The 20th Annual Oscar Night Party:
"And the Winner Is..."

Vote for The Best of 2011

The Washington DC Film Society announces the results of the 11th annual vote for the Best of 2011:

Best Film: The Artist
Best Director: Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Best Actress: Viola Davis, The Help
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help
Best Foreign Language Film: A Separation

The Cinema Lounge

Adam's Rib's Takes on Some Strange Oscar Picks

Albert Nobbs: Q&A with Director Rodrigo García

By Ron Gordner, DC Film Society Member

This Q&A took place at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2011.


Director Rodrigo García at the Toronto Film Festival's premiere of Albert Nobbs. Photo from the Toronto International Film Festival website.

Festival Moderator: How did you get involved in the film and with Glenn Close on this project?
Rodrigo García: Glenn sent me a copy of the script to see if I wanted to be a part of the film. I was excited about it and realized that Glenn had a great passion for this story and had been working on the project for at least 10 years. I read the story and it spoke to me of these people who survived as best they could living with these assumed identities. Everyone was trying just to get by, but still dreaming of being something else or getting something better and finding a way to let their real "you" come out. Living in a closet as it were, not a "gay closet" but a closet so people don't see who you really are and just trying to survive. I found it very compelling to see the character of Nobbs who was very unusual.

Audience Question: Is the film fiction or based on a real person?
Rodrigo García: It is based on a short story "The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs" by George Moore, an Irish writer. Later a play was done and that is how Glenn discovered and played the character. It is not an historical character, but it was also not that uncommon in many places and cultures where women had no marriage or family or money. The character Helen herself says, "If I lose that money I'll be on the street," meaning either in the poor house or resort to prostitution which many women had to do. So girls who could pass as boys would work as waiters, miners, or even soldiers. So the film and story is not based on a particular case, but this was not as uncommon as people may think.

Audience Question: If you think film is a prophecy of what happens in life, what do you think your film says about what may happen in the next 10-15 years?
Rodrigo García: My favorite films always seem to capture that moment that we are caught in. It speaks to the role of identity and who we become to please others. I don't think it's still uncommon in modern society to see someone marry another individual because their parents love that person. Some people continue to please others and play the role they are expected to play, rather than who we truly are. I don't think this will really change in the next 15-20 years. Many women painters, artists, actresses, or directors want to just be themselves and express who they are. They don't want to be just the good wife, good mother, or good daughter or caretaker.

Audience Question: Did the couple, Mr. Page and Cathleen live together as man and wife or as a lesbian couple?
Rodrigo García: They were lesbian lovers, but to survive, one of them pretended to be a man. They were a couple and it was something that Albert never understood, he saw it just as companionship.

Audience Question: Is this the first time you have directed a period piece and what were the challenges in working with a period film?
Rodrigo García: It is the first feature film I have done that is a period piece. I did direct a film for HBO called "Carnivale" which was about the Great Depression. You want to show historical accuracy and do research looking at history and photographs and some films about that period of Irish history. Ultimately it is representation, to make a feeling of that time and any movie about the 1850's, 1950's or 1960's as examples, talks as much about that time period and the tone as the stories themselves. We had lots of fun with historical research on just how the hotel would be run, about who did what and who sat where. All the little protocols that a hotel or inn would have were studied.

Festival Moderator: Did the script change much as you began shooting and made the film or did it stay pretty much as originally written?
Rodrigo García: There are always changes, but we actually shaved the script and made it leaner. I find when you add too much to the script you are usually in trouble. If you think let's add another half page to explain something better you begin to get onto thin ice. So stuff really came out in rehearsal and in editing to tell the story as lean as possible without losing the tone and the real story to be told.

Audience Question: Now that you have made the film, trimmed it and seen it, is there anything you would have added or put back in to the film to make the audience understand it better?
Rodrigo García: You tell me. When you direct a film, you suddenly become an hysterical 12 year old girl. It's overwhelming to finish it and let it breathe and be accepted. I can't look at every scene now and wonder what if I had done this instead... I want to have a better day than that.

Audience Question: Is this the first or second screening and is there Oscar buzz about Glenn's performance?
Rodrigo García: This is the second screening at Toronto, other than a press screening. We also had a screening or pre-screening at the Telluride Film Festival. I don't know about Oscar buzz, it seems a little early, but I think the work is first-rate and stands on its own and also the rest of the cast, especially Janet McTeer. The contrast between Albert and Hubert is very important. The character Hubert is confident, flirtatious, and outgoing and Albert has completely squashed his/her personality into this shell that is Albert. So I thing the two characters and the two performances complement each other.

