each other but you also couldn’t live without each other. Exactly. But one thing is true: if we had continued to live with each other, we probably could never have been together as friends afterwards. For some strange reason, it happened at the right time for us. It was so painful — so painful. I hope I’ll never have that pain again. But it led to a deep friendship and often those friendships don’t happen either. When you’re on camera, you really communicate the emotional complexity of your relationship with Ingmar. The scene where you learn that he kept one of your notes tucked away in a favorite teddy bear is pretty devastating. I’m so happy you’re saying that, but the credit goes to the director. The moment with the teddy bear that you talk about – no one knew about it until the housekeeper in Ingmar’s house [in Fårö] said, “Do you know what’s in that teddy bear?” It was kind of a friendship letter that I wrote Ingmar around the time that I did Faithless [in 2000.] And he took the letter and put it in his teddy bear that was always at the house. When I learned about the letter, it was like Ingmar saying again: “I love you –but, of course, not like when you were in Persona . I love you in a different way, and your throwaway letter is so important to me that I’m putting it in my teddy bear.” If I hadn’t done this movie, I would never have learned that. The housekeeper would never have told anyone. The same goes for the door at the house with our drawings. Since I left Fårö, I was so scared that Ingmar would take away the door, or his wife would take away the door. And when Ingmar died, I was sure I’d lose the door. But if you see the film, you see that every year, he did things to keep the sun from bleaching our drawings. Now that there’s no one there anymore to do that, in a couple of years you won’t be able to see what we did very clearly, but now I’ll never lose the door. It’s in the film. That door symbolizes so much. There’s a hand-drawn image of two side-by-side hearts with faces, but they’re both wearing frowns. Was that the essence of your relationship –that you had this great love and yet struggled to make each other happy? You always hope that the other one will make you happy before you think of all the ways that you can make the other one happy. It’s so strange—those doors came just before it was all over [between Ingmar and me]. Why we made the hearts, I don’t know. The other thing I noticed when we made the film is that Ingmar put airmail stamps over some of the dates. I don’t know what’s under them. It’s probably sad. But again, it’s another sign of him saying he cared. Do you still feel his presence? Yes, I do. In this movie, people might say, ‘Ah, he’s not here. He probably would not have made this movie. That happens not to be true. I am so sure that Ingmar would smile and care about this film. I even made a contract with the producer: if I don’t like the movie, I’m going to badmouth it and just say that I spent two days on it and what a shame. I made a contract: no payment but I am free. So, why do you think I’m talking about it? I think this is a great movie about a relationship. It’s a great movie about love. In the movie, you talk about struggling with living in Bergman’s shadow. Do you feel free of that now? I’m will always be proud of having worked with Ingmar. But at the same time, I’m directing Uncle Vanya in Oslo now and an English film version of Strindberg’s Miss Juliet . I will also probably direct Ibsen’s A Doll’s House on Broadway. So, I feel my life has always been apart from Ingmar’s but always connected to him. If I didn’t have him, I wouldn’t have the deep satisfaction of having worked so often with one of the great people of cinema. He has given me so much knowledge and trust and I use so much of what he taught me. When I was in Hollywood and maybe doing things that weren’t the best of the best, I could smile because my luggage were some of Ingmar’s great movies. So nobody could say, ‘Ah, she shouldn’t be filming.” What are your favorite performances in non-Bergman movies? My favorite films are Jan Troell’s The Emigrants (1971) and The New Land , (1972) about Swedish immigrants to the United States. I was nominated for an Oscar for the first one. I just love those two movies. It’s been 40 years since they were made, but they still reflect the attitudes and the realness of why the Swedish came to the United States. I think they would be very important to show now that you are having a new election. I have to ask: I loved the clip in the movie of you being interviewed by Johnny Carson on the Tonight show. He seems genuinely smitten with you. Did he continue to flirt with you when you were off-camera? My husband thought the same thing. He watched it. No, [Carson] didn’t flirt with me after the show didn’t, but he did have me on his program a number of times. And the strange thing is that he didn’t want me at first. He said, “Oh God no, she’s serious. I don’t want someone like that.” He was talked into having me on because I was so open. And then I was there a lot. And no, he did not start, though I wouldn’t have even minded. My husband was very jealous. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
The Academy Awards could finally get the dynamic host they’ve been looking for in Family Guy ‘s Seth MacFarlane , whom Deadline reports has been anointed emcee for the 2013 Oscars telecast. Given his solid SNL hosting debut (which began with an Oscars-appropriate song-and-dance monologue) the Ted creator is a well-rounded choice in a town that doesn’t actually have many writer-actor-producer-singer-funny voice-doers, let alone any willing to regularly push the boundaries of good taste. [ UPDATE : Watch Seth MacFarlane as he makes his official Oscar announcement via video.] But let us not forget, as Deadline reminds us: “Of course during the Emmys he didn’t find his mark and stood on the stage awkwardly when he was a presenter. But, that said, it’s an inspired choice by the Academy…” The man loves to sing and loves to put teddy bears in compromising positions. He’s got my vote of approval. The question is, will the over-50 Oscar-watching crowd take to a little giggity-giggity in their Academy Awards? [ Deadline ]
Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis will take part in a live question-and-answer session on Yahoo! in New York following an early special multi-city screening of Lincoln on Oct. 10. Dreamworks Pictures, which will release Lincoln on Nov. 16, announced on Monday that the discussion with the director and star of the hightly anticipated film will take place in New York after a 7 p.m. screening at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13 on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The movie will also simultaneously screen in nine other cities: Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Boston, Washington DC, Seattle, Miami, Atlanta and Houston. The Q&A will stream live on Yahoo! Movies and audiences at the screenings will view it live via satellite after the film. Questions can be submitted via Twitter using the hashtag: #Lincolnmovie. Let’s hope this goes more smoothly than t he glitchy Google Hangout session with Spielberg and Joseph Gordon-Levitt that took place Sept. 4.
