Leigh Whannell aced updating The Invisible Man in 2020 by making it a horror about domestic abuse and gaslighting, and he’s on the money again with another smart reinterpretation of a Universal classic monster. This time he takes the Lon Chaney jr horror and places it in 1995 Oregon where a young boy, Blake, lives in fear of his army vet dad and some unseen threat in the woods. Fast forward to modern day and Blake (Christopher Abbott) is a dad himself and married to a workaholic journalist and breadwinner, Charlotte (Julia Garner). In a neat role reversal, Blake is the primary parent to their kid, Ginger, complaining of Charlotte’s work impinging on family life, having put his own writing career on the backburner. So when a letter arrives declaring his missing father officially dead and his childhood home legally his, Blake suggests a family trip in a U-haul to clear out the remote cabin. He’s clearly forgotten a lot about his traumatic upbringing because the trio arrive in a no-phone-signal dense forest in the dark. The anticipatory dread that has pervaded the film from the start comes to fruition, as the family find themselves running through the woods pursued by something… and over a single night transformation will arrive for everyone.
Photography by Nicola Dove
Whannell excels in tension and Wolf Man is an exercise in ratcheting with jump scares, body horror and set pieces in the pitch black. But the aspects that make the concept truly frightening is the decision to show the shifting perspectives of hunter and prey – and the emotional clout that comes with that. As an audience we see the horror of a stalking man-creature from the POV of his would-be victims; and then, via disquieting sound design and instinctual VFX, the way dark-blind humans look like dinner to a predator. Wrapped up within this are themes exploring pandemic fears and infection, generational trauma and our anxieties about becoming the worst parts of our parents.
Photography by Nicola DovePhotography by Nicola Dove
Abbott, in a role originally scheduled for Ryan Gosling, brings a tortured pathos to a Dad trying to do his best and protect his family from himself, while Garner gets to flex her ‘final girl’ muscles. And Whannell makes popcorn-spilling use of the terror of an animal’s breath, an escape from a truck, the velvet darkness of an unlit house and the unknown source of upstairs banging. Though some may tire of the repetitive running between house, car, greenhouse, barn… the overall takeaway is one of a sharp, effective chiller with considerable bite.
Words by JANE CROWTHER Photographs by NICOLA DOVE Wolf Man is in cinemas now
Though it was released on New Year’s Day you may not have made it to the cinema to catch the latest potent fever dream from Robert Eggers – but you should make it your resolution to do so. Darkly designed to fill a big screen (it opens by descending an audience into pitch blackness and sounds of distress), the filmmaker’s reinterpretation of FW Murnau’s 1922 take on Dracula is a crepuscular, filthy and visceral vision of sexual obsession and the plight of women who speak up against predators. Yes, it’s about bloodsuckers and staking, but with current headlines it’s inescapable to not see a correlation between the claims of a young woman (Lily-Rose Depp) being dismissed and her realisation that only her own bravery will stop abuse.
Depp plays Ellen, a new wife to Nicholas Hoult’s solicitor in 1838 Germany, whose pallid complexion and nervous disposition are caused by the night terrors she suffers as a creeping, shadowy presence stalks her. When hubby is called away to attend to the needs of a client in Carpathia, a count ‘with one foot in the grave’, Ellen fears losing herself in the nightmares and moves in with friends (Aaron Taylor Johnson and Emma Corrin). Meanwhile, her husband undertakes the six week journey to the snowy mountains where gypsies warn of evil and Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) lurks in his inhospitable castle with nails like a Guinness World Record holder and a truly disquieting, fetid voice that is the aural equivilent of damp, decay, death. The fresh blood that willingly enters his home sets Orlok on a course of destruction to Ellen that takes in plague, exorcism and monster hunting courtesy of Willem Defoe.
Though the story may be familiar, Eggers’ reliably striking visuals are not; Skarsgard’s creature design is disgusting enough you’ll be sure you can smell him, while the cinematography recalls a Vermeer painting – characters often framed in doorways, tree-tunnels, gateways to heartstoppingly beautiful effect. Set pieces such as Ellen’s possession (Depp contorting herself, eyes as large as saucers), her husband’s welcome in Carpathia (thundering horse hooves in the snowy gloaming) and a city laid waste by disease are grotesque, gorgeous, grim. The detail of costume, set design and sound is richly layered, while Eggers’ cast are pitch perfect. Skarsgard is cornering the market in terrifying characters you can’t shake while Hoult’s terror in Transylvania is palpable. But the film belongs to Depp; as fragile as glass, tremulous and bruised – but also erotic, feral and ultimately, kickass.
Viewers who are not fond of rats or scuttling things might find Nosferatu intolerable, but for everyone else Egger provides a thrumming discomfort of terrible beauty that will haunt as certainly as Orlok himself.
Humphrey Bogart’s son with Lauren Bacall, Stephen, gave his blessing to writer-director Kathryn Ferguson’s documentary Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes which charts his father’s career and legacy via the instrumental women in his life; his mother and his four wives.
