vanessa redgrave Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, many of you feel my client Gerard Butler should be placed on movie star probation. In the light of new evidence, I plan to petition for a retrial as it would appear that Mr. Butler has abandoned romantic comedies in order to accept a role from England's greatest playwright. Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Butler is taking a role in William Shakespeare's Coriolanus alongside Ralph Fiennes, William Hurt, Vanessa Redgrave, and Jessica Chastain. Fiennes will be playing the lead and will be helming the adaptation in his directing debut, which was adapted by John Logan.

On a very awkward appearance on Baltimore WJX, Butler revealed that his next role would be in Fiennes' adaptation, and he described it as "a passion project" for them both. He didn't specify which role he would be taking on, but I'm hoping it's Coriolanus' sworn enemy, Tullus Aufidius. He always looks so good with blood on him, and it would be glorious to watch him fight Fiennes.

Of course, this is Shakespeare and financing could be difficult even with Fiennes at the helm, though a solid cast should help with that. It was one of the projects at the IFF this September, and I hope they found someone to give them some money. Not only does the world always need more Shakespeare, but Butler needs a meaty role now. Seeing as it was Steven Berkoff's Coriolanus was what ushered Butler into acting, I can think of no better production (save perhaps The Scottish Play) that could wrangle him another plea bargain.

Be still my Shakespearian heart. Yes, I've written about ol' Will a lot lately, and now it's time for more, although with this round, the Bard is providing the inspiration rather than the story. Variety reports that Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave, Gael Garcia Bernal, and Franco Nero will star in Letters to Juliet, an adaptation of Lise and Ceil Friedman's book. (Not to be confused with this Juliet-inspired project.)

Riffing on the book, which talks about Verona and the multitude of people who write letters to Juliet in care of the city, the story will follow a couple (Seyfriend and Garcia Bernal) who vacation in Italy and mistakenly get one of these letters. Written by Redgrave's character, the letter recounts her memories of being romanced during a trip to the country long ago. Inspired, Seyfried heads to Tuscany to find the woman's lost love (Nero). Man, she likes playing Cupid. Anyone want to make bets about how long it will take for her to star in a film AS Cupid?

The project was adapted by Jose Rivera (Motorcycle Diaries and the upcoming On the Road) and Tim Sullivan, and will be directed by Gary Winick, the man behind Tadpole, 13 Going on 30, Charlotte's Web, and Bride Wars. I'm not sure what that will mean for this film -- fluffy romance, something more gritty, a little bit of both? -- but I do like the idea. Production begins in Italy on June 25.

I never thought the day would arrive that I could blog this news! Coriolanus is hitting the screen in its first big feature film. After countless reimaginings of star-crossed lovers, turmoil in Hamlet town, and double toil and trouble, we're finally getting something new in Shakespeare Land. (And it only took a year after making my wish known as King Lear got another dose of the feature treatment.)

Empire reports that Ralph Fiennes is going to make his directorial debut with his take on the war-filled play, John Logan is penning the adaptation, and he's lined up Vanessa Redgrave, William Hurt, and Jessica Chastain to star. Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare's tragedies that follows Gaius Martius, a determined and formidable Roman general who is not a fan of the lower classes. He wins a great battle for Rome, becomes a hero, and is invited to become a consul in the Senate -- but he must get the support of the plebeians, which leads to his ultimate downfall.

Fiennes will also take on the title role, although there is no word on who the others will play. (It is, however, probably a very safe bet to say that Redgrave will be Gaius' mother, Volumnia. Otherwise, she'd be criminally underused.) Fiennes is probably one of the best bets out there, and one of the only ones who could follow in the shoes set forth on the screen -- Morgan Freeman (in one of the few adaptations in 1979) -- plus stage stints by Laurence Olivier, Colm Feore, Richard Burton, Ian McKellen, and my personal favorite -- Christopher Walken. Oh yeah, and Fiennes has tackled the role before.

I'm so very in. You?

Ridley Scott's Robin Hood has added so many people that we've actually fallen a bit behind in reporting them all. Shortly after Cate Blanchett came aboard as Maid Marian, the film added Mark Strong as Sir Godfrey, Alan Doyle as Alan-a-Dale, Scott Grimes as Will Scarlet, Kevin Durand as Little John, and Bronsen Webb as someone named Jimoen.

Deserving its own mention is my favorite casting (so far) -- Vanessa Redgrave as Eleanor of Aquitaine. I think she's possibly the only actress who can be as formidable in Eleanor's crown as Katharine Hepburn.

