MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD
Out of competition – Special screenings
“With a total of only thirteen movies directed over the course of forty years, Peter Weir has secured a place in the firmament of the great directors of modern cinema. At the end of the 1970s, he made a name for himself as the main man behind the rebirth of Australian film thanks to two movies, The Cars That Ate Paris and Picnic at Hanging Rock, the latter of which gained cult film status over the years. The international success of his two next movies, Gallipoli and The Year of Living Dangerously, opened Hollywood’s doors to him and he soon became one of its major protagonists. In his films, Weir combines reflections on personal themes and a need to reach as vast an audience as possible. Celebrating a taste for storytelling and innate romanticism, Weir has reinforced his own role in the Hollywood establishment, all the while keeping his distance from the American movie industry. Witness, The Mosquito Coast, Dead Poets Society, Fearless, The Truman Show, and Master & Commander are the major stages of an artistic career that has conserved its underlying integrity, all the way inside the commercial success of the movies he has made“. This is how the artistic director of the Biennale Cinema, Alberto Barbera, introduces Peter Weir, who today (Monday September 2nd) will receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in the Sala Grande (1.45 p.m.) immediately before the special screening of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, a seafaring epic based on the novels by Patrick O’Brian, scripted by the director himself with John Collee.
1805: Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) is the captain of the H.M.S. Surprise. He receives the order to hunt down a French vessel off the coast of South America. Napoleon is winning the war, but Jack wants nothing to stop the Surprise from completing its mission despite the obstacles. The fine director of the female cast of Picnic at Hanging Rock proves himself at ease here in handling the testosterone-fuelled atmosphere of a group of sailors at the mercy of the waves. The tone is summed up by Captain Aubrey’s sardonic Saturday toast at the officers‘ table: ’Gentlemen, to wives and mistresses… may they never meet!’ Peter Weir, who previously premiered the 1950s boys’ school-set drama Dead Poets Society (1989) and the apologist on media tyranny The Truman Show (1998) at the Venice Film Festival, said on hearing of the award:
“The Venice International Film Festival and its Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement are part of the folklore of our craft. To be singled out as a recipient for a lifetimes work as a director is a considerable honour’.
Oscar Cosulich
Peter Weir in masterclass: «La musica è l’aspetto più importante»
«Per come la vedo io, la sceneggiatura è il libretto, il regista compone la musica e le immagini sono le note»: Peter Weir conferma di essere «in pensione» dal cinema ma sembra comunque in gran forma, mentre gira da un angolo all’altro della gremita Match Point Arena al Lido per l’attesa masterclass condotta ieri da Paolo Bertolin e aperta dai saluti di Alberto Barbera, direttore di Venezia 81 che al regista di Master & Commander conferisce un meritato Leone d’oro alla carriera. La conversazione ha ripercorso l’intera carriera del cineasta australiano, dagli inizi televisivi al primo lungometraggio Homesdale (per lui «il più difficile da girare»), e poi i cult come Picnic ad Hanging Rock (ricordando il sodalizio con Russell Boyd, direttore della fotografia di questo e altri film di Weir), Witness – Il testimone, L’attimo fuggente e The Truman Show (a questi ultimi due, inizialmente, aveva detto di no!). Tra i segreti della sua creatività, il rapporto con la musica: «Credo sia l’aspetto più importante, c’era ancora prima che l’uomo iniziasse a fare i graffiti sulle pareti. Ascolto la musica per entrare in una sorta di trance», soprattutto quella strumentale «in modo che il cervello non si attacchi al significato delle parole». Perché è «dalla nostra parte inconscia che viene l’ispirazione».
Emanuele Bucci