As the co-manager of the Humphrey Bogart Estate, you don’t want people to run roughshod over the image of someone who has been historically at such heights. I’m not famous, but my father was famous and somebody’s going to try to screw you over. They’re going to try to do stuff that you probably don’t want to have done. This has not been my life’s work, but it’s been important to me to do that. And in order to do that, you have to do trademarks. You have to do licensing. You have to do that legally. Or else it just goes to the public domain. So it’s a double-edged sword. You really have to do it, even if you don’t want to.
The estate gets a lot of requests and if the request was going to be the cookie-cutter bio of ‘movie, movie, movie, movie, movie, meets Betty [Bacall], movie, dead’ I wasn’t interested. I voiced one of those [Bogart: The Untold Story, 1997) before, and my mother did Bacall on Bogart for PBS. But the way that Kathryn [Ferguson] proposed us doing it was totally different from any biography I’d seen on anybody. And there aren’t many people who had a succession of women in their lives who have affected them so specifically. It was so incredibly different. And it turned out to be really spectacular. I am not a complete expert on my father at all. I worked for CBS and Court TV and NBC. I’ve been working my whole life – not at this. I never thought about his relationship with his prior wives [stage actor Helen Menkin, film actors Mary Phillips, Mayo Methot and Lauren Bacall]. So all of that was new to me.
Some of it was not new – like the footage I am in as a child [8 year-old Stephen is seen attending his father’s star-studded Beverly Hills funeral in 1957]. I remember, I had my hand over my face when I’m walking out of the funeral because I’m blocking it from the photographers. I’m not crying or anything. But I don’t remember during the funeral. I don’t even know if I remember that part, but I remember it because I’m seeing it on video.
I’ve been my father’s son for as long as I’ve been born, obviously. So I’m used to [the idea of having famous parents]. My friends were just friends. They may have been Liza [Minelli], Sammy Cahn’s kid Stevie… these were the people I hung around with, but they were just friends. I was just a normal kid. I only realised my parents were famous when I went to my father’s funeral – all those people, and all the press. Then all of a sudden it was over, and stuff started to happen. My whole life changed. We moved and lived in England for a while, and we moved back to New York. I had three dogs and a cat – and no more. We got rid of the dogs. We got rid of the cat. We got rid of the house. We got rid of the school. We got rid of the state. And we moved to England, and got rid of the country. And then we came back to New York. There were a lot of losses along the way.
It was annoying [to be known as the son of Humphrey Bogart] as a teenager, in my twenties, my thirties… It’s even annoying now! I would not introduce myself using my last name, because then I wouldn’t have to deal with: ‘Oh, are you…?’ But my close friends know who I am, and they know all of this, but they don’t care. That’s what’s most important.
My parents were probably one of the top five couples of the 20th century. You’ve got the Kennedys. You’ve got Edward and Wallis Warfield Simpson, and you’ve Charles and Di. They were right up there with these in terms of fame. So I think they just went through life knowing that. They went through their 12 years together knowing that. They stood out. But they always put their marriage first.
My father loved to sail [on his boat, the Santana]. I was not allowed to go on the boat until I could swim. I’d go down to the boat, and I’d be on the boat while I was in the dock, before he went out. It sank in San Francisco Bay, and a guy pulled it up, and fixed it up. He didn’t really change it. So I went on it then, when I wrote my book [Bogart: In Search Of My Father]. There’s footage in the film of me on Satana but I don’t remember this stuff. That’s the thing. I see it, and I say, ‘Oh, I did that. Yeah, I can see that’. But there’s no visceral memory of it within me. That’s a strange thing.
I don’t know what my father would think of the movie because it’s not all hearts and flowers. It takes a somewhat negative – especially by today’s standards – view of him. But he was tremendously proud of his work, and he loved his work. He loved making movies. That was what was most important to him. And making a living! He liked money – he liked the nice house, the nice boat, the nice car, and all that.
Did I ever consider following in my father’s footsteps? I’m not an idiot. Can you imagine becoming an actor, and having to live up to that hype? No way. Plus I’m not very good at it. My parents made me do it. They made me be in plays when I was in middle school. I played Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew in an all-boys school. And I played General Snippet in The Mouse that Roared, but I’m not very good, and I don’t really like being someone else. It’s not my thing. Although if [Bogart] had lived longer, who knows? I don’t know that he would have encouraged me. I might have gravitated to it just because you’re in that milieu, so why not?
I have no idea why my father continues to fascinate us. If I did, I’d be selling it, and I’d be a billionaire! It’s inexplicable. People have asked me that all the time. Yeah, he died young, and he was a fine actor, but even he says he didn’t know how he ended up the way he did.
He’s a movie star to other people but my father to me. When I think of him it’s in a sports coat. I think of him on a boat. He was around for such a short time in my life. I didn’t know who he was, which is why I wrote the book, and why we did the documentary.
You don’t have to be a parent or have been part of raising a child to feel the vibes of Marielle Heller’s adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel. But anyone who has ever played the hundredth mindnumbing toddler game in a day, cleaned up ankle-biter messes on rinse and repeat or prayed that the little darling goes to sleep in hour four of lullabies will feel seen watching Amy Adams, as an unnamed mother, lie facedown and aghast on the carpet of her living room while her child jumps on her.