Festival Moderator: Did you spend a lot of time in rehearsals?
Rodrigo García: We spent some time on rehearsals, but there is never enough money or time for rehearsing. We did rehearse for a couple of weeks and spent time physically finding who they were. Both Albert and Hubert have partial prosthetic noses, the earlobes made larger and more masculine, and changes in the hairlines, but we still wanted real faces there, not some kind of creatures made of prosthetics. The shoes were also chosen and the actors spent time practicing the walking and sitting. You also can get too critical and start saying don't do that, it seems to politically correct or incorrect or too girly. You don't overly encourage the women to put their hands on their crotch, etc. because you are the director and the number one voyeur.

Audience Question: Do you have a distributor yet? Will we see this movie in mainstream theaters?
Rodrigo García: I would be lying here on oxygen if we didn't have a distributor yet. I have been to festivals with films without distributors and it is real misery. Yes, Roadside Attractions in the U.S. and WestEnd Films for international sales. It should be in theaters at the end of December in some cities.

Audience Question: Can you tell us about filming the scene where the two dress as women and walk down the beach?
Rodrigo García: Glenn rightly thought we needed a scene where Nobbs could act and dress like a girl, and I mean a "girl" not a woman, because she had not really been a girl since she was 14 or 15 years old. She needed to try herself or her body out as a girl or as a woman, and how it just didn't work out for either Albert or Hubert. The scene was very important for the complete story. There was a lot of discussion about how to dress them. It was Janet's idea to keep her own workman's shoes and that the dresses wouldn't quite fit. It was a lot of fun when those two women walked on the set for the beach scene. There is a great Canadian director, Patricia Rozema, who said to me yesterday, "It's great that you got two women to dress as women to be funny."

Audience Question: Is the original writer still alive?
Rodrigo García: No, George Moore was a contemporary of Joyce and the story was written around 1900 to 1905 and set in the period of about 1890 or so. He is no longer alive and his stories are in the public domain. I think he was a well known writer in his time, maybe not a best seller author, but he was certainly not an obscure writer for his time. The screenplay was written and adapted by Glenn Close, Gabriella Prekop, and John Banville based on Moore's short story.

Audience Question: What can you tell us about the little boy who stared at the two women and seemed to express silently something that the adults didn't or wouldn't in his suspicions?
Rodrigo García: We didn't really address that in the film, but the short story does provide more description and information. When he was little, George Moore frequented such hotels with his parents, so in many ways, that is little George Moore. We didn't want to dwell on that but we did want to show that with his innocent gaze, he clearly saw something that others didn't see. Also a butler was considered like a piece of furniture, most of the guests didn't look them directly in the eyes.

Albert Nobbs opened in DC theaters on January 27, 2012.

Glenn Close has been nominated for an Oscar for the Best Actress in a Leading Role for Albert Nobbs and Janet McTeer has also been nominated for the Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Albert Nobbs.

In Darkness: Q&A with Director Agnieszka Holland

By Ron Gordner, DC Film Society Member

This Q&A took place at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2011. Director Agnieszka Holland was present along with Screenwriter David Shamoon, actor Robert Wieckiewicz, and composer Antoni Komasi-Lazarkarkiewicz


Director Agnieszka Holland at the Toronto International Film Festival. Photo from the TIFF website.

Audience Question: How did you find out about this story and get interested in making a film about it?
Agnieszka Holland: A friend David Shamoon, who is the screenwriter, told me he had this wonderful story for me. I was hesitant because I have made films about the Holocaust already, but I felt this was a new story and based on real facts.
David Shamoon: I had read a story in the Toronto Star about a Polish man, Leopold Socha (played by Robert Wieckiewicz) who worked in the sewers but was also a thief, who had saved large group of Jews during World War II by hiding them and supporting them in the sewers of Lvov (then part of Poland, now in the Ukraine) and I was just intrigued by it. I found out there was a book about it and auctioned the rights to the screenplay. I found a group of producers who also led me to find Agnieska and that it how it evolved over 8 years.
Agnieszka Holland: At first I said yes, then I said no, and then I said yes again. It was also difficult to find the money, so it became a labor of love to make the film.

Audience Question: Will this film be shown in Poland or Germany?
Agnieszka Holland: It opened this week in one theatre in Poland but it is planned to open wider in January and in February in Germany and the United States. The film is a Canadian/Germany/Poland co-production. It was also sold in a number of countries. I think the distributor thinks it is a kind of winter movie. Sony Picture Classics is the distributor in the U.S. and Mongrel Media in Canada. It is also the Polish submission for foreign language Academy Awards, which I see as a grateful honor.

