CormacMccarthy Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Interview: Viggo Mortensen
Filed under: Fandom », The Weinstein Co. », Interviews »
Viggo Mortensen is a study in contradictions: rugged and undeniably virile, and yet thoroughly and irresistibly sensitive; the kind of man movie stars are made from, but seemingly more satisfied in a more subdued role in a smaller film. Appropriately, his latest film is both a post-apocalyptic epic and a profound character study; The Road is an adaptation of the acclaimed Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, and Viggo plays its main character, a father desperately trying to protect his son from an unhospitable world, both physically and emotionally.
Cinematical recently sat down with Mortensen at the film's press day to discuss his work in the film, which was directed by John Hillcoat (The Proposition). In addition to talking about navigating an unforgiving landscape, he discussed the challenges of balancing fealty to source material and simply making a fulfilling movie, and revealed a few of his own fears and insecurities when facing the prospect of sustaining a career both as a movie star and character actor, often at the same time.
You can read our interview with director John Hillcoat over here.
Cinematical: Given the richness of the source material and the familiarity that audiences will have with it, do you make an effort to draw upon the text for your character, or do you have to divorce yourself from it and focus on what's in the script?
Interview: 'The Road' Director John Hillcoat
Filed under: The Weinstein Co. », Interviews »
Outside of the established and expanding franchises for book series like Harry Potter and Twilight, there don't seem to be a whole lot of literary works that audiences are just dying to see adapted – except perhaps for The Road. Remarkably, Cormac McCarthy's remarkable 2006 story of a father and son making their way across a post-apocalyptic landscape has been successfully adapted for the screen by director John Hillcoat, who eschewed 2012-style spectacle in favor of a more harrowing and humanistic portrait of two people surviving in the harshest possible environment.
Cinematical recently spoke to Hillcoat at the film's Los Angeles press day, where he was wrapping up a long afternoon of roundtables and one-on-one interviews. Thankfully, he rallied for one more short conversation about The Road, and in addition to talking about the challenges of bringing McCarthy's words to life, he spoke about conceiving the scope of the film, and finding the right faces to fill its damaged landscape.
Cinematical: You obviously began with extremely rich source material when starting to adapt The Road. What was the thing you knew you had to get right and then everything else would sort of fall into place?
Review: The Road
Filed under: Drama », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », New Releases », Theatrical Reviews »
By: Eugene Novikov, reprinted from the Telluride Film Festival '09
Just before the kid was born, the world burned. We don't know why, and the characters don't talk about it -- perhaps they don't quite know themselves, or maybe they've decided that it no longer matters. The Boy's universe is grey, full of ash, dust, and the ruins of a civilization he never saw. This is all he knows. His mother, seeing no point in going on, killed herself shortly after his birth. She was not alone. Many of those who didn't take their own lives were soon murdered by the desperate and hungry.
Skip ahead nine or ten years. The kid and his father wander the barren roadways heading south toward the coast for no clear reason other than that it gives them a tangible goal toward which to strive. (And there's always the hope that the ocean will be something other than gray.) Every day is a knock-down, drag-out fight for survival. They run, hide, starve, and fight off attackers who want their food, or their clothes, or, at one point, their flesh.
I set the stage like this not to horrify you or to gross you out, but to give you a sense of the relentless, pervasive grimness of The Road -- and then to turn around and say that The Road may be the most profoundly optimistic and life-affirming film you will see this year. Those who have read Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name won't be surprised by this. John Hillcoat's faithful, near-perfect adaptation beautifully captures McCarthy's synthesis of all-encompassing darkness and enduring hope.
'The Road' Pushed Back to November 25
Filed under: Awards », Distribution », Newsstand »
Days after Jessica Barnes compiled a nice fall schedule for you, the Weinsteins and Dimension Films had to go and mess it up a little. According to Variety, they've pushed the release date of The Road back from October 16 to November 25 -- almost a year to the day when it was supposed to come out in 2008. The delay isn't because Dimension has lost faith in the film -- quite the contrary. The film is playing to rave reviews at Telluride (where our Eugene Novikov saw it and loved it) and Venice Film Festival, and the Weinsteins have realized they have an awards contender on their hands. "We've been getting great audience reaction at Venice and Telluride," Dimension topper Bob Weinstein said. "We feel that this is a commercial film that's worthy of a wide release." Considering Cormac McCarthy's book was a bestseller and won a Pulitzer, you'd think that might have tipped them off, but ah well. What's good about this decision is that it not only puts it into Golden Globe contention, it also promises a wide release. One of the big fears lurking around the film was that audiences wouldn't get it, and the film could vanish into limited release hell.
