David Cronenberg & Don DeLilo Talk about Rob with Le Monde

Le Monde: This way of perceiving a script can suprise coming from an author so versed in genre movies?

David Cronenberg: "It is often thought that the cinema is a visual art. I think that for me, it's a more complicated combination. For me, the heart of cinema is a face that talks. It's what we film the most. I heard someone say that the last 22 minutes of the movie - where's there is only Paul Giamatti and Robert Pattinson in a room - is like theater. I don't think so. In a play, you woudln't have wide shots, movements from the camera, change of lighting. This is cinema. Without close-ups, there's no cinema."

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Le Monde: And Robert Pattinson?

DonDeLillo: "The character he plays is really close to the one in the book. I haven't seen Twilight, but I impressed my two 13 years old nieces when I told them the British Robert Pattinson was going to play in a movie adapted from one of my books. They respect me now!"

David Cronenberg: "Casting is an occult art. It's a matter of intuition. There's objectives factors tho. The character is 28, he's american. We needed someone who would look that age and that could do a perfect American accent. The movie is partnership between France and Canada. Also, I could only use one American actor and for me, it was Paul Giamatti. I could get an English actor though.

Then of course, there's the presence of the actor, he has to be able to portray a complex, crual, brutal and almost vulgar character in a way. He has to be really sophisticated and vulnerable at the same time, naiive and childish. If only to make people believe that he's capable of accomplishing so much, he needs strength and charisma. Moreover, he's in every scene. It doesn't mean he has to be handsome bu he has to be nice enough to look at for an hour and a half. And to finish, he needs to have some kind of notoriety. When a movie cost some kind of budget, you need to be able to tease your financial partners. And with all these restrictions, the list of actors you need, gets shorter. I thought about Rob pretty early on."

Another quote from DeLillo - Repubblica (Italy) (via/via)

How did you feel to see Robert Pattinson, actor famous for having played a vampire in a literary creation of yours?

Don DeLillo: "The character he portrays is very close to that of the novel. However, I’ve never seen Twilight and when I write I have in mind neither the film nor anyone who can interpret it. I just care that will be played by good actor."

source | via |via

A Cosmopolis review from the French magazine Studio Ciné Live 

They gave it 3 stars out of 5.

"A Cronenberg as brilliant as he is firm.

Each in their own genre, David Cronenberg and Don DeLillo are silversmiths of fantastic, unhealthy and sometimes dark atmospheres. As well as of the science of language and characters in shambles and - let's not forget - of controversy.

It's then pretty obvious that one would end up adaptating the other's work. Cosmopolis is the ghostly and hypnotic story of a day in the life of a golden boy who is about to lose his empire because of the crisis, indifferent to the world that surrounds him. He's hypochondriac and schizophrenic. His long journey across a chaotic New York, rythmed by meetings with his wife, his mistresses and his employees, will lead him to a point of no return. In a perfect balanced cinematic movement, David Cronenberg decided to adapt to the letter the extremely rich prose of Don DeLillo. He filmed with an incredible ingenuity this stifling and unsetlling closed-door.

This preconception to stay faithful to the text of the author is amazing but not without any danger. Especially in the last part of the film, where one could definitely get lost in a verbal flood that becomes complex for the viewer and for Robert Pattinson - who was perfect until then - but seems, all of the sudden, not to be able to manage anything anymore.

As always with Cronenberg, there's no in between, no second place, no way out. Cosmopolis gets appreciated at full or not at all. Take it or leave it."

Thanks to rpattzrobertpattinson for the scan | RPLife