surely not ... Wong Kar-wai goes Hollywood?
Thursday, 21. September 2006, 00:27:37
So I've been watching the news about a coup in Thailand, riots in Hungary, Bush embarassing himself at the UN and being called "the Devil" by Hugo Chavez during a UN address. And amid all of that we're trying to get the house ready for showings and set a price for it (our central 1950s neighborhood ranges from 106 to 250 $US per square foot). But only one bit of news made me shout out "what the ...? no way"
It's this: Wong Kar-wai is making a movie with Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Tim Roth, Ed Harris, Rachel Weisz, and singers Cat Power and Norah Jones.
First of all, he is an amazing director who's smallest work (even the short he did for BMW Films a few years ago) are amazing and paced with a painterly, beautiful, quiet patience. Some of this is certainly the benefit of Christopher Doyle's cinematogrophy. Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together are brilliant slices of life that show the story through the smallest off-beat moments (a man talking to his washcloth and his soap as he gets ready). His bigger and more recent movies like In the Mood for Love and 2046 are beautiful and difficult and make you want to cry. They are overtly sentimental and romantic and painful and unashamed of their excesses.
So what is Hollywood doing with this distinctly Hong Kong director and an American setting? Even more confusing is their willingness to back him after his infamously long delays, re-shoots, re-cuts, and insanely unpredictable shooting schedule. How did they ever get this project insured? After 2046 impacted so many other projects and was still being cut and re-cut even as it was being delivered to Cannes where they had to readjust the festival to accomodate it ... and he still re-cut it twice more before releasing it widely.
I'm happy to see this auteur get a big project of his own but am afraid that without Chris Doyle and doing an American road movie, he may stray from the intimacies and internal struggles that so mark his movies. I must say, I am curious.
It's this: Wong Kar-wai is making a movie with Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Tim Roth, Ed Harris, Rachel Weisz, and singers Cat Power and Norah Jones.
First of all, he is an amazing director who's smallest work (even the short he did for BMW Films a few years ago) are amazing and paced with a painterly, beautiful, quiet patience. Some of this is certainly the benefit of Christopher Doyle's cinematogrophy. Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together are brilliant slices of life that show the story through the smallest off-beat moments (a man talking to his washcloth and his soap as he gets ready). His bigger and more recent movies like In the Mood for Love and 2046 are beautiful and difficult and make you want to cry. They are overtly sentimental and romantic and painful and unashamed of their excesses.
So what is Hollywood doing with this distinctly Hong Kong director and an American setting? Even more confusing is their willingness to back him after his infamously long delays, re-shoots, re-cuts, and insanely unpredictable shooting schedule. How did they ever get this project insured? After 2046 impacted so many other projects and was still being cut and re-cut even as it was being delivered to Cannes where they had to readjust the festival to accomodate it ... and he still re-cut it twice more before releasing it widely.
I'm happy to see this auteur get a big project of his own but am afraid that without Chris Doyle and doing an American road movie, he may stray from the intimacies and internal struggles that so mark his movies. I must say, I am curious.
Surely, My Blueberry Nights wont have the essence of others WKW movie´s. I think that the american performance will change the sense of all. Let´s trust in Wongkarwai with new actors and without his photography director.
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By anonymous user, # 16. June 2007, 18:33:14