It was the Tweet heard ’round the Twilight -sphere: Toronto Film Festival Artistic Director Cameron Bailey announced via Twitter that Kristen Stewart will be attending the festival with her film On The Road … which just happens to be premiering on September 6, the same night as the MTV Video Music Awards . Coincidental scheduling conflict or convenient timing for avoiding certain Breaking Dawn promotional duties with (or without) betrayed vampire BF Robert Pattinson? Interested parties: 1 addition to our #TIFF12 guest list: Kristen Stewart for ON THE ROAD— Cameron Bailey (@cameron_tiff) August 21, 2012 Neither Stewart nor Pattinson had been confirmed to attend the VMAs, though fans had still held out hope that they’d see one or both in attendance at the annual event. Both stars along with Taylor Lautner were also reportedly opting out of convention tour duties surrounding the Twilight Saga ‘s final installment. “I like pushing and watching a genuine experience on screen,” Stewart of her sexually-daring performance after the film’s Cannes debut. “The reason I wanted to do the job was to be provoked as much as possible and then to do it and take it further. We were just going forth, and as long as you’re being honest there’s nothing to be ashamed of.” [ @Cameron_tiff ]
Maybe call it a trailer preamble. Tidbits of the backstory and a tease of M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming sci-fi pic After Earth spread around the internet after the film’s official site launched a run-down of the backstory. The video gives an account of a 1908 spacecraft crash and the subsequent discovery of a technology called “Lightstream” that propelled humankind forward, before ultimately destroying it. Will Smith and his son Jaden Smith star in the project, which is slated for release next June. The Columbia Pictures release pictures the descendants of the original Polish scientist who worked on the technology, the Raige family, studied Lightstream for generations, but its advances also resulted in environmental catastrophe and one of their own, Skyler Raige leads thousands to an alternative world. They become the most influential family in human history… Smith and Smith play, you guessed it, father and son in this new world 1,000 years after the cataclysmic events forced humanity to flee earth, according to Comingsoon.net (http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=92568). The elder Smith returns from duty to be a father to his estranged son Kitai (the younger Smith). But when an asteroid destroys their craft, they crash-down on a now unfamiliar planet Earth. Kitai has always wanted to be a soldier, and now with his father seriously injured in the cockpit, he must traverse a hostile land to recover their rescue beacon. [Source: Comingsoon.net and Columbia Pictures ]
Norah Jones ‘ music is as soft as they come, but the source material for her new album cover was designed to get you hard. Apparently producer Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse ) has an extensive collection of Russ Meyer posters in his Los Angeles studio, and Jones tells the New York Times that Meyer’s 1965 “roughie” Mudhoney was on her mind while they were recording: “I always was looking at it and thinking ‘that’s so cool I want to look like her!’ I remember staring at the poster the whole time we made the record. It’s a great visual.” Unfortunately the visual is all we’re gonna get from the alluring Ms. Jones. The album cover removes all the amazing taglines from the original Mudhoney poster, like “ Passion debased by lust … leaves a taste of evil! ,”“… a film of ribaldry and violence made from the juice of life!, ” and Skin Central’s favorite, ” You will go away…whispering! ” Also missing are the topless trollops like Lorna Maitland and Antionette Christiani who made the original so MAMorable. Norah Jones isn’t the first musician to admire Russ Meyer – the ’90s grunge band Mudhoney is also named after the film. See what makes Mudhoney so SKINspiring right here at MrSkin.com!
After begging and pleading with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan community to please, please not engage in preemptive flame warfare over the rumors and vagaries surrounding the reboot of their beloved franchise, I now recognize the futility of my attempts at diplomacy. This comes after the film’s attached director Jonathan Liebesman — also of this week’s Wrath of the Titans and last year’s eminently regarded ( ahem ) Battle: Los Angeles — only complicated matters with his comments about the kerfuffle. And then there’s the movie’s reported name change. Liebesman toed the company line at last weekend’s Titans junket, urging TMNT devotees to calm down about producer Michael Bay’s proposed alien-turtle-ooze influence — which apparently “comes straight from the series.” I can’t believe I just wrote that, or this: “Look, it’s so funny — if everyone was such a die-hard fan, they would know that the TCRI canisters where the ooze comes from. That is alien ooze. Now I’m not saying what Michael said is exactly what the movie is, because we’re sitting in a room now figuring everything out. So we don’t know, but we are like Michael said: we’re expanding it, and the expansion will be true to the mythology. I promise you: fans will love it.” Even if those fans are to take Liebesman at his word, there’s also this reported nugget that no doubt have them soiling their Donatello jammies: Bleeding Cool has verified that the working title of the upcoming Paramount-Nickelodeon Turtle movie from producer Michael Bay and director Jonathan Libesman is going by the working title of Ninja Turtles . We know all too well where the “Mutant” bit went, but now it seems we’re also losing “Teenage.” We haven’t been able to get a definite statement as to why this title change is occurring, and our sources are not 100% clear on whether or not the Turtles will indeed be adolescents. One of our sources has said: “It seems to be driven by marketing. Think of John Carter and how Disney wouldn’t allow for a title with either ‘Princess’ or ‘Mars.'” Whatever. See you at the refugee camp! I hope they have wi-fi. [ Collider , Bleeding Cool via AICN ] Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
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