In the December issue of U.S. Vogue, Liv Ullmann is quoted as saying that Jessica Chastain's performance is "a miracle. There were takes that I just had to keep without cutting away to anyone else because she is extraordinary."
shareA miracle".
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I know. I can't wait to see this film. I just hope it gets U.S. distribution very soon after it debuts in Cannes or Berlin.
shareCannes being in May, don't expect any release before fall 2014 for the season award.
Even with a big buzz at Cannes, the release will be probably limited. I don't see it going "wide".
I agree with everything you said, Harfang33. Fortunately for me, I live in one of the two US cities included in the most limited of releases. Of course, if it does extremely well in limited release, or, if The Weinstein Company or Focus Features buys the US distribution rights, it might go somewhat wider.
shareThank you for your information,I am really hope this film get US distribution soon," Eleanor Rigby "get distribution late so it delay to next year ,I hope this film will in the theatre at 2014
shareI read that the US distribution of Eleanor Rigby was pushed to 2014 because Weinstein believes it has awards potential in the acting and writing categories, and he already had several films that he's promoting for 2013 awards.
shareSo Weinstein will have a Jessica movie and a Michelle Williams movie to push for the awards. That's interesting.
I doubt they will buy "Miss Julie". Focus Features will be great ...
Do you think Michelle Williams is a viable nominee for a project like Suite Francaise? I have my doubts. So many amazing actresses have been cast in that movie that it's looking very much like an ensemble piece.
Jessica, on the other hand, will be battling against herself with two very strong, starring roles.
Focus Features is best case scenario, but if Miss Julie kills in Cannes and Jessica picks up a best actress award there, I think Focus Features might bite. And Lionsgate has a lot of money to spend all of a sudden now as well thanks to The Hunger Games 2.
It looks like Miss Julie will premiere in Cannes, so the film will not get a US distribution until may ?
If both Eleanor Rigby and Miss Julie go for award season next year,I wonder which film will become the main force for jessca.
I think it will depend on how good Miss Julie turns out, I think it's more prominent role for awards, but I wouldn't count out Eleanor Rigby completly. Anyway, Colin Farrel said so himself in recent interview>
FARRELL: ...Jessica is Miss Julie.
...If the film is any good, she should win whatever.
http://collider.com/colin-farrell-saving-mr-banks-interview/
"Miss Julie" is an european indie movie. Distribution rights are sold by Wild Bunch worldwide. At the moment, we don't know if someone has bought the rights for the US. There was no such announcement yet.
The release of the movie in the US will depend exclusively of the strategy of the distributor.
I think the movie could go to other major festival after Cannes. "Faithless" was also at TIFF.
I think the US rights will be bought in Cannes, so TIFF won't be necessary if the rights in the Asian markets have already been sold.
shareThe festival circuit will be probably necessary to create the buzz for the season awards ...
"The artist" was presented at more than 20 festivals after Cannes
Well, Jessica will make whatever appearances at festivals that are necessary. But I think The Artist was a special case--a b&w silent movie. It needed a huge amount of pre-release exposure--to show that despite everything, it was pure entertainment. So this was the appropriate strategy. Miss Julie is pure art house.
"Psychologists are only people who weren't smart enough to be psychics."
I'm going to get jumped all over here, but the Miss Julie character is...just...not good looking at all. I thought Jessica Chastain was supposed to be pretty. If so, what did they do to her? She looks way too old for the role, even.
shareMaybe I didn't hear enough of her dialogue, but I am not sold on her "Irish" accent either.
shareJust as the English occupiers of America didn't have American accents, the English occupiers of Ireland didn't have Irish accents.
shareThat would be true if there was such a thing as an American accent, which there isn't (southern drawl, midwestern twang, Boston dialect). But there isn't, so there's that.
Miss Julie was raised in Ireland, if I recall the play correctly (I saw a college production ten years ago when my roommate got cast in the lead). And as you know, linguists estimate 6-8 months for acquisition of an English to English accent (American to English, English to Irish, etc). So unless Miss Julie just arrived at her father's estate, she would have had plenty of time to come closer to the type of accents that Colin and Samantha had.
I believe that accents in that film would have a purpose, to put some focus on the social class difference.
Liv Ullmann wrote her english script directly from the original swedish version.