Following the internal monologue of our nameless protagonist, Nightbitch introduces us to a woman who used to identify as an artist with a vibrant life in Manhattan and now struggles to find a clean shirt in a daily suburban routine of caring for her child while her sweet, feckless husband (Scoot McNairy) works away during the week. Heller depicts this as a relentless, machinery hum of monotony – the same hash browns for breakfast, the walk to the park, the fraught bathtime, the wind-down routine, the sleepless nights. The Mother dreams of shouting her real thoughts at former colleagues she meets in the supermarket who ask ‘Don’t you just love being a Mom?’, of running away from the sunny mums she meets at baby book club, of ripping her husband’s throat out when he returns to complain about his room service and tell her that ‘happiness is a choice’. Which is when a pack of dogs start showing up at the Mother’s door, when she starts to grow hair, likes eating a raw steak, when a nub protrudes from the base of her back like a tail… Is the Mother becoming something else?
With its flirtation with body horror (pus-filled sores are poked with needles), transformation and society’s rigid view of ‘good’ women, Nightbitch shares similar themes with The Substance. Tonally though, it’s a gentler rage against the machine. Fans of the book will perhaps feel that a certain cat incident lacks, ahem, bite, while the ferocity of Yoder’s societal critique is softened. But while the satire might be less savage, the commitment of Adams is not. In a truly vanity-free portrayal, she sticks the landing of playing a believable messy woman trapped in a maternal Groundhog Day and wracked with guilt for having wished for it. And when she’s digging into the back garden earth, nose pressed to soil and nails seamed with filth, she’s a feral, joyous creature that you’ll want to run the streets with.
Though it wants its doggy treat and to eat it, Nightbitch is nevertheless another encouraging step towards a world in which every type of woman and female experience is represented onscreen – and will certainly play like gangbusters at mother and baby screenings.
Words by JANE CROWTHER Nightbitchis in cinemas now
On paper, Conclave does not sound like a thrilling and slyly comedic drama. Adapted from Robert Harris’ novel, it’s a film that revels in the minutiae and pedantry of pomp and ceremony. In Vatican City, the Pope has departed for the pearly gates, prompting church cardinals from around the globe to gather in their conclave and vote for a new pontiff in a specific and antiquated way. That means camping out in the Sistine Chapel and repeatedly casting votes for their favourite man until a majority decision is reached, for as long as it takes and as the world watches. A sort of Big Brother scenario with rosary beads.
But in the hands of screenwriter Peter Straughan and director Edward Berger, the repetitive process becomes a ticking timebomb, an intrigue and, yes, a thriller via deliciously tart dialogue, smart editing and an unexpected score that reveals the universal in the specific. The admin of the Catholic Church is rendered as a showcase for many of the deadly sins as the ambitious cardinals bicker, showboat, covet and envy in their bid to become His Holiness. The elegance of that presentation is matched by an ensemble of divinely talented actors.
Ralph Fiennes is our point of entry into this hidden world as Cardinal Lawrence, a logistics man in the Vatican who organises the religious voting and sleepover in the midst of suffering a crisis of faith. This, points out Stanley Tucci’s liberal contender Bellini, is what makes Lawrence a credible competitor to the throne. Certainly, Lawrence seems a better option than hard-line traditionalist Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), obsequious Tremblay (John Lithgow) or nakedly ambitious Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati). But as the voting begins and factions and secrets are revealed, the race takes an unexpected turn when an outsider takes the lead. And, as the men of God plot and whisper, pray and pontificate, they are watched by Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossolini), a nun whose army of sisters provide their every need – including some home truths.
It’s as delicious to watch what isn’t said by such accomplished actors as what is. The curtsy Rossolini executes speaks volumes, as do the constantly-moist eyes of Fiennes as he wrestles with humility and power, the jagged weeping of a cardinal stripped of the big job, the swirl of Castellitto’s theatrical cape. But when they do talk (in brutalist bedrooms, shadowy stairwells, a crimson auditorium) the running time speeds by on amusing moments, plot twists and a finale that is both bombastic and subversive. A movie that engages heart and mind without overstaying its welcome and is a savage piece of cultural observation wrapped in red velvet vestments. Heavenly.
That Stephen Schwartz’s hit musical adapted for the big screen would please Ozians was never in doubt. Debuting on Broadway in 2003, Wicked was a musical touchstone for audiences embracing the outlier characters as well as themes of female friendship and being your best bad self. Adapted for cinema by screenwriters Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, and directed by In The Heights helmer Jon M Chu, it’s a story steeped in film history and designed for cinematic scale – pushing the lurid world of Oz beyond the confines of a theatre stage. So big they split it in half, with part 2 coming next festive season, and a winter release date that lands it right in the middle of awards season like a beautiful pink bubble coming to rest in Munchkinland.
