Monica Belluci discusses "Irreversible"
Jaime Jeske
California)
Tuesday, March 4, 2003, Vol. 148, No. 32, pages 7-9
Italian actress makes waves
Actress Monica Bellucci talks about her role in the new movie
'Irreversible'
By Leticia Villase
Italian actress Monica Bellucci likes to talk with her hands. As she
speaks, her long black hair whips back and forth while she gestures
passionately about everything from people's inner demons to the debate
over destiny versus free will.
Though she is already an established star in Europe, Bellucci is finally
making a name for herself in the notoriously difficult-to-break-into
American market. She will be in both highly anticipated sequels to "The
Matrix" and will also star opposite Bruce Willis in "Man of War."
Bellucci is well-known for her role in director Giuseppe Tornatore's
acclaimed "Malena," a film nominated for two Academy Awards. She gives a
commanding performance as Malena, a beautiful, stoic woman with many
secrets to hide.
Bellucci's latest film, "Irreversible," by French director Gasper Noe,
is her most strenuous and physically draining role to date. For her part
she often worked 24-hour days, with little time to relax with fellow
actor and husband, Vincent Cassel.
For this part, Bellucci was able to experience a completely different
way of acting than she was used to - there was no script for
"Irreversible," only a six-page outline of the story.
"You have to be very confident when you work like that, with no script,"
she said.
When describing acting without having to follow a set script, Bellucci
said, "You can be so creative. It's just the most beautiful freedom that
you can have as an actress. I know for sure that I'm never again going
to have this freedom."
The actress had wanted to work with Noe, after seeing his past films "I
Stand Alone" (1998) and "Carne" (1991).
"Gasper is such a crazy guy," she said. Bellucci adds half in jest and
half seriously, "He's not like a normal human being. Sometimes you have
to control him a bit."
Bellucci's bold move to star in the graphically violent and unsettling
"Irreversible" has generated a lot of controversy among the Italian
press. The movie starts with a violent, graphic and long rape scene.
Many told Bellucci that her career would be finished after making a film
that blurs the line between cinema and pornography. Bellucci's mother
wasn't very happy either when she first saw her daughter in
"Irreversible."
Her mom came to her and asked in disbelief, "What did you do? Why?"
Bellucci said. Bellucci told her mom to just "be cool and relax" and
that the whole thing would blow over and people would see the true
beauty of it.
The Italian actress was right. "Irreversible" has thus far received
critical acclaim, and Bellucci has been praised for her daring role as
Alex.
Bellucci sees the film as a modern mixture of "Clockwork Orange" and
"Requiem for a Dream."
"You felt so disturbed when you watched those movies because they go so
deep inside you," Bellucci said, commenting on the effects of films such
as these. "And you have to see the monsters ... the monster is inside us
and can come out, you know, in every moment."
Bellucci is very passionate about cinema, and when she speaks about the
deeper meaning of films like "Irreversible," her voice quivers with
emotion.
Interestingly enough, she almost didn't become an actress, having
originally wanted to be a lawyer.
"Lawyer - liar, right?" she quipped when asked about this.
She added: "I think that lawyers are such incredible actors. Can you
imagine the performance that they have to do every day?"
Bellucci's wry, European sense of humor lends her a certain charisma
alien to Hollywood actors. She's a woman who doesn't take herself too
seriously - Bellucci recognizes how a combination of hard work and luck
has finally paid off, but at the same time, knows that fame is only
temporary.
"I know that it won't be like this forever," she said matter-of-factly.
"I know that I'm going to get old, that I'm going to die."
When asked how she feels about her celebrity status in Europe, and more
recently, the United States, Bellucci gets a bit self-conscious.
"I don't feel I'm a movie star," she said. "I do my movies and then I
don't go to parties. I don't do fashion."
She added that she is both surprised and delighted at the amount of
attention she has been getting in America. Bellucci is looking forward
to the lighter roles in her upcoming Hollywood films.
She just finished filming for Mel Gibson's "The Passion," in which she
plays Mary Magdalene. She had nothing put praise for Gibson.
"Mel is great," she said. "He knows how to direct and act. I loved
working with him."
When asked about her character in "The Matrix Revolutions" and "The
Matrix Reloaded," Bellucci was very hush-hush.
"I can't say too much," she said. "All I can say is that she's very
sensual, very mysterious and dangerous. She's in control. She's not a
victim."
