LA Times Interview with Kidman
MGenevieve
that she will appear in the remake of The Stepford Wives" -- Genevieve
Los Angeles Times
May 21, 2003 Wednesday
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL;
Life's work has the occasional odd job;
Unconventional choices define Nicole Kidman's successful 'artistic
journey' --'Dogville' is the latest.
Kenneth Turan, Times Staff Writer
CANNES, France It is unnerving to be in Nicole Kidman's film festival
world, even for just a minute or two. To be the focus of so many
intent eyes during a walk from a press conference to a waiting car
here, to have waves of people imploring "Nicole, Nicole, Nicole" as
dozens and dozens of cameras click almost simultaneously, is strange
to the point of being surreal.
Yet Nicole Kidman, whose world after all this is, is remarkably
centered and thoughtful about it all. "Coming from Australia, where
the philosophy is you don't make a big to-do over things, I don't like
the hoopla," she says a few minutes later. "But you put yourself on
show, you put on a beautiful dress and walk up those stairs, because
this is the way in which people are going to see a film I care about."
The film of the moment, Lars von Trier's reckless "Dogville," in fact
does need the kind of assistance Kidman's Oscar-winning stature, as
well as her luminous, beautifully nuanced performance, can offer.
Intriguing and intentionally provocative, audacious and inevitably
exasperating, this self-consciously theatrical production (still
without an American distributor though interest in the film is
reported) is so out-and-out unusual that when Kidman's old friend
Russell Crowe visited her on the remote Swedish location, "he looked
around the set and said, 'What the hell is this?' "
Crowe's confusion is understandable. The story of a small 1930s
Western town that first offers sanctuary to and then sadistically
turns on a beautiful woman on the run, "Dogville" was completely
filmed, all two hours and 58 minutes of it, by costumed actors on a
bare sound stage devoid of sets and all but a few props. What the
script says are houses are actually rectangles painted on the floor;
instead of an actual dog there's the painted word and barking on the
soundtrack.
"When Lars was trying to sell the film," Kidman, 35, remembers, "he
made a test reel and people thought it was a joke."
It was the opportunity to work with Cannes favorite Von Trier, whose
"Dancer in the Dark" won the Palme d'Or here in 2000, that interested
Kidman in the film. "He's an unusual man, strange, neurotic,
obsessive, extremely complicated as a human being," she says, the kind
of director, like Stanley Kubrick, whom she worked with on "Eyes Wide
Shut," that she inevitably feels protective about.
"There's a rawness to him, he's very exposed, he gets misunderstood
and strangely preyed upon."
Making a film with any director, Kidman says, "is a relationship you
have. It can be exhausting, confrontational, it takes an enormous
amount out of you, so much that afterward you have to go away and
heal. But, hopefully, out of that comes something artistic. At least
we're reaching for it."
Fruitful relationships
Kidman says that "when I go to work is when I'm most open. I hate
those 'the making of' documentaries because I think those times on the
set are the most sacred, the most private moments. You're giving
yourself openly to a director and saying, 'Take this. I'm going to
tell you things, expose things, my flaws, my virtues, for you to use.
Let's go with it.' "
For an actress who thrives on this kind of intimacy, the fact that Von
Trier served as his own camera operator, shooting the entire film with
a 40-pound high definition video rig strapped to his body, was a
singular experience.
"Lars held that for six or seven hours, you could see him sweating,
breathing hard," Kidman remembers. "When you're acting in a scene,
he's there with you, talking to you from behind the camera. It creates
an intimacy, an easiness that allows you to try different things. You
can see his hand telling you to calm down, or he would reach out and
touch my hand with his. Nobody else does that, but it feels like
that's the way it should be."
The longer Kidman works, the more she sees connections between the
kinds of directors she gravitates toward. "They're obsessive, all
obsessives, that's the thread I notice," she says. "I see it, I'm
drawn to it, I find it fascinating. And I respond well in that
environment."
These filmmakers, Kidman also understands, are likely to have their
work booed in some quarters and at some festivals. "I embrace that;
that's something that needs to be encouraged," she says. "Everyone
gets scared to have a voice, to criticize, to be criticized. Once you
say, 'OK, something like this is going to get a reaction,' there's a
risk associated with it."
In addition to "Dogville," Kidman has already completed work on "The
Human Stain," directed by Robert Benton; "Cold Mountain," directed by
Anthony Minghella; and "Birth," the new film by "Sexy Beast's"
Jonathan Glazer, and she has a new version of "The Stepford Wives"
next up. "People say, 'My gosh, you're working so much,' but it's
where I get my joy. It gives me my sanity.
'Beyond the here and now'
"And it's working with people with challenging ideas, delving into
things that are profound. Ultimately what you leave behind in the
world is so, so, so small, a tiny speck at that. I don't want to miss
an opportunity to put work out that might live beyond the here and
now."
As to the breadth of the projects she chooses, Kidman says "I don't
even see it as challenging. It's more just my artistic journey. I hate
having limitations, people saying 'it's just not done' or 'your films
are expected to make enormous amounts of money.' Changing is what you
want to do as an actor; my spirit would be broken if I couldn't do
that. I don't want to lie on my deathbed thinking about what my life
could have been. I want it to have been rich and unusual, with strong
emotional attachments."
More than once, Kidman returns to the phrase "the journey of my life"
to talk about how she views where she is now. "I've given myself over
to it," she says. "I'm certainly not mapping it out, not looking for
balance. There's no one place where I live, no home except for my
children, no relationship at the moment. Yes, there's anxiety, but
this is compelling and exciting and dangerous and I'm willing to exist
like this now.
"That's why 'The Hours' was such an important film for me, so deeply
moving. Not just my speech at the train station about not finding
peace by avoiding life, but what Meryl [Streep's character Clarissa]
says about happiness being the moment, right now. That is so
beautiful."
Copyright 2003 The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times
Padraig L Henry
wrote:
>The film of the moment, Lars von Trier's reckless "Dogville," in fact
>does need the kind of assistance Kidman's Oscar-winning stature, as
>well as her luminous, beautifully nuanced performance, can offer.
>Intriguing and intentionally provocative, audacious and inevitably
>exasperating, this self-consciously theatrical production (still
>without an American distributor though interest in the film is
>reported) is so out-and-out unusual that when Kidman's old friend
>Russell Crowe visited her on the remote Swedish location, "he looked
>around the set and said, 'What the hell is this?' "
Thanks for posting this piece here, Gen. And just to add that Lions
Gate Films has just won the spirited bidding war for North American
rights to Von Trier's Dogville,
Padraig
... Crowe is badly in need of the humbling effects of some dogme