mercredi 1 août 2012

Charles is Robert Flaherty in Kabloonak in 1994

In 1919 and 1920, a courageous young filmmaker named Robert Flaherty set out for the frozen north of Canada, Inuit (Eskimo) country, and filmed the first successfull documentary feature Nanook of the North. In doing so, he enormously increased awareness of the frozen wastes in the north of Canada, and produced a film of haunting beauty. This drama recreates his journey, and shows how Flaherty (Charles Dance) persuaded a young Inuit named Nanook (Adamie Quasiak Inupuk) to hunt for him in the old ways, foregoing the advantages of a rifle. The two men faced many amazing dangers along the way, and saw many extraordinary sights. One of the more striking images captured in this film is an encounter with a herd of walrus. This film, like the one which inspired it, casts Inuit people in all Inuit roles -
      
Gijon Film Festival: Best Film, Director & Special Prize of the Young Jury
Genie Awards: Nominated for Best Achievement in Cinematography
Montréal World Film Festival: Best Artistic Contribution (photography)
Paris Film Festival: Best Actor :Charles Dance : Special Jury Prize

dimanche 22 juillet 2012

Charles was Lyle Yates in Undertow in 1996

 Lost in a storm, transient Jack (Lou Diamond Phillips) seeks shelter in a remote woodland cabin and suddenly finds himself held at gunpoint by a deranged mountain man who lives there with his child bride. The storm is but the harbinger of a hurricane and though the reclusive Lyle Yates (Charles Dance) knows it, he is too paranoid to leave and so forces his wife Willie (Mia Sara) and Jack to flee. It's a small cabin and as the storm rages on, tensions mount. Matters reach one of several climaxes when Jack tries to persuade Willie to escape with him. Eventually the situation escalates into deadly violence, meaning that only two will walk away from their lonely shelter.
  
 
  
 
 
  
interview of the director Eric Red
A: Undertow was one of your early scripts.
ER: Yes.
A: And it got made like…pretty later on…I don’t have the date…
ER: It took ten years to get a movie made about three people in a house and a storm.
A: I’ve been following your career since "Cohen and Tate" but after "Bad Moon"" I lost sight of you. "Undertow" and "Vindicator" I know nothing about.
ER: Actually "Undertow" was before "Bad Moon". I made it for Showtime and it was the second highest rated film on Showtime in 1996. It was then released on video.
A: Who stars in it?
ER: Lou Diamond Phillips, Mia Sara and Charles Dance. Charles Dance is a terrific British actor.
A: He played in "Alien 3".
ER: Yeah, and in "Undertow" he plays a psychotic American mountain man. He gives a tour-de-force performance.
A: Is it an action picture?
ER: It has action in it. It’s about a drifter that gets washed off the road during a storm and gets rescued by a backwoods moon shiner and his wife in the moon shiner’s fortress of a house. The three of them get caught together during the terrific storm and the drifter gets involved with the moon shiner who’s quite psychotic and the abused wife. Gradually the drifter and the wife get together which amounts to a tremendous confrontation with the mountain man and his house full of weapons. The last half hour is pretty much straight action.
A: And are you satisfied with the final outcome?
ER: I loved it. I shot it in Lithuania in about 24 days. It was a terrific experience to film. It was critically reviled but was extremely popular. It’s not a critics film. I don’t know if any of my films are "critic films".
  
  
     

pic of the day