Copyright 2003 by the Daily Trojan. All rights reserved.
"The Toronto Star"
Sunday, March 2, 2003
Peter Howell
IRREVERSIBLE IMAGES: The Ontario Film Review Board, which has become a
whole lot more open-minded as of late, recently ruled that Gaspar Noé's
horrific rape-and-revenge chronicle Irreversible is suitable for viewing
uncut by consenting adults. But the poster image used for the film's
original release in France is too hot to handle for distributor Odeon
Films, which will open Irreversible here March 14. The French poster
shows a woman (played by actress Monica Bellucci) in the midst of a rape
attack. It's a far more disturbing image than the one Odeon will use for
the Canadian poster, which depicts the woman walking through an
underground tunnel moments before the attack. You can compare the two by
typing "Irreversible" into the image browser at the Google.com search
engine, but this is not for the faint of heart. Did I hear someone say
that this movie isn't controversial?
Tuesday, March 4, 2003
No dolce vita
In her latest films, Monica Bellucci is the very model of the suffering
actress
By Bob Strauss
Film Writer
With her model's looks, ex-law student's brains and growing worldwide
reputation, Monica Bellucci is the closest thing that Italy has exported
in decades to a latter-day incarnation of the world-renowned actresses
(Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Anna Magnani) the country produced in
the middle of the 20th century.
So, with all the things we associate with great Italian actresses --
beauty, talent, charisma, adventurous spirit -- why is Bellucci allowing
so many terrible things to be done to her?
Not in real life, of course. The multilingual, statuesque 34-year-old
confirms that she's felt more than fulfilled creatively, personally (she
married top French actor and frequent co-star Vincent Cassel in 1999)
and monetarily for years now.
But oh, what she's had to endure for art and commerce.
"I don't know why men want to punish me," Bellucci cracks in arch,
accented English. "They give me such hard, hard work, really. But I'll
tell you, the really difficult thing is not to work. When you have a
chance to do beautiful, meaningful movies with very talented people ...
I am so lucky to have the possibility to do all of these deep,
interesting characters instead of having to play superficial and stupid
ones. It's just the best that can happen to an actor."
It may be. But play-acting doesn't get any more grueling than what
Bellucci was put through for the two movies she has opening Friday.
"Tears of the Sun," set in Africa and filmed in mountainous Hawaiian
jungles, is a military rescue thriller in which a Navy SEAL team tries
to extract Bellucci's volunteer doctor from a part of Nigeria being
overrun by genocidal rebels. She spends the movie covered in sweat and
muck, trudging through rugged terrain and being barked at by Bruce
Willis' by-the-book SEAL commander.
Which, at least from the audience side of the screen, looks like a
tropical holiday compared to what happens to Bellucci in the French
"Irreversible." Her pregnant character is brutally raped in an
underground passage, after which the assailant smashes her face to pulp.
Directed by the controversial Gaspar Noe ("I Stand Alone"), the
shockingly graphic film also features an extended nude scene with Cassel
(who plays her boyfriend, not the attacker), has been critically
championed and decried with equal passion, made some viewers physically
ill and has driven many more out of theaters, and became a surprise
box-office hit in many parts of Europe.
Compared to these two trying jobs, spending three months doing
complicated stunts in Australia for the upcoming "Matrix" sequels and
learning to speak a lost language for the role of Mary Magdalene in Mel
Gibson's all- Latin and Aramaic life-of-Christ movie "The Passion" sound
like walks in the park.
But you get the idea. This is one unflinching actress. Or maybe an
insane one.
Dare tactics
"It could be because I'm doing things that are courageous, and it
surprises people," Bellucci shrugs when asked why, of all the fine
European actresses of her generation, she's the one both Hollywood and
the Old World avant garde are so taken with. "They think, 'Oh my God,
this girl, look at this stuff she does.' But I do things not because I'm
crazy or to show off. When we did 'Irreversible,' I assure you I did not
think that the film would make any money; we were just gonna make the
film for us, like a Pasolini movie or 'Deliverance,' those kinds of
films, very violent, very strange. But I did it because, after the film,
I was sure I could be another kind of actress."
As that statement indicates, there is method to Bellucci's apparent
madness. Always has been, really, despite having never planned her
entries into first modeling and then acting. Hailing from a small town
in the Perugia region, Bellucci began posing to help pay for college.
The Milan fashion industry quickly picked up on her classic looks, and
law school was put on indefinite hold for three years of photo shoots.