Now, The Hollywood Reporter says that William Hurt is joining up as William Marshall (or Marshal if you keep the historic spelling), a man described as "the greatest knight who ever lived" by his contemporary, Stephen Langton. He rose from obscurity to become a knight, who made his living in jousting tournaments a'la The Knight's Tale. He joined the court of Henry II and subsequently served the three following Plantagenets, including King Richard I, and his brother, King John. When he died, he was one of the most powerful men in Europe, and was known simply as "the Marshal."

Update 2: Liz Smith is now reporting that Natasha Richardson has been taken off life support. She notes, "Everybody in the family - Liam, the two boys, Vanessa, Lynn Redgrave, Joely Richardson - have all been in the hospital with Natasha, and word is in at 1:30 PM WEDNESDAY they have taken Natasha off of life support. This is not unexpected."

Update: The hospital told TMZ that Richardson is suffering from brain swelling, and is not, in fact, brain dead.

Earlier today, news started to surface that Natasha Richardson had been in a ski accident on Quebec's Mont Tremblant on Monday. According to reports, she'd suffered a minor fall during a private lesson with a ski instructor -- no visible signs of injury or immediate problems. About an hour after the fall, while sitting with the ski patrol and instructor, she developed a headache and was taken away in an ambulance. At 12:30 today, she was taken out of the hospital and left the country.

Now, according to FOXNews, the Tony-award winning actress, who is married to Liam Neeson and the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave, is brain dead. Sources have told the site that she is being transported back to New York City to be taken off life support. Neeson was filming in Toronto at the time, and quickly flew to be at his wife's side.

But as of now, there are conflicting rumors and reports that range from minor injuries to, as Fox says, life-support. As the story evolves, we'll keep you updated.

Our thoughts are with you, Ms. Richardson.

Last night, Vanessa Redgrave accepted a career achievement award during the Hamptons International Film Festival. Of course, if you know anything about the actress besides her work, you know that she doesn't bite her lip in awards situations. In the seventies, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting performance in Julia. Members of the Jewish Defense League protested the ceremony, the Academy got death threats, but Redgrave still won the Oscar, and in her speech, she said she wouldn't be influenced by "a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums - whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world, and to their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression."

The JDL continues to be less than a fan 30 years later, regardless of the actress supporting Israel's right to exist and fighting against Anti-Semitism. Chairman Shelley Rubin said before the appearance: "Even though many in the motion picture industry happen to be Jewish, any and all of them responsible for giving her work or honoring her as the Hamptons International Film Festival has done evidently suffer from either self-hatred or idol-worship." Meanwhile, festival chairman Stuart Match Suna said: "I'm a Jew who's visited Israel twice, and it's a very complex geographical, religious, and political situation there. Vanessa is a true artist who cares about humanity, and artists need to be provocative and provoke thought." I guess he's not one of the fans of summer fluff that rule the box office.

Anyhow, the night included a talk with fellow actor Alec Baldwin, and Redgrave discussed California spending more on prisons than schools, to which he said: "You're not going political on me now? Because you know I have no tolerance for that bullshit." She continued with: "We're losing all our human and democratic rights in all countries all over the world. If every politician devoted their entire attention to the well-being of children, they'd change everything in 10 years." That's not so incendiary, right? Then again, I don't think her acceptance speech was enough to label her a terrorist, like some have.

A weepie examination of female and sexual identity whose worth is roughly equal to that of a used Kleenex, Evening is a schmaltzy nostalgic fusion of clichéd melodrama and carpe-diem lessons about regret, love and courage. Based on Susan Minot's novel from a screenplay by the author and The Hours scribe Michael Cunningham, director Lajos Koltai's (Fateless) feature is a golden-hued eye-roller, full of gorgeous seaside locales, beautiful people, and oh-so-profound issues of life and death, not a one believable thanks to Koltai's insistent sappiness and a story that's familiar, goofy and unbearably corny. A bifurcated affair, Evening begins at the bedside vigil of dying Ann (Vanessa Redgrave), where her two daughters Constance (Natasha Richardson) and Nina (Toni Collette) argue over their differing life paths -- Constance is a suburban wife and mom of two, Nina is an aimless mess unable to commit to the boyfriend with whom she's expecting a child -- while listening to mom enigmatically prattle on about a man named Harris.