For non-Ozians then, the premise: a prequel to the 1939 interpretation of L Frank Baum’s book, Wicked charts the key moments that turned two schoolgirls from frenemies to besties and onward to battling witches of the North and West. An origin story, it asks the question whether anyone is born bad or merely formed by circumstance or shaped by myth and media. Opening with the death of the Wicked Witch Of The West (a puddle and that recognisable hat), sugary pink Glinda (Ariana Grande) tells the munchkins that they are now safe and also the story of their friendship. As students at Shiz academy presided over by sorceress Madam Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), spoilt, disingenuous Glinda is roomed with green newcomer Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), a hurt outcast who is rejected by her father and harbours a telekinesis power that is unleashed by rage and sense of injustice. Both girls fall for vapid Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) and both journey to Emerald City to meet the wizard (Jeff Goldblum). Both will have very different outcomes…
All of this is played out over nearly three hours and via numerous songs (two of the show’s bangers, Popular and Defying Gravity show up in Part One) and there is sumptuous production design, kinetic camera swirls, CGI cityscapes, technicolor hoofing and high-note hitting. All as expected from Grande and Erivo, two singers who certainly have pipes. But where Wicked succeeds in spellbinding an audience is not just in the comic hair-tossing of Glinda, the appearance of two OG original Broadway cast members,Goldblum’s jazzy line delivery, the majestic swirl of black cape as Erivo unleashes her full potential while riding a broom… but in the emotional punch it manages to pack.
The connection between Glinda and Elphaba feels true as essayed by Grande and Erivo, a sub-plot about the treatment of animals is distressing (possibly too much for young children), the parallels with modern polarising politics are uncomfortable (‘where I come from everyone knows the best way to bring folks together is to give them a really good enemy’ says Goldblum’s dodgy wizard). But the real gut-punch is Erivo – a moment when she wordlessly displays all her emotions at a bullying school dance is tear-inducing and the adrenal spike is sure when she belts out the bars of Defying Gravity from the boiling heavens surrounding Emerald City. At the European premiere in London, her end credit exit prompted a tearful standing ovation and it’s likely it will do the same in cinemas everywhere else. Cynthia Erivo may have departed from Oz, but she enters the awards conversation in a brilliant flash of light. Though unlikely to convert musical haters, Wicked is the sort of four-quadrant entertainment that most cinemagoers want at this time of year. Pink does go good with green.
It’s a perfect example of the Arts and Crafts movement nestling in suburban Pasadena – and the onscreen location for the inception of Doc Brown’s flux capacitor. Hollywood Authentic goes back to the past (and the future) with the beautiful Gamble House.
To step inside the hushed, wooden interior of a Greene & Greene LA masterpiece built for the Gamble family in 1908 is like time travel. Beeswax- polished and sun-dappled, the house boasts all its original custom-made furnishings from when it was first lived in. To stand in the mellow sitting room is to feel as though the Gambles might return for dinner at any moment, perhaps from a hike in the unspoilt Arroyo Seco in front of the property, in an era before the 210 freeway thundered through the neighbourhood.
It’s such a time capsule that it was the perfect location for Back to the Future when the production was looking for a house to play the family mansion of Doc Brown. Confined to filming within the LA area because of star Michael J. Fox’s daytime commitments to filming TV show Family Ties on the Paramount lot, location managers combined the Gamble House exteriors with the interiors of the Blacker house also in Pasadena (also designed by Greene & Greene) to create Doc Brown’s onscreen pad (Marty’s family house was located across the city at 9303 Roslyndale Avenue in Arleta).
The ‘mad scientist’ character who dreams up the formula to crack time-hopping – via an adapted DeLorean car – Doc Brown, comes from a wealthy family and by the time he’s showing Fox’s teenager Marty his time machine in 1985 he is reduced to living in a garage/lab next to a Burger King franchise, having spent his inherited cash on invention development. But when Marty is accidentally transported back to 1955 at 88mph, Doc in the past still calls the family pile ‘home’ and the garage on the extensive grounds is where history is made: this is the spot where he perfects the flux capacitor which, as Marty points out when calling on him, ‘is what makes time travel possible’.
It’s such a time capsule that it was the perfect location for Back To The Future when the production was looking for a house to play the family mansion of Doc Brown
In a beloved, time-looping franchise, the garage of the Gamble House is therefore a movie lore catalyst for everything that comes after (and before, if we’re talking about chapter III). In 2024, it’s now a pilgrimage location for Back to the Future fans and a bookshop selling coffee table tomes on design and ‘Outtatime’ DeLorean license plates. The fans may come to reenact Doc and Marty’s banter from the film (they run from the house to the garage shouting lines about Jane Wyman), but they stay for the beauty of a building that is a perfectly preserved piece of American architecture. A gem of Arts and Crafts style, the space has been preserved intact where other properties of the era have been altered or stripped of original features. A family home in single ownership until relatively recently, the Gamble House has remained unchanged and loved through the decades.