Francis Ford Coppola saw one of her magazine spreads while he was
preparing his 1992 "Bram Stoker's Dracula," and offered Bellucci a small
part as one of the vampire's brides. It wasn't much, but it was enough
to encourage her to ease off on the modeling and seriously study acting
for several years. When she was confident enough in her skills as a
thespian, Bellucci relocated from Italy to Paris, where more films were
being made and exported.
"I wanted to have an international career, and in my country it's
impossible to do that the way I wanted to," she explains. "It's not like
it was in Italy in the past, when we had all those great directors:
Fellini, Rossellini, Visconti, De Sica. When actresses like Sophia Loren
and Gina Lollobrigida came to America, they were already big stars
because of Italian movies. Now it's not like that anymore."
Ironically, though, it was an Italian film, "Malena," that made the
biggest impression on Hollywood directors such as "Tears"' Antoine
Fuqua, "The Matrix's" Wachowski brothers and Gibson. Maybe it had
something to do with the fact that "Malena's" director, Giuseppe
Tornatore of "Cinema Paradiso" fame, wrote the title role specifically
for Bellucci, and it not only emphasized her sexiness but also subjected
the character to harrowing degradation.
"Oh God, she is so beautiful," gushes Fuqua, who last time out steered
Denzel Washington to an Oscar in "Training Day." "I read somewhere that
someone thought she had Chanel lipstick on in my movie. No, her lips are
that color! I tried to dirty her up, I literally grabbed dirt and threw
it on her one day. It just doesn't make a difference. But Monica's
great, courageous; she'll do anything."
"I chose her for her guts," adds "Irreversible" helmer Noe. "In this day
and age, I don't know of any other actress at the level of Monica who
would have accepted to do the rape scene the way she did. She is very
radical and she is very intelligent and very instinctive. She was the
director of the whole rape scene; I was just the (camera) operator."
Bellucci confirms that, although the physical action of "Irreversible's"
violent violation was carefully choreographed to avoid any real harm
being done, her anguished performance -- before the unblinking camera
for nine uncut minutes that feel like eternity -- was otherwise
improvised.
"You know, I'm a woman, and I know what I feel if someone touches me
that I don't want to," she explains. "A woman can have sex with even
three men, but she has to make that choice. If men you don't want to
touch you ... You know, we are much weaker than you guys. The only thing
we have is the choice, so to be raped is the most horrible thing that
can happen to a woman. I can understand what it feels like for a woman
who gets in a position like that, even if it never happened to me. And I
hope it never does.
"I don't know if I'd see the movie if I hadn't have been in the movie,"
Bellucci acknowledges. "Even today, when I see that scene, I am so
disturbed. The rape scene is terrible. But everything Gaspar does talks
about the theme of good and evil that exists in human nature. We are
those monsters, those monsters are real. To me, the most violent scenes
in 'Tears of the Sun' are the documentary footage at the beginning. So
the film takes inspiration from reality and not the contrary. Nothing is
more violent than life."
An eye-opener
"Tears," though fictionalized, closely references outbursts of
atrocities in Rwanda, Congo, Sierra Leone, Nigeria itself and other
African nations (all of the African extras in the movie are played by
refugees from one part of that crippled continent or another). While
researching her role, Bellucci discovered that there are much higher
callings in life than international stardom.
"I met many Doctors Without Borders members who do humanitarian work in
Africa," she notes. "They often go into active war zones to assist not
only medically, but also to help with basic needs like irrigation and
building communities. That's why, to me, this film is much more than an
action movie. It shows the hate and war and instability that has been
going on there for years. There are so many conflicts going on in the
world that people don't know anything about because the media doesn't
give them attention. That's why I think this is an important movie."
Despite the gravity of the scenario, the actress still managed to have
some fun with her performance. Bellucci-style, anyway.
"I bit Bruce, I spit on him," she says, laughing. "I mean, she's real
Italian, so passionate. I spit on Bruce many times; he loved it!"
As for the "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions," what
little Bellucci is permitted to say about the highly anticipated and
ultrasecret sequels makes it sound like she got off a little easier than
her harness-flying, bullet-time fighting co-stars.
"My character is Persephone and she is very dangerous, sensual and with
kind of a sense of humor, too," she reveals. "I haven't seen the movie,
so I don't know anything about it. It was a great experience, lots of
cameras for three months. I didn't have to jump on the walls, but I have
another way to be dangerous."
