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  Legendary
Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni
passed away on July 30th, oddly the same day as the famous Swedish
director, Ingmar Bergman. Back in 1994, Vincent was among the cast
of Antonioni's Par-dela les nuages
(aka "Beyond the Clouds"). At that time the filmmaker was 82 years
old, suffering from speech impairment and partial paralysis as a
result of a stroke, but with the help of German director Wim
Wenders, he succeeded in creating a beautiful film. During an
interview conducted in Houston on a press tour for
"Queen Margot"
several years ago, Vincent spoke about
Antonioni and his film. "The movie is like
a testament," said
Vincent. "There are four stories.
My character was Antonioni's idea.
He couldn't say more than 20 words at a time. He was half-paralyzed,
so it was very difficult for him to explain what he wanted to say.
When he was saying 'quiet',
everybody was like ...."
Vincent makes a percussive splashing
sound. "Each word was used to give you an
internal resonance, to understand something about the situation. My
story is a man who's following a girl on the street. Normal, trying
to seduce her. Superficial talk at the beginning and after that
starting to talk about fears, about thoughts, about more deep
things. Then she goes into a church, to a Mass.
Everyone is waiting to see what Michelangelo wants to do. How he
wants to shoot the scene in the church. He didn't answer.
We're waiting four hours in this church. Suddenly he came to
see me. Somebody was helping him to walk.
Then he told the person helping him to go away and I was the one who
 was
to help him walk. We started to walk together.
We'd stop at a place in the church and he'd say,
'Beautiful, beauty. Bella! Bella!'
We continued to walk to the crucifix. He
kept saying 'Bella!'
After that he started to sing for me. He stopped singing and said,
'Bella! Bella!'" It
was like - not far from tears. After that he asked me to
sit and close my eyes. We were alone. It's the first time I
saw him alone without anybody helping him. I closed my eyes and,
in fact, my movement, that was the
movement of the camera, that was the scene.
After that, when I opened my eyes, Antonioni was there
looking at me, crying with a little smile." |
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 The
Secret", directed by Vincent and starring David Duchovny, has
been retitled Si j'étais toi for
its French premiere on October 10. You can view the trailer at this
You Tube link. There is presently no official web site, but
I have now posted a special page for the
film which includes new publicity stills. I have no idea why
there have been so many delays in its release since production
took place in Montreal in the spring of 2005. The film is
based on Keigo Higashino' novel, which was transferred to the screen
as "Himitsu" in 1999. It tells the story of a man
(Duchovny) whose life is
devastated when his wife (Lili Taylor) and daughter (Olivia Thirlby) are in an accident.
 On
June 6 Vincent attended a press conference at Russia's Sochi's
Kinotavr Film Festival for Apocalypse Code. The film's
official web site has now been
launched and producer Sergei Zhigunov has announced that the
film will likely be shown in 50 to 55 countries and will be released
in cinemas between June and October 2007. It will
premiere in Russia on October 4th. Vincent flew to Sochi
and stayed at the Hotel Chernomore directly in
the city's center. As soon as he was
shown his room, he
immediately asked to visit
the gym. He had a busy
schedule in his brief visit, which included dining out on lamb kebab
and red wine, meeting the press, attending a concert and even had
time for some sailing. Here are some photos from his visit, several
with his co-star Anastasia Zavorotnuyk.
The
official web site
for Arn: The Knight Templar has also been launched. Svensk
Filmindustri had a presence in Cannes offering distributors a chance
to view a promo-reel of one of the most expensive projects ever made
in Scandinavia with a budget of over $30 million. Distributors
reacted positively to the first 10 minutes of the epic movie. SF,
who shares sales with Telepool, said deals were closed with Thailand
and Vietnam while negotiations were continuing with Korea, Brazil,
China and Benelux. The “Swedish Braveheart” should be ready for
Toronto or the RomeFilmFest according to Ann-Kristin Westerberg,
SF’s head of international sales. Based on the firt part of Jan Guillou's well-known trilogy,
Arn -
The Knight Templar takes place in Sweden and the Middle East, and
evokes a rich tapesty of gallant knights, powerful quenns and
treacherous kings. An epic saga about war and intrigue, friendship
and betrayal, and above all: love. Set in the Middle Ages, the film
features many of Sweden's best -known actors.
On May 25th Vincent and his wife Karine
attended the Patrick Bruel Concert in Paris.
Officially called Roland Garros by the French, the French Open is
the second championship in row of the four Grand Slam tournaments
and held every year in late May early June.
Vincent attended on May 30.
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