Built as a winter retreat for so-called ‘health seekers’, David and Mary Gamble, of Proctor and Gamble fame, who wanted to escape the harsh winters in their native Ohio, the three-story building was conceived to reflect the family’s interest in the outdoors. Other wealthy winter residents had built mansions in Queen Anne and American Foursquare style on so-called ‘Millionaire’s Row’ – the Gambles’ Arts and Crafts creation was rustic by comparison. Built with an emphasis on bringing the outdoors inside (hand-crafted wood, repurposed granite river boulders, designs reflecting nature), the home reminds modern visitors of the wild country that used to surround the house as soon as they step through the triple-fronted, stained- glass entrance. The Gambles travelled extensively and architects Charles and Henry Greene reflected their adventurous nature by tapping into the trend for Japanese influence with their ‘ultimate bungalow’ design. Those three lead-glass front doors boast the image of a Japanese black pine, while the low eaves and wrap-around terrace recall the flow of a traditional ryokan – the glass lamp shades and doors are decorated with flowers and clouds. In the hallway, an elegant metal crane in flight dangles from the wooden staircase. When the sun shines through the glass at the entrance, the amber light illuminates the mahogany and Burma teak inlaid walls of the hall and open-plan sitting room, giving it a visual warmth that translates as a welcome. The maple and sugar pine built-in kitchen, with its forward-thinking island, is a room any modern day Angelino would covert now; and outside, in the backyard, an Far East-inspired pond tinkles and pagoda-style pillar lights lean towards a Japanese aesthetic. The detail is astonishing considering it was constructed in under a year and on a relatively humble budget.
The Gamble House is unique in that it was lived exclusively in by its creators and owners, David and Mary, until both their deaths when Mary’s sister, Julia, took ownership. Julia lived in the house until 1943 (she’s rumoured to haunt the place now as a ‘warm spirit’) and after that the property was donated to the city of Pasadena and USC’s school of architecture for preservation. That lineage means that while decor tastes may have changed throughout the years, all of the original furniture and fittings made by master carpenters Peter and John Hall to the Greene brothers’ design, stayed in the family and were kept in storage. Now, says Alex Rasic, executive director of the property, the house acts as a ‘portal’ to visitors to appreciate the artistry of form-follows-function design. ‘I am so delighted and amazed at how many people visit internationally because of [Back to the Future] and then we have the opportunity to tell them about the house. I see it as a gift for us to have that kind of diversity and the longevity that this film has had.’
The house holds numerous events on the property to ensure it remains a space where families and life still teems – so visitors can book in for Goat Yoga on the rear lawn (yogic stretches while Nigerian baby goats gambol around) or take in an outdoor showing of Black to the Future on the front lawn. A particular thrill to watch Marty wander up the driveway to Doc Brown’s home hoping for help to return to 1985 as the real building looms in the background. A portal indeed.
Photographs and video by MARK READ Words by JANE CROWTHER The Gamble House. 4 Westmoreland Place, Pasadena, CA 91103 www.gamblehouse.org
Back in 2000 Russell Crowe’s Roman general-turned-gladiator dispatched a number of foes and shouted to the baying crowd ‘Are you not entertained?’. They were. We were. A three hour Ridley Scott spectacle that resurrected the ‘swords ‘n’ sandals’ genre and dared to kill off its protagonist, it lived on in eternity in audience imagination; a perfect film in performance, script, production and effects. When Scott announced a revisit to ancient Rome, the bar was set extremely high.
Any fears that Gladiator II might not match its predecessor can be allayed. Like Top Gun: Maverick, this legacy sequel understands how to replicate what made the original so successful, without providing mere fan service or a duplication. Set two decades after Maximus was carried from the Colosseum to be honoured as a soldier of Rome, we pick up in the province of Numidia where Lucius, the son of Connie Neilsen’s Lucilla is now a grown man (Paul Mescal). Husband to a warrior wife, he is disgusted by the colonialisation of Rome – racing to fight at the port as Roman general Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pescal) sails in with a flotilla. Acacius is conflicted by his duty but nonetheless, his actions result in Lucius being taken captive and nursing rageful vengeance. Like Maximus, Lucius’s training combined with lust for revenge is a potent combination, marking him out as interesting to Rome’s twin brother emperors Geta and Caracalla (Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger), slave trader Macrinus (Denzel Washington) and Lucilla herself. As he battles rhinos, monkeys, sharks and politics, Lucius gets closer to his quarry and to celebrity status. And all the while the spectre of Maximus and his sacrifice hangs over proceedings…
Though Maximus and Lucius’ arcs and drivers are similar (and Scott takes care to nod to his first hero with sequences such a Mescal jogging up the steps to the colosseum in swirling dust motes that tug on nostalgia), they are different beasts in the hands of two different actors. While Mescal – beefed up and furious in his fight scenes – matches the ferocity of Maximus, he also brings a lovely quietness to Lucius; quoting Virgil at parties, musing on his background and showing emotional vulnerability in his dealings with his mother. He goes toe-to-toe with all of his opponents, easily stealing focus in a big movie filled with huge set pieces, massive crowds, sumptuous design and a soaring score. Though he was a movie star before, this role convinces of his stature in capital letters.
There are also big performances to compete against; Pascal bringing a noble grace to a conflicted man, Quinn and Hechinger tapping into the delicious petulance and preening of Joaquin Phoenix’s former Big Bad and a chorus of well known faces as politicians and nobility. And then there’s Washington, leaving no crumbs as a spiteful, sneaky self-promoter with a revenge plan of his own. Delivering lines as richly decadent as his swishy robes, Washington gives a masterclass in nailing a best supporting actor nod. The way he says ‘politics’ is sublime, a perfectly calibrated line between camp and deranged that lands exactly as he intends.
