Glasgow Film Festival Cine Skinny - 22 February 09

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DAily Guide Sunday 22 February 09

What’s insIde? 2 » The Filth and the Jury Ray Philp talks to the director of Who Killed Nancy?

3 » reviews My Fair Lady  The Wrecking Crew  Still Walking 

And We’re Hoff...

As GFF09 comes to a close, Michael Gillespie celebrates the most consistently brilliant actor of the movie brat movement: Mr Dustin Hoffman.

Hoffman stars in the closing gala film Last Chance Harvey, a London set romance and a fitting end to a festival catered to every generation.

The Producers, Mel Brooks’ rib-shatteringly hilarious piece of prime tastelessness, was all set to shoot until one of its cast landed an audition alongside Mrs Brooks, Anne Bancroft. Apparently, old Mel felt his boy was better suited to the broadly comic role of Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind than waspish neurotic Benjamin Braddock. Oh, how things pan out…

Of course, that actor was Dustin Hoffman, and since The Graduate, his name has been synonymous with vulnerable intensity, wearied charm and some of the best American films of all time. A better known story is that of Olivier’s dismay at the young actor’s method dedication on the set of Marathon Man: “Why not try acting, it’s easier”. Not so well known, however, is that the story is actually gubbins. But it all fits into the mystique of Dusty, a gifted performer who only took acting lessons “for the girls”, shared a flat with Robert Duvall, tried to sell Gene Hackman’s son at a toy store, and impersonated that Geordie firefighter from Big Brother. Oh, he’s also won two Oscars and is the only actor to topline three Best Picture winners: Midnight Cowboy, Kramer Vs Kramer and Rain Man.

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Now 61, Hoffman has fared better than many of his peers (Pacino, De Niro, Hackman) in recent years.

Much of this is down to a good head for business and a knack for comedy.

While his unusual techniques are legendary (keeping pebbles in his shoe for Cowboy, screaming at the top of his lungs for hours in order to sound old for Little Big Man), his difficult professional reputation has always been offset by his refusal to take himself too seriously. This may explain his frequent supporting turns in recent high quality fare such as Finding Neverland, I Heart Huckabees, Perfume (with an accent!) and Stranger Than Fiction.

Which is why we should welcome Last Chance Harvey, Hoffman taking the lead once again in a major motion picture alongside national treasure and former Cambridge Footlighter, Emma Thompson. The film is a perfect showcase for the actor’s sensitive everyman qualities and one of very few Hollywood romances to focus on people over the age of 40. That the film is being given a wide release is down to the star’s enduring appeal to audiences of all ages. Just be thankful he said no to Super Mario Bros.

4 » what’s new online Updating you on new online content FOR GFF 4 » Pics of the Fest The best images from the last 11 days

the cineskinny Produced by The Skinny magazine in association with the Glasgow Film Festival editors Gail Tolley

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Michael Gillespie Eve McConnachie

GFF Box Office Order tickets from the box office at www.glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk or call 0141 332 6535 or visit Glasgow Film Theatre 12 Rose Street, Glasgow, G3 6RB info@glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk

The Filth and the Jury

Ray Philp talks to director Alan G. Parker about his latest documentary on punk’s original wild child Sid Vicious and aims to answer the question Who Killed Nancy?

In the autumn of 1978 Sid Vicious became a killer; this was the verdict of the British press and the New York Police Department’s account of the crime scene at the Chelsea Hotel.

Nancy Spungen, the then girlfriend of The Sex Pistols’ bassist, was found dead in the bathroom of The Chelsea with an ultimately fatal stab wound to the abdomen. The police had concluded immediately that Vicious had murdered her in a drug induced trance, despite the fact that he had been unconscious for nearly eight hours in the period that she had died as a result of having consumed a copious amount of a notoriously strong barbiturate, tuinal.

Added to the fact that the NYPD never queried why $20,000 had

gone missing from the crime scene at the time of Spungen’s stabbing, the investigation into her death rankles with Alan G. Parker. “It took her two and a half hours to bleed to death; if he stabbed her in that seven and a half hours answer me one question; when did she start bleeding in that first four hours?”

Parker, who is Vicious’ official biographer and has written several books including “Vicious: Too Fast To Live”, stresses that the motivation for his new film, Who Killed Nancy? is an opportunity to exonerate Vicious of his lover’s murder; and also “a chance to try and do something that I promised my friend (Vicious’ mother, Anne Beverley) I’d do in 1996 before she died.”

