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Oct. 17 - Oct. 22, 2004 |
The stars speak up at Film Fest
TIFF press conferences feature Hoffman, Bloom, Linney, Neeson and Nolte
By Angela Baldassarre
Originally Published: 2004-09-19
This is not a film about drugs, it is about what happens afterwards, how you rebuild your life once the bubble bursts," said writer-director Olivier Assayas about his film Clean. "The character, Emily, lives the archetypal lifestyle and has to reconstruct her life, to start from scratch," he said. Assayas wrote the part for Maggie Cheung, his ex-wife, and said that he is more interested in allowing actors the freedom to draw from within and enrich their characters, often letting the camera roll and rarely calling the word "action."
When her faded rock-star partner dies in a dingy motel, Emily (Cheung) finds herself abandoned by family and friends. Her son is in the custody of his grandparents (Nick Nolte), and Emily must transform herself from a drug addict to become the mother her son deserves. The film tells the tale of forgiveness, of redemption, and starting over. Cheung won the Best Actress Award at this year's Cannes film festival for her performance.
"I've been wanting to do a French film for a long time, to be able to work in that kind of reality," Nolte said, adding that his experience was everything he had hoped it to be, both spontaneous and unpretentious. "Olivier has the forethought of the actors in mind. An actor is trying to create as full a life as possible, and needs the space to do that. Trust is vital. All that is about the French sensibility of film."
Cheung, who has received critical acclaim for her work in Chinese, English and French films, drew on her own multicultural background when approaching her work on the film. "When it came to Clean, it became part of the character, that she is a bit of everything, that she would cross these three continents, which I relate to myself," adding that speaking French in the film was "far more difficult that flying," referring to her recent role in Hero.
Assayas first sent the script to Canadian Don McKellar (who is also cast in the film), to insure that there was sufficient Canadian content to pass regulations. Nolte humorously called Canada the "most civilized country in North America" citing how, after two referendums, Canadians still haven't revolted.
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