Scott can do sweeping spectacle in his sleep at this point in his storied career and Gladiator II boasts all the aspects fans want to see from his blockbusters; huge sets, detailed, tactile costumes, armies of extras and those cinematic moments that make you want to stand in your seat and fist pump. The alchemy of Gladiator has been expertly evoked again to create a movie experience that will please critics, audiences and awards voters alike. And likely a box office take that might facilitate a third outing. Entertained, indeed.
Words by JANE CROWTHER Gladiator II is in cinemas now
Photographs by MARY ELLEN MARK/REBECCA DICKSON/HERB RITTS Words by MATTHEW REEVE, ALEXANDRA REEVE & WILL REEVE
The children of Superman star Christopher Reeve celebrate his life as a father, actor, director and disability advocate in the wake of his life-changing accident in a new documentary filled with unseen archive footage and recordings. They tell Hollywood Authentic what ‘Dad’ meant to them on and off screen.
Matthew Reeve: We were approached by an archive producer to tell this story, asking if we had home movies, and would we be interested in this type of project – and we had also, coincidentally, had just boxed up our family home. So we knew what we had. We knew where it was. It was consolidated and accessible. We discussed it and we thought it would be a great project to embark on. The timing was kind of right – enough time had passed where [Christopher Reeve’s] story was still relevant. So it’s been really a case of the stars aligning in this lovely way.
Credit: Mary Ellen Mark
Alexandra Reeve: We’ve been approached in the past, often by people wanting to do a narrative feature, and we had worried that that would be just too much through rose-coloured glasses, and would only tell one very specific angle on his and [his wife and Will’s mother] Dana’s life. It felt important that if we were going to tell the story, we were going to tell it authentically and truthfully; in a way that allows you to connect with the man, and understand that there were lows as well as highs, that actually the strength in his life is all the more impressive because of the things that he overcame. When [directors] Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui got attached, it felt like something we could get on board with and participate in fully. We could sit for interviews where we would speak about loss in our family in ways that we’d never spoken about before.
Will Reeve: We said ‘if we do this, we would give all of ourselves’. I think each of us prepared for that moment individually. The night before I knew I was sitting for my interview, I went through a bunch of my mom’s journals. I have family photos all over my apartment anyway, so it wasn’t like I had to dig up too much. I went in prepared to fully and truthfully answer any question that came my way because I wanted it all on record – my experience and feelings.
Matthew Reeve: Seeing Will and Alexandra’s interviews, and them sharing their thoughts and feelings and memories – they were really the hardest moments and also the most meaningful and rewarding. Certainly we all lived through [Reeve’s horse riding accident, adaptation to paraplegia and death] together but I think when you have someone else asking a question and you’re sharing a perspective with an outsider, you maybe say things you wouldn’t just say in a conversation between siblings.
Will Reeve: We don’t necessarily go back and deconstruct it amongst ourselves because we’re living our full lives. So then to see, all these years later, those experiences through Matthew and Alexandra’s eyes, and for them to see it through my eyes, and realise that we did have that shared experience, but also have different perspectives… We didn’t need this whole process and this project to bring us closer. But it certainly – for me, at least – gave it a more contextualised understanding of their experiences as they’ve related to my experiences. I don’t think in the weeks, months, or years after my mom passed away that I stopped to be like, ‘Hey, guys, just so you know, I wasn’t actually asleep, right?’ [when the news came of Dana Reeve’s passing 12-year-old Will pretended to be asleep] but that’s an example – of which there are many in this film – that the full and comprehensive reliving happens throughout. We go to places, and so does the film, that haven’t been explored before.
Credit: Rebecca Dickson
Alexandra Reeve: It’s been amazing to see audience reactions [at film festivals] – just how much people are seeing themselves and their own story in this film. It dawned on us that our family circumstances were unique in many ways, but also that the themes in the film are so universal. So people are coming up, and talking about how they’ve navigated a loved one having a cancer, or being a caregiver, or dealing with loss, or thinking about how to stay a good friend after someone’s circumstances have changed. It’s this beautiful, humbling thing for people to see themselves in different moments, and connect to different pieces of this very human story. [Christopher Reeve] felt that too, very deeply – that for many people, he put a face on spinal cord injury and disability more broadly, because people felt they knew him so well from just that level of fame. And so if he could suddenly allow people to connect to his experience, and see beyond the wheelchair to see that he was still the same person – that really there are important, universal lessons to learn from that more generally.
Will Reeve: I know that it’s been a gift for me to see this film and use it personally as a way to make the image I have of my dad’s life and my mum’s life and our family’s story more vivid, and fill in some gaps, or further shade in some details that I either wasn’t yet alive for, or wasn’t aware of at the time. In psychology, it’s called a compositive memory, where you form an image in your mind that’s based off of photos and videos you’ve seen, and stories you’ve been told. Seeing those moments come back to life was a really touching and meaningful way to revisit the past. And then seeing everything that came before me – the Superman years, and even prior to that – to get to have a 360-degree view of his life in such a cinematic way has been one of the great blessings of this experience. And it was a disorientating experience at first to watch it, being like, ‘No, that’s me. This is about us’.