Commence flashbacks and the piano-and-flute score, because this soggy mystery is the film's meat-and-potatoes, as Minot's tale goes on to detail the momentous romance between young Ann (Claire Danes) and Dr. Harris (Patrick Wilson) at the 1950s Newport wedding of Ann's best friend Lila Wittenborn (Mamie Gummer, who plays -- and in real life is -- the daughter of Meryl Streep). A Greenwich Village bohemian who pays her way singing in skuzzy nightclubs while dreaming of stardom, Ann arrives at Lila's cliffside mansion with Lila's brother Buddy (Hugh Dancy), a cheery fellow who drowns feelings of self-loathing and inadequacy about his writing talents (he dreams of being the next Hemingway) with alcohol. Koltai shoots this swanky setting like he's working on the latest J. Crew catalog spread, his overly sentimental images of the outstretched twilight ocean nicely meshing with dying Ann's faux-wondrous hallucinations about fireflies, butterflies, and a night nurse dressed in a sparkly evening gown. Every moment and aspect of Evening is suffocatingly twee and self-satisfied -- except, that is, for those brief occasions when it's just pitifully conventional.

It's difficult to pull off May-December romances in movies, mainly because they're so creepy. As often as not, the movie doesn't even acknowledge the age difference, casting men in their fifties opposite girls in their twenties, with nothing in mind but the potential box office returns. If the movie does acknowledge the gap, it's usually to make some kind of wry statement, most famously in Nabokov's Lolita, adapted for the screen twice, by Stanley Kubrick in 1962 and Adrian Lyne in 1997.

The new movie Venus miraculously manages a deft balance of all this, and on top of it, the age difference is a staggering fifty years, between19 year-old Jessie (Jodie Whittaker) and 70-something Maurice (Peter O'Toole). Of course, this is no traditional romance, but more of an odd, tender friendship, not unlike that of Lost in Translation (2003).

A working London actor busy with plays and television, Maurice loves to spend time with his old colleague Ian (Leslie Phillips). Their dryly hilarious bickering sets the tone for the rest of the film. Ian anticipates a visit from his grand-niece, and expects that she will begin caring for his worldly needs, such as cooking and cleaning. Of course, the girl that actually arrives is more of a modern teenager, Jessie (Jodie Whittaker), with modern teenage ennui, cynicism and selfishness. While these qualities drive Ian into a fit of pique, they actually intrigue the more playful Maurice. He slowly engages her in conversation, and his way of bluntly telling the truth (there's no point in lying at his age) does not repulse her. Later, he impulsively offers to buy her a drink, and she discovers that, as an actor, he's "a little bit" famous.

Odds and ends from Friday and the weekend:

• After she finishes directing Things We Lost in the Fire, Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier will tackle an adaptation of Amanda Foreman's novel, Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire. Simply called The Duchess, pic tells a story of "politics, wealth, and intrigue of late-eighteenth-century aristocracy through the intimate story of a woman who was its leader." Bier also directed the Danish film Open Hearts, which Zach Braff is supposed to direct at some point in the very late future.
• The cast for Lajos Koltai's Evening just got a whole more interesting. Hopping onboard the project are Meryl Streep and Mammie Gummer. Mother and daughter in real life, the two will play the same character at different phases in her life. Also joining this list of amazing female actresses (which already included Vanessa Redgrave, Toni Collette and Claire Danes) are Glenn Close and Eileen Atkins.
• While there's no direct quote from the man, according to a few different sources Steven Spielberg may be interested in directing the next Jurassic Park flick himself. Though Joe Johnston (who directed part three) is Spielberg's first choice to helm, if for some reason he cannot do it then Stevie will take on the task. What does this mean for Indiana Jones 4? Hell if I know, but it can't be good.

Odds and ends from Monday:

• Patrick Wilson is set to spend a hot and steamy Evening with Vanessa Redgrave, as the actor has signed on to play the love of her life (through flashbacks, I assume) in the upcoming film to be directed by Lajos Koltai. Claire Danes, Toni Collette and Hugh Dancy also star in a story about a 65-year-old cancer patient who, with her two daughters by her side, reflects on the weekend in which she met the man of her dreams.
• Filming is set to begin next week in Norway on True North, starring Michelle Yeoh, Sean Bean and newcomer Michelle Crusiec. Directed by Asif Kapadia (from a script by Kapadia and Tim Miller), pic is described as "a story about the collision of a native culture with greed-driven invaders." Returning once again to produce (after working with Kapadia on his debut film, The Warrior) will be Film4 and The Bureau. The French label Celluloid Dreams will be in charge of the film's international sales. (Note: A subscription is required to view the above link.)
• With his tenth film (Arthur and the Minimoys) coming out this winter, Luc Besson has officially announced that he's calling it a wrap ... as far as directing goes. Though he's mentioned in the past that his tenth film will be his last, the director (whose resumé includes such films as The Fifth Element and The Professional) spoke out Monday and once again confirmed to the press that this is it. Says Besson, "They are my 10 babies and I love them all. Now it's over." While this may mark the end of his directing career, Besson did not say anything about writing or producing, which leads us to believe he will still linger around.