Thursday, September 02, 2004
CBS 2 Chicago: Spielberg Opens Venice Film FestivalVENICE, Italy (AP) At the opening day of the Venice Film Festival, big-screen dreamer Steven Spielberg offered a tribute to escapism Wednesday, saying times of turmoil call for relief within darkened movie theatres.
Festival organizers may well fancy a little escape themselves, amid criticism that Spielberg's The Terminal -- a picture that opened in North America over two months ago to mixed reviews -- was a middling choice to kick off the world's oldest film festival.
Spielberg, speaking to reporters Wednesday ahead of his film's gala screening, made no comment on this local controversy. But the filmmaker was clearly conscious of the greater troubles roiling the globe, and he offered up cinema as a form of respite.
"The world public has always shown their need for escape when the world is in crisis," he said. "Filmmakers all over the world have always been there either to reflect the crisis with very conscientious historically minded stories or films of pure escape -- science fiction, fantasy, comedy. These films typically work much better when the world is in flux."
Spielberg said he doesn't "chase the current events of the world" in deciding which films to work on.
"But the world has shown us that to be a human being you need to be relieved from the headlines. And now there are headlines on every single television channel, sometimes people feel compelled to escape into the movies. And I think it's a good thing."
Speaking of escape, The Terminal is about an eastern European man (Tom Hanks) who simply cannot. His confinement takes place in New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, where he is stranded after a coup takes place in his homeland.
Hanks was also on hand to promote the film Wednesday, flanking his director and offering occasional comic relief. "I can't sum up my career other than somebody's made a terrible, terrible mistake in giving me all these jobs," Oscar-magnet Hanks wisecracked.
Despite his kidding, Hanks too got drawn into current events, after a reporter praised Saving Private Ryan, then posed a strange polemical question. "Do you have a plan to make a second part -- Saving Private Bush -- and at the end of the film no one saves him?" the reporter asked.
Hanks joked: "He was never a private" -- an apparent reference to controversy over U.S. President George W. Bush's military service during the Vietnam War.
Escapism and comedy may have marked Wednesday's opening, but it wasn't all laughs here on the Lido island where the 11-day show is held.
Bitter words also drew attention, after former festival director Moritz de Hadeln -- who was unhappily ousted before this edition -- argued that many of this year's movies were weak selections, citing Spielberg's film in particular.
"Often, beginning with The Terminal, we're talking about films that have already been seen in their home country," he told Corriere della Sera newspaper in an interview. "My festival had 99 per cent world premieres."
Sniping aside, this year's festival does have much to offer, with 21 international films competing for the prestigious Golden Lion awards and hundreds more up for secondary awards or being shown out-of-competition.
For autograph-seekers, one of the biggest attractions is the flood of stars. In addition to Spielberg and Hanks, big names already docked here included Denzel Washington, John Travolta, Meryl Streep and Quentin Tarantino, with Robert De Niro, Angelina Jolie, Will Smith and Al Pacino expected for later events.
Among movie buffs, the buzz Wednesday focused on screenings of A Love Song for Bobby Long, starring Travolta and Scarlett Johansson, as well as Golden Lion-contenders 5x2, by highly touted French director Francois Ozon, and gritty Greek drama Delivery, by Nikos Panayotopoulos.
Eagerly anticipated works playing later in the festival include Nicole Kidman vehicle Birth; Mira Nair's adaptation of Thackeray's 19th-century novel Vanity Fair; Vera Drake, by Britain's Mike Leigh; German Wim Wenders' Land of Plenty; and Promised Land by Amos Gitai of Israel.
Festival organizers may well fancy a little escape themselves, amid criticism that Spielberg's The Terminal -- a picture that opened in North America over two months ago to mixed reviews -- was a middling choice to kick off the world's oldest film festival.
Spielberg, speaking to reporters Wednesday ahead of his film's gala screening, made no comment on this local controversy. But the filmmaker was clearly conscious of the greater troubles roiling the globe, and he offered up cinema as a form of respite.
"The world public has always shown their need for escape when the world is in crisis," he said. "Filmmakers all over the world have always been there either to reflect the crisis with very conscientious historically minded stories or films of pure escape -- science fiction, fantasy, comedy. These films typically work much better when the world is in flux."
Spielberg said he doesn't "chase the current events of the world" in deciding which films to work on.
"But the world has shown us that to be a human being you need to be relieved from the headlines. And now there are headlines on every single television channel, sometimes people feel compelled to escape into the movies. And I think it's a good thing."
Speaking of escape, The Terminal is about an eastern European man (Tom Hanks) who simply cannot. His confinement takes place in New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, where he is stranded after a coup takes place in his homeland.
Hanks was also on hand to promote the film Wednesday, flanking his director and offering occasional comic relief. "I can't sum up my career other than somebody's made a terrible, terrible mistake in giving me all these jobs," Oscar-magnet Hanks wisecracked.
Despite his kidding, Hanks too got drawn into current events, after a reporter praised Saving Private Ryan, then posed a strange polemical question. "Do you have a plan to make a second part -- Saving Private Bush -- and at the end of the film no one saves him?" the reporter asked.
Hanks joked: "He was never a private" -- an apparent reference to controversy over U.S. President George W. Bush's military service during the Vietnam War.
Escapism and comedy may have marked Wednesday's opening, but it wasn't all laughs here on the Lido island where the 11-day show is held.
Bitter words also drew attention, after former festival director Moritz de Hadeln -- who was unhappily ousted before this edition -- argued that many of this year's movies were weak selections, citing Spielberg's film in particular.
"Often, beginning with The Terminal, we're talking about films that have already been seen in their home country," he told Corriere della Sera newspaper in an interview. "My festival had 99 per cent world premieres."
Sniping aside, this year's festival does have much to offer, with 21 international films competing for the prestigious Golden Lion awards and hundreds more up for secondary awards or being shown out-of-competition.
For autograph-seekers, one of the biggest attractions is the flood of stars. In addition to Spielberg and Hanks, big names already docked here included Denzel Washington, John Travolta, Meryl Streep and Quentin Tarantino, with Robert De Niro, Angelina Jolie, Will Smith and Al Pacino expected for later events.
Among movie buffs, the buzz Wednesday focused on screenings of A Love Song for Bobby Long, starring Travolta and Scarlett Johansson, as well as Golden Lion-contenders 5x2, by highly touted French director Francois Ozon, and gritty Greek drama Delivery, by Nikos Panayotopoulos.
Eagerly anticipated works playing later in the festival include Nicole Kidman vehicle Birth; Mira Nair's adaptation of Thackeray's 19th-century novel Vanity Fair; Vera Drake, by Britain's Mike Leigh; German Wim Wenders' Land of Plenty; and Promised Land by Amos Gitai of Israel.