Matthew Reeve: There is no Christopher Reeve story without Dana Reeve, in the simplest form. It was not mandated by us in any way, but I think as the directors did their research, and we’d done our interviews, I think it became very clear to them just how important she was to us as a mother and stepmother, and how important she was to our father, and just what a remarkable, magical human being she was.
Alexandra Reeve: And to show our blended family, too [Matthew and Alexandra’s mother Gae Exton also appears in the film]. To be able to show that with the nuance, and the thoughtfulness to say, ‘You can have a relationship for 10 years. It can be the grounding moment for you, and then that can change. And then you can find your great love. And that those things can be in harmony together, and you can raise children stably throughout all that turmoil’. That side of a personal relationship doesn’t often get modelled on screen, and I’m really glad that they captured it as they did.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Will Reeve: I love that people get to see [my dad’s] silly, goofy, mischievous side. His public image, certainly as Superman, was literally the Man of Steel, and the dashing leading man with big muscles and the blue eyes. But he was human and grounded. He was a fun hang. His active dynamic lifestyle was of just always doing a million different activities, and always being on the go. I’m glad that people got to see his humanity throughout, which manifests itself a lot in his cheekiness.
Matthew Reeve: He was skilled in so many different things: flying aeroplanes, scuba diving, playing the piano, speaking fluent French, flying across the Atlantic solo twice, and gliding. He’d go up in open cockpit biplanes. I don’t think people really knew that.
Alexandra Reeve: For me, when I look back on my dad, the lessons I try to draw are that he was so determined and so self-disciplined in everything he did. And that’s a personality trait that was there way before the accident – it’s what allowed him to excel. And it was what got him through after the accident. Just the strength of character, and to keep persevering, but also to push himself to new challenges. He pushed himself to the limit every single day, no matter what the circumstances were – whether it was getting in shape for Superman, getting really good at skiing, or learning to ride a horse, or going out and directing a film after the accident.
Will Reeve: The way that my parents remain present in my life now is through the values that they instilled in each of us. I get told pretty often how proud my parents would be of me, which is nice to hear. It’s not always true, by the way – I’m quite human! But they would be proud of my humanity as well. I know that if I live in accordance with the values and standards and expectations set by my parents in the short time we had together that everything in my life will align so that I am living in a way that honours them, and would certainly make them proud. And I don’t have to wonder what they would think or say or feel because I know, based on the time we had together, the proper path as defined by them.
Matthew Reeve: I think Dad would feel proud of this film because it’s a beautiful work of art. And it’s just him on the poster, and he’s had a whole movie made about him. The actor in him would love that!
Credit: Herb Ritts
Photographs by MARY ELLEN MARK, REBECCA DICKSON & HERB RITTS Words by MATTHEW REEVE, ALEXANDRA REEVE & WILL REEVE As told to JANE CROWTHER Super/Man – The Christopher Reeve Storyis out now in cinemas
Photographs by MARY ELLEN MARK Words by GISELE SCHMIDT & GARY OLDMAN
Hollywood Authentic’s photography correspondents Gary Oldman and Gisele Schmidt look at the work of an award-winning documentary photographer with a personal connection to their meeting.
Gary and I are ever grateful to Greg for allowing us to grace his pages with our little stories and it gives us great joy when he asks, ‘Who’s next?,’ for us to blurt out a name that has impacted us so very deeply over the years. So when the question came around this time, we immediately responded; Mary Ellen Mark. And then, when we sat down to write, we were ultimately confronted by the blank page with the cursor mocking us as we realised where do we even begin? It’s Mary Ellen Mark, ffs!
Mark is recognized as one of the most respected and influential documentary photographers EVER. She has published 30 books and countless photographic essays in world-renowned magazines and journals and has received so many awards and commendations that it could fill this magazine twice over. How can we even touch the surface of the indelible mark she left on the history of photography? We can’t.
Meryl Streep and Mike Nichols during the shooting of “Silkwood.” Texas, 1983, Mary Ellen Mark
And why are we focusing on a photographer who documented the psychiatric patients of the Oregon State Hospital, the street prostitutes of Bombay, the teenage runaways of Seattle, or Mother Teresa’s Mission of Charity work in Calcutta? Because Mary Ellen was also the stills photographer on over 100 films from the 1960s to 2000s… Fellini Satyricon (Frederico Fellini, 1969), Mississippi Mermaid (François Truffaut, 1969), Tristana (Luis Buñuel, 1969), The Day of the Locust (John Schlesinger, 1975), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Milos Forman, 1975), Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979), Tootsie (Sydney Pollack, 1982), Silkwood (Mike Nichols, 1983), Agnes of God (Norman Jewison, 1984), American Heart (Martin Bell, 1993), Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999), Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2006), Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (Steven Shainberg, 2006), Australia (Baz Luhrmann, 2008), to name just a few.
