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Prolific Aussie Helmer Beresford takes on Bride of The Wind
Film chronicles story of woman with a most extraordinary range of love affairs of any woman in history
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Bruce Beresford directing Sarah Wynter as "Alma Mahler" in the historical drama Bride of the Wind. |
Beresford's pictures have been marked by a conspicuous number of outstanding performances over the years. Bride of The Wind proves true to form, introducing filmgoers to a stand-out new talent, including Sarah Wynter, an Australian actress previously seen in Schwarzenegger's The Sixth Day. In this, her first truly meaty role, Wynter stars as Alma Mahler, a sort of later day Helen of Troy who was involved in often tumultuous marriages and affairs with some of the most celebrated artists of her era. Among them were composer Gustav Mahler, impressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka, Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius and novelist Franz Werfel.
Before dashing off to London, where he's already preparing his next film, Boswell For The Defense, Beresford, youthful at 60, chatted about the new film and shared a few thoughts on the nuts and bolts of the film craft.
Phillip Williams (MM): Bride of the Wind deals with a fascinating period in European history.
Bruce Beresford (BB): Sure, well the film is set in Vienna between the years of 1900 and 1920. It was really an extraordinary period in cultural terms: it was an era of great composers and painters, musicians and scientists. It was amazing, and Alma Mahler was an extraordinarily beautiful woman who married or had affairs with a number of these extraordinary people.
MM: And her first husband was Gustav Mahler?
BB: Yes, she was Gustav Mahler's wife, then he died in 1911 and she married Walter Gropius, the architect. She had a big affair with Oskar Kokoshka, the painter -- he painted the famous portrait of them lying together, called Bride of The Wind -- but she never married him; she refused. After divorcing Gropius, she married Franz Werfel, the novelist, who wrote The Song of Bernadette. She was with Werfel until he died in 1945 in America.
MM:How did you decide to cast Sarah Wynter in the lead?
BB: The only other film I had seen her in was a Schwarzenegger's The Sixth Day. I was having trouble casting this film because I wanted a girl that was very beautiful, but in a rather classy sort of way; I didn't want a girl too much end of the 20th century in spirit. I thought Sarah was very sexy, but in a sort of gracious, rather elegant, European sort of way.
MM: It's interesting how some actors seem out of place in a period film. They often just feel too modern. It's like people carry it in their bones.
BB: Yes, it's an indefinable quality. Sometimes you look at people and you think, for some reason, it just doesn't work in a period thing.
MM: Is that something you were concerned with in the script, in terms of the dialogue?
BB: I was careful to avoid phrases and things that were very much of our period. I am often given scripts to read which are set 50, 60, 70, 80 years ago, and I am often amazed how the dialogue is horribly wrong -- too contemporary, with slang and words people simply didn't use.
MM: It's interesting that you only deal with a particular part of this woman's life; you don't try to tell her whole story.
BB: It's impossible to depict someone's entire lifetime in a film without resorting to a tedious and usually meaningless montage technique. A number of films could be made dealing with various eras of Alma's life. We dealt with the early years up to her marriage to Werfel. After that, another era, and another potential film, begins with the growing power of the Nazis and Alma's departure from Austria in 1938.
MM: It's interesting that even as you attempted to place this piece firmly in the spirit of the period, the character and her conflicts are very contemporary.
BB:I hope so. Alma may have had the most extraordinary range of love affairs of any woman in history. Her beauty and charm were so overwhelming that she was relentlessly pursued by some pretty amazing men. But this made it very difficult for her to assert her own individuality and talent. Mahler forbade her to compose and Kokoschka stifled her with his jealousy. I think she transcended them in her own way. She was ahead of her time in trying to be her own person.
MM: This picture has some very poetic imagery in it. Are you conscious of looking for images that maybe represent or symbolize a given theme?
BB: I don't think it is a terribly conscious thing. I think all I ever try and do when I am directing a film is tell the story as simply as possible. Often the cameraman will suggest a beautiful shot and I will say 'Well, it would look good but we've really got to tell the story.' It's about the character, and that's all I really want to do.
MM: How can a shot tell us something about a character?
BB: I always try to position the characters so you get a certain dramatic effect. I shot some scenes [in Bride of The Wind] very wide, with the characters dwarfed by the magnificence of the city. I storyboard a film before I start.
MM: Do you get someone else to draw your storyboards?
BB: Occasionally, if the sequence is very complicated, I will get someone to re-draw it so that everyone can understand them better because my drawing skills are below zero. But the cameraman understands them clearly enough. One of the advantages of my drawings is that the shots actually exist: if I draw a shot, you can do it. Storyboard artists often draw shots for which there is no lens. It looks great on paper but in fact you can't film it; there's no lens that has this ability -- it doesn't go that wide or it doesn't go that tight.
MM: Do you choose the camera lenses as well?
BB: Yes, I do, because the way the lenses see the actors varies the way that I talk to them about playing it. I'd direct an actor differently if I was shooting him through a 100mm lens rather than a 20mm lens. A longer lens will isolate him more, and so you can see every little nuance. If you shoot it with a wider lens, he will be in the context of a background which is sharp, so your attention will be less concentrated on him; then you need to get into doing things slightly differently.
MM: How much do you want to tell the actors about the characters?
BB: I go into a lot of detail because I find that even the most experienced actors will come to me and say 'What am I thinking in this scene? What do I feel? What is my attitude toward this? What do I know?' I want them to ask me these questions and it's pretty important for me to have the answers.
MM: So you do a lot of research?
BB: Yes. Bride of the Wind could be researched enormously because so many of the people involved wrote memoirs and books and letters.
MM: What do you do when you are studying a period, like in Bride of the Wind,where you have various people writing about events but you get conflicting views of history from them?
BB: I tend to read original sources. You don't get so much conflicting views [as you do] different viewpoints. Even that gives you insight into the characters.
MM: Do you think it's helpful for actors to use sense memory and all that various stuff that people use in the method school?
BB: I'm all for them doing anything which helps them. I find a lot of the best actors I've worked with are the least convoluted; they will come and do the scene then walk off and tell a joke. Whenever they arrive in character˜dressed-up liked a swordfish or something, and pretend that they are underwater and go on and on about their motivation, I start to really worry. I'll think, 'This bloke's lost it.'
Morgan Freeman didn't do it, Albert Finney didn‚t do it and lots of the greatest actors I've ever worked with don't do it. Then a lot of the ones you find who carry on with all that stuff are really phenomenally insecure; they are trying to convince themselves of something. I am not saying that this is true in every case but it's generally been my experience that the more they talk to me about their involvement, the more worried I become. I think this involvement they are talking about is sometimes covering up a complete lack of involvement (laughs).
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Since 1987 Kodak has been the official partner of the Cannes Film Festival, sponsoring the Camera d’Or prize that is awarded yearly to the best feature film by a first-time director. The tradition continues in 2008 when, for the fifth consecutive year, the festival will also hand out the Kodak Discovery Prize for Best Short Film.
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Posted 05.8.08 | News/Commentary | No comments yet...
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