Interviews

Matteo Garrone is the director of Gomorrah, a new film based on the best selling book by Roberto Saviano.

It explores the world of the Comorrah, the mafia-like organisation based around the city of Naples in Southern Italy.

The film follows five stories that are based on real life accounts:

• A young boy named Toto (Salvatore Abruzzese) who is slowly sucked into the world of drug dealers near his housing estate
• An elderly accountant named Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) who acts as a courier for the relatives of imprisoned gang members
• A tailor named Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo) who endangers himself by trying to work for new company that isn’t controlled by organised crime 
• A university graduate named Roberto (Carmine Paternoster) who starts working for a toxic waste company that has ties to criminal gangs 
• Two unruly young men called Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone) who fantasise about being mobsters when they uncover a stash of weapons.

I recently spoke to Matteo in London where we discussed various aspects of the film, including: his initial reaction to the book; how he approached casting the various roles; the issues the film raises about contemporary Italy; the reaction at the Cannes film festival back in May and the music in the film by Massive Attack.

N.B. Although Matteo conducted the interview in English, we had an interpreter handy for those trickier phrases and words.

You can listen to the interview here:

You can also download it as a podcast via iTunes by clicking here.

Gomorrah is out at UK cinemas from this Friday

> Download this interview as an MP3 file
> Matteo Garrone at the IMDb
> Official UK website for Gomorrah
> GreenCine Daily with links to the various reactions to the film at Cannes
> Find out more about the Comorrah at Wikipedia
> Guardian feature on the film by Clare Longrigg  
> Buy Roberto Saviano’s book at Amazon UK

The Fall is the story of an injured stuntman (Lee Pace) in the early days of Hollywood who forms a friendship in hospital with a younger girl (Catinca Untaru) by telling her a fantasy story, which we then see in flashback.

Directed by Tarsem Singh, who’s previous work includes The Cell and numerous award winning commercials and music videos, it was largely funded out of his own pocket and took many years to make.

I recently spoke to Tarsem in London about the film and you can listen to the interview here:

You can also download it as a podcast via iTunes by clicking here.

N.B. We conducted the interview in a hotel with a rather loud swimming pool in the background, so apologies for the background noise.

The Fall is out at selected UK cinemas from today

> Download this interview as an MP3 file
> Official site for The Fall and the IMDb entry 
> Tarsem Singh at the IMDb 
> Check out the R.E.M video for Losing My Religion which Tarsem directed in 1991
> Find a local cinema showing The Fall via Google Movies 

Brideshead Revisited is the first feature film adaptation of the Evelyn Waugh’s classic 1945 novel of the same name. 

Set in a pre-WWII England, it tells the story of a young man named Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) who becomes friends with an aristocrat named Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw).

Charles is then introduced to Sebastian’s family and becomes entranced by his sister Julia (Hayley Atwell) and their large and beautiful estate, despite disagreeing with their religious views and cold manner - embodied by their matriarch, Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson).

Directed by Julian Jarrold, it explores the decline of English aristocracy, catholicism, the conflict between love and duty and the social changes brough about by World War II.

I recently spoke to Matthew Goode and Hayley Atwell about the film and you can listen to the interviews here:

You can also download it as a podcast via iTunes by clicking here.

Brideshead Revisited is out at UK cinemas from this Friday

> Download this interview as an MP3 file
> Official site for Brideshead Revisited
> Matthew Goode and Hayley Atwell at the IMDb
> Find out more about the original novel and the famous 1981 TV adaptation at Wikipedia

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is the film adaptation of British writer Toby Young’s 2001 memoir of the same name which charted his time at Vanity Fair magazine in New York during the late 1990s.

For the film, the names of the magazine and people Young encountered have been changed but it still keeps the general thrust of the book intact.  

Simon Pegg plays the lead character ‘Sidney’ Young, whilst Jeff Bridges portrays ‘Clayton Harding’ (based on VF editor Graydon Carter) and other key supporting actors include: Kirsten Dunst, Danny Huston, Gillian Anderson, Megan Fox and it is directed by Robert B. Weide.

I recently spoke to Simon and Robert about the film and you can listen to the interviews here:

You can also download it as a podcast via iTunes by clicking here.

How To Lose Friends And Alienate People is out at UK cinemas from this Friday

> Download this interview as an MP3 file
> Simon Pegg and Robert B Weide at the IMDb
> Official UK site and IMDb entry for How To Lose Friends And Alienate People

[All images © 2008 / Paramount Pictures]

Death Race is an action film written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, based on the 1975 Roger Corman film Death Race 2000.

It stars Jason Statham as Jensen Ames, a convict forced to participate in a deadly futuristic car race organised by a ruthless prison warden (Joan Allen).

I recently spoke to Paul and Jason about the film and you can listen to the interview here:

You can also download it as a podcast via iTunes by clicking here.

Death Race is out now at UK cinemas

> Download this interview as an MP3 file
> Paul W. S. Anderson and Jason Statham at the IMDb
> Official UK site and IMDb entry for Death Race

[All images © 2008 / Universal Pictures]

David Thomson is the author of numerous books on film, most notably The Biographical Dictionary of Film and has also written for New York Times, Film Comment, Movieline, The New Republic, Salon, The Independent and The Guardian.

His latest is Have You Seen…? and in it he writes about 1000 of the films that he has particularly liked – or in some cases, hated - from the earliest classics of cinema to the present day.

I recently spoke to David about the book and we had a lengthy discussion including the following: 

• How this differs from The Biographical Dictionary of Film
• The layout of one film entry per page 
• How David first got into writing about film 
• The task of reviewing the films for this book 
• There Will Be Blood and the work of Paul Thomas Anderson
• Se7en and David Fincher
• Goodfellas and Martin Scorcese 
• The ‘golden era’ of the 1970s
• Why Citizen Kane is consistently voted the greatest film of all time 
• Alfred Hitchcock
• Films that David has changed his mind on 
• The state of film criticism 
• The differences between American and English film culture 
• What David hopes readers will get out of this book

You can listen to the interview here:

You can also download it as a podcast via iTunes by clicking here.

Have You Seen…? is out today and is published by Allen Lane

> Download this interview as an MP3 file
> Buy Have You Seen…? at Amazon UK
> David Thomson’s recent articles at The Guardian
> Official page for the book at Penguin

Linha de Passe is the story of four poverty-stricken brothers who live in a favela neighborhood in São Paulo, struggling to fight for a better life after their father dies.

Directed by Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival back in May where one of its stars, Sandra Corveloni, won the award for Best Actress.

Walter has directed a number of acclaimed films since the 90s such as Foreign Land (1996), Central Station (1998) and The Motorcycle Diaries (2004).

I recently spoke to him about his latest film and we discussed various aspects of the movie such as football, shooting in São Paul without a permit and whether or not he has seen Steven Soderbergh’s Che yet.

Listen to the interview here:

You can also download it as a podcast via iTunes by clicking here.

Linha de Passe is out at UK cinemas from this Friday

> Download this interview as an MP3 file
> Walter Salles at the IMDb
> Official UK site for Linha de Passe