Film
NEW l’RlNl REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (PG) 111min 0000
Debatably the best film about youth ever made. It's also the best film in James Dean's all too brief career. His blue jeans, turned up collar and blond guiff look is as iconic as anything committed to celluloid.
Nicholas Ray. lover of beautiful young things. really nails the troubled teens of the 19:30s' schism between hip
Name Connie Nielsen
Born 3 July 1965.
Background Born and raised in Denmark. Nielsen began her acting career working alongside her mother on the local revue theatre scene. At 18 she headed to Paris to pursue acting. which lead her to further work in Rome and Milan. but she currently lives in New York. As well as being an actress. she is a trained singer. dancer and is fluent in English. German. Danish, Swedish, French and Italian. Her most famous film role to date is that of Lucilla in Ridley Scott's Gladiator.
What is she up to now? She recently won best actress awards for her role in the Danish drama Brothers and Will be appearing in WWII epic The Great Bard opposite Joseph Fiennes later this year. Also soon to be released in the UK are the dramatic thriller Return to Sender and black comedy Ice Harvest with John Cusack.
What she says about being typecast in her 405 ‘What I've tried to do is avoid a problem that a lot of actors suffer. which is being pigeonholed. It was pretty evident in my 208 that I had a problem: because I was a tall blonde thing, l was always being offered the bimbo role. which seemed crass and really unjust. I’ve tried to avoid any kind of trap like that by going for ceinpletely diverse roles. almost like an animal trying to confound people trying to cage me. It WOUId be too confining; i just love exploring characters.‘
Interesting fact Nielsen is the girlfriend of drummer Lars Ulrich from Metallica.
I Brothers is showing at Fi/rnhouse. Edinburgh from Fri 77 Jun.
50 THE LIST '
youngster and square adults and the directionless rebellion that engendered. Dean's near suicidal clifftop drag race. his dismissal of his passive father and his tormented self— abuse superbly encapsulate the angst of this new generation. But where other films about the juvenile experience are somewhat narrow in their view of youth rebellion. this has a great depth of insight and is loaded with heart and soul for all of its characters.
Dean's dad might seem weak. but he's neither portrayed as a bad man nor the complete cause of his disturbed son's rebellion.
Furthermore. in the film's most touching seguence — when Dean. Natalie Wood and little Saul tvtineo run away from home to form their own alternative family — we see that they aren't simply turning their backs on society. but are searching for something that has meaning for them. it's this level of complexrty and understanding of the juvenile delinguent issue. as well as the all round terrific performances that makes Rebel Without a Cause an enduring classic. llvtiles Fielder)
I Fi/rnhouse [‘(l/IlUtITQ/I from Fri If) Jun Iunti/ Thu 16 Jun) and GI‘T, Glasgow fro/n Fri I7 Jun Iii/iti/ Tue 2/ Jun).
DRAMA BROTHERS (15) 110min 0.0
Throwrng off the Dogme mantle of her preVious film Open Heartsestal)lished Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier returns to her roots With a melodrama which echoes her hugely successful lin Europe) 1999 romantic tragedy The One and Only. lvtichael (Ulrich Thomsen. best known here for his roles in Festen and Inheritance) has it all: a successful military career. a beautiful Wife Sarah (Connie Nielsen) and two lovely young daughters. l-lis younger brother Jannik lNicola; Lie Kaas from The Idiots and Reconstruction) is a drifter and drinker who has recently been released from prison. tn the eyes of their mildly dysfunctional larger family it is cl; ssic case of white sheep black sheep. When Michael is billeted on a rescue mission to Afghanistan, his plane is shot down and news of his death is greatly exaggerated tn the weeks that follow a shift begins to take place in the familial fabric as Jannik begins to have feelings for Sarah.
this good old fashioned weepy is played out on two stages: that of the home and that of war as it gently
embraces and ruminates on such themes as psychological change. guilt. sibling rivalry and the ignominy of military death. As is the way With this kind of thing. e\.'eiythlng depends on
FILM SEASON ANALYSIS
LET’S GET PETRI-FIED
Pasquale lannone celebrates the work of Italian filmmaker ELIO PETRI.
Asked in 1980 about how he viewed his own position in the panorama of Italian cinema, lifelong Marxist Elio Petri (1929-1982) described himself as a filmmaker who, at a time of socio-political upheaval, had tried in some way ‘to be useful’. After an early period of experimentation during which he developed mastery of technique, artistic ambition became increasingly subservient to a relentless desire to probe the machinations, and injustices, of Italian society. Born in Rome in 1929, Petri (pictured, left, on the set of The Tenth Victim) abandoned his studies while still in his teens to join the PCI (Italian Communist Party). His interest in politics soon led to a growing interest in cinema. As a passionate organiser of film clubs and a critic for newspapers such as L’Unita, Petri came to the attention of neorealist director Giuseppe de Santis, who gave him the opportunity to collaborate on his film Roma are 11 (1952). Between 1952 and 1960, he became one of De Santis’ main screenwriters and he was later to acknowledge the celebrated director of Riso Amaro (1948) as his one ‘true mentor’.
In 1961, Petri made his feature film debut with the Kafkaesque thriller The Assassin, starring Marcello Mastroianni. With this supremely accomplished debut, Petri was able to introduce one of the crucial themes of his oeuvre, that of the difficult relationship between the individual and authority. The following year, he completed what is often seen as his finest film. I giomi contati (1962). Often compared to Kurosawa’s Ikiru, it is the chronicle of a terminally ill man Cesare (Salvo Randone) who comes to the shocking realisation that, because of work and family responsibilities, he has never properly lived. Two lighter, more experimental films followed: the wry comedy The Teacher from Vigevano (1963) and cult favourite The Tenth Victim (1965), a visually arresting pop-art science-fiction extravaganza starring Mastroianni and Ursula Andress.
Based on the novel by Leonardo Scascia, We Still Kill the Old Way (1967) marked a significant turning point in Petri’s development as a filmmaker. It was the film with which the director began his prolific collaboration with screenwriter Ugo Firm and actor Gian Maria Volonté. The trio were responsible for three of the finest, most politically charged European films of the 19705, the Oscar-winning Investigation of a Private Citizen (1970), La classe operaia va in paradiso (1971) and the shockingly prophetic kidnapping drama Todo Modo (1976). Throughout this period, securing funding and support within Italy for such strikingly political films became increasingly problematic. Indeed, as the curtain came down after the premiere of Investigation of a Private Citizen, neorealist author, screenwriter and theorist Cesare Bicycle Thieves Zavattini whispered to Petri: ‘For this, I think they’ll arrest you.’
I The E/io Petri Season is on now at the GFT. Glasgow and Fi/rnhouse. Edinburgh (until Sun 3 Jul).
the strength of the performances and Thoinsen, Nielsen and Kaas are class acts who llYZtllétgf} to keep a tight lid on the film's bubbling sense of hysteria. As al\.*.i'ays with the scripts Bier chooses to \.'ioi'k Wittl (wen/one here has then own emotions no one s sanctified oi \.'Itlt|(?(t. Brothers does. however. begin to deteriorate (juite badly in its final third. as things get a bit too soapy. touchy feely and a little obvious. revealing the film as little l“()l(? than a pumped up lV ll‘llll series. Ultimately less than the tltlll‘ of its parts. this solid diaiita s still worth .1 look. 't)au'l [)alei I I I’lll,"t)(.'.‘;t’. liliiiinirgl‘ from I l/
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