“One thing we didn’t want to do was make a movie about The Sex Pistols...if we did mention them, it was vague” explains Parker on his approach to the film, conscious that the story of The Sex Pistols has already been told. On the appeal of Vicious, Parker acknowledges that “Johnny Rotten was the words and mind of The Sex Pistols...but Sid was the sales factor”.

Despite the relatively ubiquitous spread of The Sex Pistols’ legend,

2 THE CINESKINNY SATURDAY 22 FEBRUARY

Vicious’ and Spungen’s story has remained a mystery to the public, something Parker has been determined to change long before he met Vicious’ mother. “I met Bev in 1984, and she said to me, ‘don’t worry love, we’ll do the book on my son and in one year’s time you’ll have a chance to get your life back to normal’”. A quarter of a century on, Parker intends Who Killed Nancy? to be the final line that is drawn under the mystery that surrounds the death of Spungen.

Sid Vicious died a matter of months after Spungen, overdosing on a ‘hotshot’; uncut heroin that is too pure for the human body to withstand. Even if he had survived the overdose, Parker is adamant that Vicious was born to die young.

“He was that kind of person; he had a stamp on his ticket from the outset”.

Who Killed Nancy? presents a strong case for Vicious’ innocence, but Parker acknowledges that the movie may still prove polemic. “If you see it and you think we’re right, god bless you. If you think we’ve got it wrong, equally god bless you, because you’ve got an opinion”.

The question of who killed Nancy

may never be answered, but Parker believes he is as close as anyone will get to the truth. His investigative skills serve as a chastening indictment of the NYPD and their contribution to the beginning of the end of Sid Vicious.

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Reviews My Fair Lady

Director: George Cukor

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From cockney guttersnipe to society darling Audrey Hepburn is enchanting as Eliza Doolittle the flower-seller, fixer-upper that Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) sets about trying to transform into a lady in George Cukor’s timeless My Fair Lady.

The musical numbers are instantly recognisable from the glorious “I Could’ve Danced All Night” to the raucous “Get Me to the Church on Time”. But it’s the sumptuous detail created by production designer Cecil Beaton and cinematographer Harry

The Wrecking Crew

Director: Denny Tedesco

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Stradling that is this 1964 classic’s biggest triumph, especially in the famous monochrome Ascot scene.

My Fair Lady is not only gorgeous to look at; it’s also faithful to the source material – George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. Amongst the razzle dazzle of the big show numbers and the fabulous costumes is an attack on the British class system and how accent determines one’s station in life. A musical that is entertaining and says something? They just don’t make ‘em like they used to.

Marjorie Gallagher

Still Walking

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda

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Director Denny Tedesco battles with a documentary where the soundtrack takes unfortunate precedence over the players. The story of The Wrecking Crew is a cultural cache of deserving airtime rivalled only by under appreciation until now. Tedesco’s film about his father’s time with a group of largely unknown LA musicians transpires as a matter of necessity in learning that they played on everything from Frank Sinatra records and The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds to rifting Mission Impossible and Bonanza theme tunes. Their fresh style coincided with the birth of rock-n-roll as peer and industry feared they’d both demolish the established order, which explains their destructive moniker. Once the story is revealed the actual content is understandably flat in comparison. The anticipation of what track might flood the background next contributes to this experience alongside a weighty expectation of anecdotes from the ‘Crew that never comes, probably because they spent most of their 18-hour days cooped-up in studios doing what they loved.

Andrew McWhirter

It is no surprise that Still Walking has been compared to Japanese auteur Ozu’s masterpiece Tokyo Story. Set in the middle-class home of a doctor it explores the many difficult feelings that exist within an extended family, played out over the course of a weekend get-together. In many ways it can be

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seen as a contemporary take on the 1953 classic; similarities include not just the subject matter but also the careful pacing and the constrained framing that evokes a sense of internal reflection. Intelligent and believable the strength of Still Walking lies in its nuanced depiction of the complexities of family relation-

ships, in particular between parents and children and the unfulfilled ambitions of the older generation for the younger.

Gail Tolley

SATURDAY 22 FEBRUARY THE CINESKINNY 3

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PHOTOS: Stuart Crawford, Alishia Farnan, Joseph Gibson, Andrew Greer , David Grinly, Heidi Kuisma, Scott Neil, Ruby Pester, Jonathan Pritchard, Claire Urquhart