Writer-director Todd Haynes started shooting his long-planned Bob Dylan film, I'm Not There, in Montreal on Monday.
In his unconventional interpretation of the singer-songwriter's life and times, six actors are cast as Dylan: Heath Ledger, Christian Slater, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw (who played Keith Richards in Stoned), and black child actor Marcus Carl Franklin. The supporting cast includes Michelle Williams, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Julianne Moore, and musical collaborators on the project are Calexico, Richie Havens and Lee Renaldo of Sonic Youth.
For his next joke
Ledger will follow the Dylan movie with the role of the Joker in the next Batman film, The Dark Knight, which will reunite Batman Begins director Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale, reprising his dual role as Batman and Bruce Wayne. Production begins later this year with cinema release planned for summer 2008.
Fest goes bust
A popular event with directors and actors, the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival (YIFFF) has closed down after 17 years because the town of Yubari in northern Japan is bankrupt. The festival was one of many initiatives to kick-start the economy of Yubari, once a booming coal mine town of 160,000 people, whose population dwindled to 10,000 after the last mine closed in 1990.
The festival's guests and jury members have included Dennis Hopper, Steve Martin, Gaspar Noe, Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Hou Hsiao-hsien (who shot exterior scenes for his 2001 film, Millennium Mambo in Yubari) and Quentin Tarantino, who named one of his Kill Bill assassins Gogo Yubari after the town.
Not in the film tonight
Just 11 days before Miami Vice opened in the US, my colleague Donald Clarke and other international journalists were interviewing Michael Mann in Los Angeles when the director sought their views on his use of In the Air Tonight, Nonpoint's cover of the Phil Collins song, during the movie's climactic showdown. "Well, I can't stand the song," Clarke replied. "So, I hated it."
Clearly, Mann took the advice of the critics, finally deciding at the 11th hour to let the ambient score by Intermission and 28 Days Later composer John Murphy to play over that crucial sequence and to shift the Nonpoint track to run over the closing credits of the movie. And yes, the song is terrible and could have ruined one of the outstanding scenes in the movie.
Auctioning Audrey
A 45-year-old dress is expected to fetch at least €100,000 when it comes up for auction at Christie's in London in December. This is not any old dress, however, but the elegant black number Hubert de Givenchy designed for Audrey Hepburn to wear when she played Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's. The proceeds of the auction will benefit the destitute in India.
Steely defiance
More on last week's Reel News item about Steely Dan's claim that Owen Wilson's character in You, Me and Dupree was taken from their song Cousin Dupree. With tongue firmly in cheek, Wilson has issued a statement: "I have never heard the song Cousin Dupree and I don't even know who this gentleman, Mr Steely Dan, is. I hope this helps to clear things up and I can get back to concentrating on my new movie, Hey 19."
