A troubled world takes center stage in pair of Venice film fest premieres
VENICE, Italy — Our troubled world remained the focus of a pair of world premieres Thursday at the Venice Film Festival.
Two celebrated veteran auteurs offer character portraits that illuminate hearts of darkness with Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” starring Benedict Cumberbatch as toxic masculinity incarnate and Paul Schrader’s “The Card Counter” with Oscar Isaac’s gambler haunted by his Mideast military past.
“Dog,” set in isolated 1925 Montana but filmed in Campion’s native New Zealand, is a change from the filmmaker’s career-long focus on women as well as a return to features after the “Top of the Lake” TV series.
“I had a great time working the series and I love the collaborative nature but it’s also so much work,” she said cheerily at the afternoon press conference.
“I think two hours is perfect. Also, it’s on a Netflix viewing platform. The discipline and rigor of those two hours is something I was excited to go back to.”
Campion made history as the second woman to win a best director Oscar nomination for “The Piano” (1993) and taking the Oscar home for her original screenplay. She is the first woman to win Cannes’ top prize, the Palme d’Or, also for “The Piano.”
Asked about women’s progress today, “To me the girls are doing very well. A woman just won the best director Academy Award and last year at Venice (Chloe Zhou for “Nomadland”) — and this year at Cannes.
“Once you give them a chance there’s not much stopping them. I still know the statistics are not in favor of women. The great loss is there’s just not enough female narrative. Women do think differently — and that’s what’s so beautiful.
“All I can say is since MeToo I feel a change in the weather that’s substantial. Like the Berlin Wall coming down. They revolted and they’re supported by men as well.”
Paul Schrader’s last picture, “First Reformed,” confronted the effect of climate change not just on the planet but on people. With “Card Counter,” “The problem I was concerned with is the lack of responsibility we have in contemporary society. ‘I didn’t lie. I misspoke.’
“And then there’s our character, who has been forgiven but he hasn’t forgiven himself. What has he done that’s so terrible? It’s Abu Graib,” Schrader said, referring to the notorious human rights abuses in the Iraq prison. “It’s a stain on the nation and will outlive everyone. That’s why I came to it.”