The Road will now be in direct competition with Nine, Old Dogs, and Ninja Assassin. Something tells me John Hillcoat's bleak adaptation won't top the holiday box office, but it'll make a far bigger impact. I've been saying since the first stills came out that this might be a role that nabs Viggo Mortensen an Oscar, and I'll stand by that.
Telluride Review: The Road
Filed under: Drama », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Telluride », Theatrical Reviews »
Just before the kid was born, the world burned. We don't know why, and the characters don't talk about it -- perhaps they don't quite know themselves, or maybe they've decided that it no longer matters. The Boy's universe is grey, full of ash, dust, and the ruins of a civilization he never saw. This is all he knows. His mother, seeing no point in going on, killed herself shortly after his birth. She was not alone. Many of those who didn't take their own lives were soon murdered by the desperate and hungry.
Skip ahead nine or ten years. The kid and his father wander the barren roadways heading south toward the coast for no clear reason other than that it gives them a tangible goal toward which to strive. (And there's always the hope that the ocean will be something other than gray.) Every day is a knock-down, drag-out fight for survival. They run, hide, starve, and fight off attackers who want their food, or their clothes, or, at one point, their flesh.
I set the stage like this not to horrify you or to gross you out, but to give you a sense of the relentless, pervasive grimness of The Road -- and then to turn around and say that The Road may be the most profoundly optimistic and life-affirming film you will see this year. Those who have read Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name won't be surprised by this. John Hillcoat's faithful, near-perfect adaptation beautifully captures McCarthy's synthesis of all-encompassing darkness and enduring hope.
'The Road' Finally Gets Itself The Trailer
Filed under: Drama », Horror », Independent », Thrillers », Mystery & Suspense », The Weinstein Co. », Newsstand », Movie Marketing », War », Trailers and Clips »
The trailer for The Road (which now has a release date of October 16) has hit the net courtesy of Yahoo! Movies but we've got an embed here thanks to Trailer Addict. For those who read the Cormac McCarthy book (and I haven't, but I was told the entire thing by a "helpful" friend), you're going to notice what looks like a lot of changes to the story. The mysterious disaster is made explicit, Charlize Theron is given a lot more screen time than the wife ever had in the book, and the action is upped ten times over.
However, this trailer has caused a lot of controversy already with people who have seen the film. Esquire just published a review this week, and noted that the Weinstein Company was falling prey to the temptation to cut a trailer that looked like a post-apocalyptic action movie. According to Esquire, John Hillcoat's film is (and other reviews have borne this out) as quiet, harrowing, and bleak as the novel is, and may just be "the most important film of the year". Unfortunately, the Weinsteins feel no one will see it unless there's an "explanation" and a hook of kick ass action, even if the film itself lacks the things the trailer sells.
But at least you get a glimpse of the real film underneath, which is enough to cause you to choke up. I think we're promised one hell of a gut-wrenching performance from Viggo Mortensen. Just look at his eyes.
It's Finally Time to Hit 'The Road'
Filed under: Fandom », Distribution »
It's been ages since we've heard a peep about the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road. After McCarthy's brutal Texas drama No Country for Old Men won four Oscars at the 80th Academy Awards, rumors of future McCarthy adaptations of The Road and Blood Meridian sprung up immediately, with The Road slated for a November 2008 release. Then McCarthy's post-apocalyptic doom-fest was pushed to December, and then ... silence. But fans of the book -- which was re-released with one of those "Now being made into a real-life motion picture!!!!" stamps a while ago -- can quit their grumbling, because The Road will be released on October 16th, 2009. Once again, it's just in time for Oscar season.
