NICOLE AT THE WEDDING
The Q & A’s that follow screenings at the NYFF are a curious potpourri, less about illuminating the work in question than giving viewers a feel for the filmmaker on the podium. We learn, if nothing else, that few of these individuals are fashion icons exactly, with the exception of
Wes Anderson and the French auteurs in their natty leather jackets, worn indoors and out.
At the Q & A for
Margot at the Wedding, a frisson ran through the Walter Reade and cameras bristled as
Nicole Kidman arrived with director
Noah Baumbach, along with
Jennifer Jason-Leigh and
John Tuturro (who, if memory serves, has a single scene in the film). “Margot” proceeds almost like a surveillance camera recording the auto-destruction of an extended family on the eve of a wedding. Nicole Kidman plays the toxic titular sister to Jennifer Jason-Leigh’s screw-up Pauline, etched in a bravely vanity-free portrait. You gotta love Baumbach’s hair-trigger editing, the economy he packs by ending a scene before its ending, in the middle of a beat; he’s on to the next beat before you’ve digested the little death that just transpired. For all its seeming spontaneity, though, the film, said Baumbach, “is exactly as written.” With “Margot” Baumbach achieves new depth, and delivers an especially wise denoument, as sour as it is real.
Nicole Kidman in the flesh is like some tall blonde column emitting light, reducing the other folks on stage to mouse-people. The Q & A revealed that far from pulling rank, she enjoyed rehearsing and bonding with the cast in the Hampton Bays house where most of the film was shot (and hello Shelter Island ferry, you never looked this glam). “She’s a frightening mother,” said Kidman of Margot, “like the character in
To Die For. I wanted you to feel the pain within her, the way she stings people.” It was a relief to learn that Kidman’s own instincts as a mother “would go against some of the things that Margot did.” Kidman dances to her own drummer, mixing it up with studio biggies,
Lars von Trier, and now a New York indie.
Jason-Leigh, who owns the franchise on playing damaged women, didn’t seem much different in person from her screen persona. Someone asked Baumbach if his marriage (to Jason-Leigh, in case you were wondering) had affected his filmmaking. The question was greeted by a thudding silence -- then a sly smile from Baumbach, who was doubtless filing the moment away for future use in a film. He answered, “I throw everything I know and feel into the script.”
# posted by Erica Abeel @ 10/08/2007 11:15:00 AM
Comments (3)
"future use in a film"? What about the bookstore scene where Margot's lover obnoxiously presses her on connections between her life and her work?
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posted by @ 10/08/2007 10:06 PM
When I first saw this film I hated it because I didn't like the characters.
After seeing it again, I realized I was a lot like most of the characters.
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posted by Benjamin Crossley-Marra @ 10/09/2007 7:05 PM
i like noah baumbach and this movie. for those of you who haven't seen this movie, you can catch the trailer at www.margotatthewedding.com
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posted by @ 10/17/2007 5:32 PM