We have a notion that Monica Bellucci always will. And be grateful for
it, too, no matter how outrageous the circumstances.
"I'm very lucky," she insists. "It's great for me to have the
possibility to work with many different directors in different
countries. It's also a beautiful possibility as a human being, not just
as an actress. And I like to get through difficult situations sometimes;
I have the impression that I can grow much more as an actress that way."
Jaime
Phil7101
>Matrix" and will also star opposite Bruce Willis in "Man of War."
Jeez, I know it's a student paper, but get the name of the movie right at
least.
Jaime Jeske
news:20030305013353...@mb-fz.aol.com...
Personally, I was wondering how they got the interview in the first
place.
Jaime
chap5871
the Sun just from the trailers, but now I'm really excited to see it.
She's a great actress and really beautiful. I think she's got a
really bright future in the US.
"Jaime Jeske" <jaim...@cox-internet.com> wrote in message news:<v6baerq...@corp.supernews.com>...
Jaime Jeske
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Noe easy ride, unless in Tokyo
By GIOVANNI FAZIO
Gaspar Noe and Vincent Cassel's press conference at Shibuya's trendy
restaurant/club Fabrique was a real lovefest, dancing graciously around
the fact that "Irreversible" is one of the most genuinely shocking films
you'll ever see.
The press fawned on Cassel, asking him what it was like working with his
real-life partner, Italian actress Monica Bellucci. Local talent Keiko
Koike -- billed as "the Japanese Monica Bellucci" (i.e., they both have
voluptuous curves) -- turned up with flowers for a playful photo shoot.
She wore a white dress similar to the one Bellucci sports in the film,
and Noe commented "C'est dangeur," provoking much nervous laughter.
Noe, the miserabilist auteur bar none, actually grinned. All in all,
there was surprisingly little controversy to greet a director who was
trying his damnedest in the movie to provoke a reaction.
I did ask him why it was necessary to show the rape scene in real time,
the longest rape in the history of cinema outside of pornographic films.
"There are some women friends of mine who've been through that
experience," said the director, "and I really wanted to depict it in a
realistic way. Actually, a real rape would be even longer than nine
minutes. But if you cut it so that it's too short, it becomes
unbelievable, fake."
Cassel wanted to comment as well: "The rape itself isn't shown in such
detail [an arguable claim], but what makes the scene so horrible is the
length of the scene, and the fixed, unflinching position of the camera."
Noe added, "More than that, it was Monica's performance, which was
incredibly brave."
Cassel closed the issue by saying: "Scenes of rape and murder are things
we see in the movies all the time these days, and I think we've become
numb to it. In order to make people feel quite deeply how cruel these
acts are, it was necessary to make the scenes so long."
It wasn't only the nasty scenes that were long: Noe's approach to the
entire film, shot on a tight six-week schedule when both actors were
available, was "one scene, one take." Cassel described his lengthy
bedroom scene with Bellucci: "I knew we were shooting the scenes in one
take, but I wanted to know how long it should be. I asked Gaspar and he
said, 'However long you like, from two minutes to 20 minutes.' I
laughed, but he wasn't joking. We actually shot 20 minutes, one full
reel of film."
Noe admits that he didn't have a script for the film, just a 3 1/2-page
synopsis, allowing the actors to create their dialogue through
improvisation. Cassel enjoyed the process, describing it as "incredibly
free. You never knew how long a scene would last; you could do what you
wanted. You get that same sort of charge you get performing on stage;
you have to be very focused and open to the moment."
Casting Cassel and Bellucci, both high-profile celebrity actors, was a
first for Noe, who prefers nonprofessionals.
"I'm a really bad director," says Noe, self-deprecatingly. "I don't give
any directions. When I'm casting, I just look for people who are very
charismatic, who can be themselves before the camera. For example, the
16-minute love scene between Monica and Vincent, I didn't give any
directions. Before we began, I told them 'good luck,' and after we cut,
I said 'bravo!' "
The couple's scene in bed -- like the violence -- is very convincing:
"For a love scene, I wanted to show real love, nothing fake, it had to
be real, believable," explains the director.
Noe seems to understand the problems some audiences have with his film,
but he has no regrets. "When I saw the finished film, it frightened me,"
he admits. "I even cried, it made me sad. But a film full of rage,
tears, laughs -- I was glad I made it."
Copyright 2003 "The Japan Times."
Jaime