It seemed like a no-brainer to shuffle this genius McCarthy work out the door, especially judging by the cast (helloooo, Viggo), director John Hillcoat, and the few grimy photo stills released to the public. It also bears mentioning that Mr. McCarthy is a tough road to hoe himself, and is known for his dislike for the press and reluctance to get involved in any more film projects after his rumored dissatisfaction with the 2000 adaptation of All the Pretty Horses. So what happened?
Ridley Scott is Still Teasing Us with 'Blood Meridian'
Filed under: Drama », Scripts », Western »
It seems like every other day Ridley Scott is promising to make a movie (even when we wish he wouldn't). But, one project that he can't seem to get in motion is the feature film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's western, Blood Meridian. In an interview with Empire, Scott gave an update on the adaptation, and it sounds like it could be one heck of a movie, but you are left with the feeling that it isn't going to happen any time soon. Scott told Empire, "It's written. I think it's a really tricky one, and maybe it's something that should be left as a novel. If you're going to do Blood Meridian you've got to go the whole nine yards into the blood bath, and there's no answer to the blood bath, that's part of the story, just the way it is and the way it was."McCarthy's novel centered on a teenage runaway referred to as "the kid" and his time with the Glanton gang, a historical group of scalp hunters who massacred pretty much everyone they came across on the United States–Mexico borderlands in 1849 and 1850. Back in August, it had been announced that Todd Field (Little Children) would be taking over for Scott on the project, but Scott made no mention of Field in Empire's interview. Leaving us with another unanswered question hanging over the project: if and when this movie ever gets going, just who is going to be directing it?
Since I haven't read the original novel, I leave it to you out there. Can anyone make a film version of McCarthy's brutal and violent novel? Or, is Scott right? Maybe Meridian should stay on the bookshelf where it belongs.
Will 'The Road' Instead Lead to 2009's Awards Season?
Filed under: Drama », Romance », Thrillers », Awards », RumorMonger », Oscar Watch »
In news that is equally rumored and dreaded, it looks like the Weinsteins' haste to get The Reader in the running for this year's awards season might be a matter of John Hillcoat's anticipated adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's acclaimed novel, The Road, not being ready for its limited release a month from now, let alone year's end.
It's bad enough that neither film was ready for any of the big fall film festivals, but a good friend told me something similar three days ago, and now, Kristopher Tapley at In Contention and Dave Karger's EW Oscar Watch are talking along the same lines. I can't say that I'm the same William who posted the following reaction on Karger's page -- and I quote: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" -- but my own sentiments on the (possible) move aren't all that far off.
For that matter, my feelings on the novel and film themselves are akin to those of our own Eugene Novikov: that the book is merely Damn Good, but could make for a Great movie. We may not have a poster, or a trailer, or a fully functioning website just yet, but for all the Weinsteins' release date shell games, I can't help but think they have more to lose holding off on this than The Reader, which producer Scott Rudin took his name off after it was bumped up to contend with star Kate Winslet's other awards prospect, Revolutionary Road (itself based on an acclaimed novel).
I mean, I'm not exactly wishing that The Reader is Winslet's next All the King's Men or anything, but is this studio not big enough for the both of them? Or is this year merely not long enough?
Go Behind the Scenes on 'The Road'
Filed under: Drama », Horror », Independent », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Thrillers », DIY/Filmmaking », Images »
Our friends over on Quiet Earth snagged a bunch of behind-the-scenes photos from The Road, the much- anticipated adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer-winning novel. They came courtesy of actor Jeremy Ambler, the nice looking fellow to Viggo Mortensen's left. Everyone in the photographs may be smiling (I've never seen cannibal victims look so cheerful!), but I'll be darned if the photo of the Fanker Mansion doesn't send a chill down my spine. We've attached it and a photo of the cannibals in the gallery below -- pretty freaky looks for a very scary scene.
I can't decide if I'm excited for this movie or just plain dreading it. Every glimpse of it makes me go find a puppy and hug it, then watch some YouTube videos of baby pandas for good measure. Get Cute Overload and your Disney DVD's prepped on November 26th -- you're really going to need them.
I can't decide if I'm excited for this movie or just plain dreading it. Every glimpse of it makes me go find a puppy and hug it, then watch some YouTube videos of baby pandas for good measure. Get Cute Overload and your Disney DVD's prepped on November 26th -- you're really going to need them.
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