Mary Ellen Mark brought the same exceptional sensitivity and humanity to her work on movie sets that she did to the subjects documented in her photo essays. With her photojournalist’s eye, Mark’s photographs provide insight to life on set and the personalities of some of the foremost directors and distinguished actors of our time. With the release of Mark’s publication, Seen Behind the Scene (Phaidon Press, 2008), the Fahey/Klein Gallery held an exhibition commemorating this body of work. I had met Mary Ellen a handful of times through the gallery, but during this particular show, we spoke about narrative. Each frame should stand on its own; like a character, but when looking at a roll, it should tell a story, like a film. This conversation was years prior to meeting Gary and consequently well before he encouraged me to pick up my camera, but it is something I consider whenever I click its shutter.
We find that this idea is personified in Mark’s portrait of, Fellini on the Set of Satyricon, Rome 1969. Mary Ellen Mark recounted how Fellini was one of her favourite directors and that something amazing would happen every day with him while on set, ‘Fellini was wonderful in front of the camera. The picture of him with the megaphone was taken as he supervised a new set being built. Even though this picture is shot from behind, it is still very much a portrait of Fellini. You don’t have to be too literal when photographing people. Photography is not a factual, but a descriptive language. You must translate the scene visually and emotionally. This picture captures very much who Fellini was. He seems to be dancing gracefully, exactly like one of the characters in his films. This was just one moment, one frame, but it speaks to something larger, which is why it has become iconic. That’s what you’re really trying to do with a portrait, capture who the person is; get a glimpse at the essence of who they really are. Even if someone is on set or in a costume or standing on her head, you have to see beyond that to who they are.” (MEM, Seen Behind the Scene, Phaidon, 2008).
Federico Fellini with a bullhorn during the shooting of “Fellini Satyricon.” Rome, 1969, Mary Ellen Mark
And with her photograph of The Cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Oregon State Hospital, Salem, Oregon, 1975, Mary Ellen captured the frenetic dynamism of tension and claustrophobic environment of the film in a single snapshot. ‘The cast was gathered together after a scene. They were shouting at each other and at something behind me; I don’t remember what. Jack Nicholson leads the picture and makes it work, but there’s so much going on, with people looking in different directions and reacting to each other. There’s a palpable group energy, and yet the image still uses the space well and has depth. It’s not perfect; there’s a guy hidden in there, but that shows it was a natural situation.’
Another photograph that we feel encapsulates this notion is her photograph of ‘Mike Nichols with Meryl Streep, Silkwood, Texas, 1983’. Streep plays Karen Silkwood, the plutonium-processing plant employee who was killed in a suspect car crash as she drove to talk about safety violations with a New York Times reporter. The double portrait has Streep and Nichols seated at a booth in a diner. Streep is in profile looking past Nichols who sits facing us, the viewer. Streep, lost in thought, appears weighted down – possibly by the physical and mental strain of such a demanding role – almost exemplifies how Karen Silkwood must have been wrought by her decisions to come forward about radiation leaks and other hazardous practices within the nuclear plant workplace. And then we have Nichols, confidently glaring at us beyond the picture frame, representing the establishment and authority which challenges us to question and consider the story of Karen Silkwood and the beautifully crafted and nuanced performance by Streep.
Gary has a particular fondness for Francis Ford Coppola from his role as Dracula; however, what ignited a desire to work with him was Coppola’s masterpiece, Apocalypse Now. More extraordinary than the film itself, is the behind-the-scenes footage which was recorded by Francis’ wife, Eleanor and featured in her documentary Hearts of Darkness – A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. The documentary chronicles how bad weather, health issues and increasing costs almost derailed the production of the film and could have possibly destroyed the career of Francis Ford Coppola. Mary Ellen Mark’s photograph, Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now, Pagsanjan, Philippines, 1976 depicts him sheltering from the unrelenting rain that contributed to the troubles of an already beleaguered shoot. The photograph exemplifies the conditions the director and actors faced but illuminates the exhaustion, frustration, and anguish as to whether the film and his career would be washed away by the rain.
Lastly, we wanted to discuss the portrait of Dana & Christopher Reeve, New York City, 1999 [See page 72]. There is not a more beautiful portrayal of the power of love. Dana had devoted her life to caring for Christopher after his near-fatal horse accident that left him paralyzed in 1995. Their bond was so strong that the doctors credited her for Christopher’s years of ‘borrowed time’ after the accident. As if she was his ‘medication’. Reeve may have been Superman, but Dana’s resolve, care, patience, love, support, and optimism was superhuman.
Mark was obsessed with photography, the process, the cameras, but most importantly, the subject and how to convey its story. We relate to that on a fundamental level. I have spent years studying photography and only recently begun to express myself with it, and Gary has observed and interpreted the characteristics of individuals through countless roles and a passion for all things cinematic before or behind the lens whether film and photography. It’s why Mary Ellen’s photographs captivate us so wholeheartedly.
Coincidentally, Mary Ellen is as responsible as Richard Miller for our fateful introduction. As Gary puttered around his home in Los Feliz wondering who took the photograph of Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean that early Saturday afternoon, he looked up at the first photograph he had ever acquired, Mark’s, ‘Fellini on the Set of Satyricon’. As he had acquired the print from Fahey/Klein, it’s what led him to return to the gallery to seek out an answer. He just never expected to find the answer, acquire the photograph and eventually get so much more!
Francis Ford Coppola sheltering from the rain during the shooting of Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.” Pagsanjan, Philippines, 1976, Mary Ellen Mark