She decided to relocate the play in Northern Ireland because she thought that the political situation between irish and english society at that time would illustrate perfectly the social class struggle. So Miss Julie is from British aristocracy, Kathleen and John are irish common people.
The fact that she is an aristocrat does not mean she cannot have an Irish accent, not the watered down version that I heard in the trailers (maybe seeing the entire film will change my mind, as little snippets may not do her accent justice). Rich people and educated people are not immune to picking up accents, especially when they are in the minority culture.
shareSorry deedee9432, but the folks who founded the colonies in northeast America were Brits, and they all had British accents.
And the original play, Miss Julie, was set in Sweden, not Ireland. Also, I don't know where you saw the production starring your friend, but if it was produced in America, it's likely the actors all had American accents.
The production I saw was in London, and Miss Julie had an upper class English accent, while the servants had accents that fit their class. The play is all about class, so regardless of the setting (Sweden, England, Ireland) there is no way the aristocratic Miss Julie would have the same accent as her servants.
You are missing my point entirely jltyler. Your comment that the founders of northeast America were Brits, so therefore they had British accents had nothing to do with my response to your characterization of an "American accent". Please re-read my post more carefully.
The play is all about class, so regardless of the setting (Sweden, England, Ireland) there is no way the aristocratic Miss Julie would have the same accent as her servants.
I'm an American who lived in London for 17 years, and apart from adopting English speech patterns, idioms, and slang, I never adopted a full-blown English accent, probably because I didn't want one.
I did know a number of wealthy English people over there, who were "to the manor born" and who had servants, and none of them lost their posh, upper class accents. As I said, in Britain, one's accent reveals one's class.
Jessica Chastain had a dialogue coach with her on the Miss Julie set, who happens to be English. The accent chosen for her was obviously meant to reflect the fact that THIS Miss Julie was born in Ireland to aristocratic English parents. There is no way, however, that she would have the same accent as her servants. But I guess it was decided that neither would she have a full-blown, English accent. The chances are pretty good that whatever accent she was doing was one that she was told to do by the dialogue coach, who is famous for knowing about such things.
Anyway, how about watching the film before dissing Chastain's performance?
Anyway, how about watching the film before dissing Chastain's performance?
Why would you not believe me when I say that I lived in London? That's just silly.
sharea. This is the internet. People lie on the internet. All. The. Time.
b. The fact that you mention you live in London after the exchange we had seemed very convenient.
c. You said you didn't get an accent because you deliberately tried not to pick one up. Now THAT is silly. You clearly don't have an understanding about language acquisition and social linguistics.
d. I am not stupid, nor am I silly.
a. People may lie on the internet. I do not.
b. I said I LIVED in London for 17 years. I do not live in London now. What you regard as convenient, I regard as 17 happy years of my life.
c. People who want to acquire an English accent will acquire it (or a reasonable facsimile thereof). People who do not, will not--particularly if their spouses aren't English, either.
d. You are silly if you keep insisting that I'm lying just because some people lie on the internet.
a. People who lie always say they don't lie!
b. You totally misunderstood my statement; it was convenient for you to bring it up at this point.
c. I repeat - you have no understanding of language acquisition; it is not a voluntary experience. It becomes part of our unconscious, and we don't even realize we have the accent.
d. You would be silly to think everyone believes everything on the internet. It is 2014.
a. People who aren't lying also always say that they are not.
b. I don't usually go around sharing details of personal life on the internet. I brought up my years of residence in London and lack of an English accent simply as an example of how a person can live in a foreign country and not acquire an accent. In London, one would have decide which accent one wished to acquire since there are so many. But I'm sure you knew that.
c. Unless one goes to live in another country while still a child, it is not a done deal that one will acquire an accent. I was not a child but a grown woman.
d. I don't believe everything on the internet.
e. To get back on topic, English aristocrats, who have lived for years with the same servants, do not acquire the accents of their servants.
a-d) totally unfounded
e. You KNOW this how? There are no "aristocrats" anymore so what are you basing your opinion on? I asked you this question before but you never answered me. Also, why aren't you attacking the poster before my original post, who said JC was too old & not pretty enough to play the part of MJ? Just curious about that
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You actually think there are "aristocrats" today? In the same way there was a hundred years ago? YOU should walk away and read a history book. lol
shareYup, I have, shellymanner.