Audience Question: How has the experience of making this film impacted your lives?
Agnieszka Holland:It made me think about the extremes that they endured. I was born after the war, but my father, who is a Polish Jew, lost all his family who lived in Polish ghettos. I feel this morally damaged the country with these five years of occupation and the Holocaust. It was a dangerous period and then it was a Communist regime until 1989. The Polish-Jewish issues are still being discussed. Not just the history was important to me, but the fact that these stories were always present, even though they were not spoken about. I also feel that this kind of hate and human behavior just sleeps and come back at any moment so we must be aware of it. This kind of feeling can become much stronger during the current period of economic despair and frustration in Europe and the world. During this horror of the Holocaust many crimes of human nature were committed and cannot be understood and questions may never be answered. So the film is not just an historical film, for me it is an exercise in who I am.
David Shamoon: It had an enormous effect on me. I thought I knew about the Holocaust but in doing the background research which took me about 1 year to do, it was horrifying finding the level of depravity that was inflicted on these people. I still felt this was a story that needed to be told.

Festival Moderator: Can you tell us a little about Krystyna [Chiger] coming on the set and being part of the process?
Agnieszka Holland: Krystyna is the little girl in the story and the last survivor of this group and I didn't know she existed. She wrote the book [The Girl in the Green Sweater] and has an incredible memory and had thought of me if a film would be made. So I was very happy to meet her. One of the most nervous moments I and some of the Canadian producers had was when we decided she had to see the film before it was done. They took a film of the work in progress to her town in Europe wher she lives. I did not go to that screening.
David Shamoon: I think Agnieszka was a coward. I was at the screening and sat next to Krystyna and was very terrified that she would not like the film because she leaned over several times and whispered something in Polish to her husband. I thought it would be a disaster, but when the lights came on she was in tears and said, "That's the way it was." To us that was the most important critique that we could have gotten.
Agnieszka Holland: She and her family were here last night when it premiered at the Elgin Theatre and we wanted to introduce her as a special guest after the film since this was the first time she had seen the completed film. She cried and I myself was surprised at how emotional I became after the screening.

Audience Question: How long did it take to make the film?
Agnieszka Holland: We shot in 40 days, and my daughter who is also a director shot another 10 days on a secondary shoot. We also had to have language specialists, because the city then had many languages but the primary language was a Polish dialect called Lwów dialect, but we also had Polish, Yiddish, German, and Ukrainian languages. We had primarily Polish actors, but some German and Ukrainian actors also. Robert and the actress who played his wife learned to speak Lwów. Robert was not crazy about learning it but did a very good job.
Robert Wieckiewicz: My English is just ok but learning a slang language like the Lwów dialect I thought would be difficult, but we had dialect coaches and it really worked and we wanted the movie to be the most realistic but my younger co-actor Krysztof Skoneiczyny was much better at the dialect than me.
Agnieszka Holland: Yes this young guy, Krysztof, knew there was going to be a movie, so he read everything he could about the story, visited the sewers and got CDs to teach himself Lwów, and he was very good and after awhile could even improvise in this dialect. The dialect coach was an older man from Silesia, who may be one of the last people speaking Lwów. He said to Robert after some time, you know this younger man is better than you.

Festival Moderator: I would like to ask the composer about the beautiful score he created and his process of scoring the film and working with the director.
Antoni Komasi-Lazarkarkiewicz: It is not the first project we have done together. We both screened an unfinished portion of the film and were thinking it doesn't require any or much music at all. Where can orchestral music add to the movie? We found there were places music was needed but it needed to be subtle and almost hidden. The film already has a very creative soundscape. We had fantastic artists and did the mixing here in Toronto. We mixed the environmental sounds and music to create a vivid soundscape. We used some arias from operas at a few intense moments in the film also.

Audience Question: Do you actually know how many groups of Jews were hidden in the sewers?
Agnieszka Holland: I don't know the real numbers, only about this group. There were many Jews who escaped from the ghettos through the sewers, hundreds I think. But of individuals who stayed in the sewers for this long time I only know about our small group that actually stayed there over 14 months.

Audience Question: As for the children who acted in the movie, do you think it will affect their own feelings and background?
Agnieszka Holland: I don't know. I explained the film and the context and the history to them. They seemed to enjoy making the film. The girl was very pretentious, correcting our wording in the scripts sometimes. They can only work 3 hours a day and I did not have them present when we had sexual scenes.

Audience Question: Where was the movie shot?
Agnieszka Holland: Not in Lvov, the real city. We went there for research and to look at the sewers, but it was too complicated for many reasons including financially that we could not shoot there. We shot in Leipzig and Berlin in Germany and some towns in Poland. We shot in the sewers of three cities and the on stage in Leipzig recreating the chambers of the sewers. You also shoot where you get the money. France shoots in Prague, Prague shoots in Romania, Lithuania in Germany, the United States in Canada. That's the way it is, although your Canadian dollar is now strong so some shooting will be done elsewhere.

In Darkness opens in February in the DC area and is among the final five nominees for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2012 Academy Awards. It will also have a screening on February 19 at 2:00pm at the National Geographic as part of their Global Glimpses series which screens the final five foreign language nominees.

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