Btw, have you seen the two Miss Julie clips yet? That first one made me forget all about their accents.
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As I've said before, my JC fandom aside, I'm very much into period authenticity, and not merely in terms of the carriages, costumes, and props. I would be very upset if JC played Julie in the same naturalistic acting style that she played Eleanor Rigby. All of those TV series and films that take place a few centuries ago and use present day slang and speech patterns make me sick. Consequently, Miss Julie could very well turn out to be my favorite film of the year.
Re the news about the Dominik Chinese sci-fi script. The director is apparently busy with other projects for the next couple of years. Dominik could easily make "Blonde," which is likely to be an uncompliciated, 6-8 week shoot, beginning of next year. As you know, agents line up projects for their clients as the offers comes along.
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Fine with me, shellymanner. But as you know, the original play is just about as heavy handed as it gets.
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Of course Samantha Morton will come out of it unscathed. She's a great actress and has the most uncomplicated role in the piece. She is US, the audience (assuming, we are simple, salt-of-earth folk), who are mystified by the strange goings on in the household that mid-summer's night.
Jessica and Colin are the ones taking all the risks. He doesn't have as much to lose as she does, but apparently she likes it that way. According to Del Toro, she turned down the safe, Jane Eyre-type heroine role in Crimson Peak in favor of the weird, kinky sister role. But, who, after all, could blame her?
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You're misunderstanding my point. I'm not being snobbish, nor am I putting the audience or you down. In many plays and films where there are particularly strange goings-on and complex characters with suspect motivations, there's a supporting character (frequently a servant), whose motivations are clear and straightforward and whose role it is to be the grounded, go-to person for the audience to latch onto when the complicated characters get weird and crazy. Audiences love that character and identify with her/him. Rarely do they identify with or like the neurotic characters, which makes those roles riskier for the stars playing them.
I think I've asked you this question the last time you questioned Jessica's acting ability, shellymanner, but I can't recall your answer: What films of hers have you seen?
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I can't talk about her stage work since I've never seen her on stage. I'm hoping Salome will be released here, on DVD if not in cinemas, since it's essentially a filmed stage play. According to those who saw it in Venice, her performance is outstanding (and eye-popping). She said she read Toni Bentley's Sister's of Salome to prepare for the role, so I'm doubly intrigued to see what she does with it. In any case, the film will be released in selected cities in the UK following its Q&A screening at the BFI, so there's bound to be a review or two.
I have found her film work to be of a very high quality, particularly in Take Shelter (naturalistic), The Tree of Life (ethereal), and The Help (broadly comic). Since these three films were released at around the same time, I have to say that she knocked my head back.
I think Samantha's role is as complicated as the others.
Liv Ullmann exaggerated a bit. But she has to sell the movie, after all.
Jessica Chastain's performance leaves to be desired. Her accent was inconsistent throughout the movie and in some scenes she goes over the top. She is way more neurotic and hysterical than her character. (She does this in many movies. Maybe she does too much theatre, or maybe she just is like that. In this case, she needs to work on her retenue.)
I really regret Ullmann did not cut away more to Farrell. We see way too much of Chastain and too little of Farrell, who is brilliant. HE is extraordinary and did a much better job than Chastain. From all the points of view.
He was excellent. She was amazing. She's playing a character who's desperate and going crazy. Ullmann wanted to make a filmed stage play. That means theatre acting. Farrell's acting was equally OT because that's what Ullmann wanted. You're a Chastain hater and a Farrell lover. So be it.
shareOh please, don't put me in simplistic categories. I am no hater/lover of any actor. I think in Zero Dark Thirty JC did an excellent job. Whereas I cannot understand how could CF play in Winter Tale...
I know well the play (I studied Strindberg). I read Miss Julie in four languages. For the English version, I read 5 translations and 2 adaptations. Believe me, JC could|should have done a much better job. 'Powerful' does not necessarily mean quality. Maybe she did not have enough time to prepare--they shot it in 28 days, after one week rehearsal. In her case, there was no subtlety, no refinement in the interpretation. Just raw emotion. Simplistic and visceral. Oh well.
Chastain was quite awful. Limited range but tries to go to the extremes on her limited range which is over acting. Instead of drawing a reaction from the viewer she is "performing".
The maid was a much better actor than Chastain and the scene between Colin Ferrell and the maid are much more dynamic and compelling.