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Adele
The Huggy Merchant
Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
May 17 2002
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 Posted - May 23 2002 : 11:22:30 AM
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From the UK national newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, Tuesday 21st May.
Stars turn out to support troubled Scorsese epic....
Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese drew the biggest crowds of the Cannes festival so far to show off just 20 minutes of film yesterday. The actors came to the Riviera to give support to Scorsese with his troubled film Gangs of New York. It has taken 25 years to develop but is finally expected to become one of next year's most talked about films.
Costing £65million, it is £10million over budget, still unfinished, and the cause of much grief. But Scorsese, the veteran New York director, was able to show 20 minutes of highlights.
Scorsese first planned the film, about the violent battles in mid-19th century New York between gangs of Irish immigrants, a quarter of a century ago, but filming began only at the start of 2000. Some scenes are currently being re-shot in New York.
Absent from the party was the film's main British star, the highly charged Daniel Day-Lewis. Reports of disagreements between him and his co-stars have dogged the production.
Scorsese, a noted perfectionist, had fought for his film to run at an epic four hours. He lost the battle. His produced, Harvey Weinstein, a famously robust figure, has made him agree to cut it to two hours and 40 minutes.
After yesterday's mini-premiere, the combatants comfessed to some battles. Scorsese, whose hits include Goodfellas and Taxi Driver, said: "I'm a very excitable person. Harvey is also particularly colourful. We have had our disagreements and after every one we have made up." Weinstein, chairman of Miramax, admitted: "Yes, I'm no angel. So mea culpa in some areas. But it has been a privilege to work with Marty. He's the best director I've ever worked with."
Weinstein said that the end result would be "a work of art" not like "half the s*** you see made by Hollywood where they have Superman bouncing off all the walls".
Day-Lewis, a notoriously intense actor who suffered a breakdown after working on the stage in London, plays a gang leader called the Butcher in the lavish production. The character kills his rivals with knives. To get into the part he spent several months working at a butcher's shop in London.
On the evidence of yesterday's short clips the British actor will steal the show from his American co-stars. They both acknowledged that the Briton was not always the easiest actor to work with. DiCaprio said: "I would often hear him sharpening knives in the next trailer. His focus is incredible. Its like a war for him. Finding his character is like fighting a battle." Diaz said: "Unless you are born Daniel Day-Lewis you are never going to be like Daniel Day-Lewis."
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Theresa
Bumppo's Tavern Proprietress
USA
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May 17 2002
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Posted - May 23 2002 : 4:32:53 PM
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Hey Adele! Thanks for this post. From everything I've read about this, it's shaping up to be quite a movie. Of course, all of us here know the caliber of acting DD-L can turn in and it sounds as though we are in for a treat. A tough time in America's history but a story that should be told none the less.
Theresa |
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caitlin
Bumppos Tavern Patron
USA
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May 17 2002
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Posted - May 23 2002 : 10:07:24 PM
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Okay.... "I would often hear him sharpening knives in the next trailer."
I read that and it creeped me out! 
caitlin
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Theresa
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USA
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Posted - May 24 2002 : 07:35:38 AM
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Hey Caitlin. The knife sharpening thing does sound creepy but we all know how he gets into his character roles....kinda like walking around in the mountains of North Carolina with Kildeer in his hands.
Theresa |
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Theresa
Bumppo's Tavern Proprietress
USA
Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
May 17 2002
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Posted - May 27 2002 : 08:44:47 AM
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Here's a snipet from yesterday's Washington Post:
The cast is sexy but hardly brilliant, with the exception
of Daniel Day-Lewis as the malignant Bill the Butcher, gang ruler
of the "the Five Fingers," as the Lower Manhattan slums were then
called. Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz and a number of Irish and
English actors round out the ensemble.
From everything that I've read and heard (press conference) DD-L promises to steal this one away from the "headliners". Looking forward to it.
Theresa |
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vincent
Pioneer
USA
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May 20 2002
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Posted - May 30 2002 : 4:00:38 PM
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Huggy,
Did I read this passage correctly?!?
"Day-Lewis, a notoriously intense actor who suffered a breakdown after working on the stage in London, plays a gang leader called the Butcher in the lavish production. The character kills his rivals with knives. To get into the part he spent several months working at a butcher's shop in London."
Our own DDL suffered a "breakdown"? Does that mean as in a 'nervous' breakdown. If anybody can enlighten then would greatly appreciate it.
Vincent
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Theresa
Bumppo's Tavern Proprietress
USA
Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
May 17 2002
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Posted - May 31 2002 : 08:33:20 AM
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Hey Vincent. This breakdown happened while doing Hamlet in 1989. Here's a few excerpts from The Fire Within, the biography written by Garry Jenkins:
In the absence of that fatherly influence, Daniel had drawn on the memory of Cecil Day-Lewis to guide him through the performances. A huge blow-up photograph of the late Poet Laureate was stuck on his dressing-room wall. He described it later as 'a big, beautiful one, staring very directly, alive, a really living photograph'. As he prepared to go out on stage each night to face the ghost of Hamlet's father, Cecil's gentle smile watched over his own son.
In beginning to use his memories and unresolved feelings for his father as an acting tool, however, Daniel was also unleashing forces that had lain dormant since his troubled adolescence. By dwelling on his own loss he provided himself with a key to the mind of Hamlet, the most tortured of all grieving sons. But at the same time he unlocked the demons of his past. Those forces would ultimately destroy his Hamlet.
'He was throwing himself into the part so hard that on the matinee days come the start of the second show you thought there was no way he was going to get through it. It was mad, weird, frightening, the whole thing. It was like an exorcism going on, it was like a personal thing he had to get out of his system,' recalled one National Theatre actor.
Three quarters of an hour into the play that night, Daniel approched that moment, Act One, Scene Five. David Burke, whose perfomance as the Ghost had drawn praise, led Hamlet into the scene. As he had done each night, he told Hamlet, 'I am thy father's spirit', and went on to describe how he had been the victim of 'murder most foul'. As Burke delivered his final lines, 'Adieu, adieu, Hamlet. Remember me', and began to make his exit, however, the audience saw Hamlet follow in his wake. What should have followed was one of Hamlet's most impassioned soliloquies, 'O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?' Instead there was silence on the Olivier stage. Behind the scenes Daniel has slumped to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.
'I came round the corner and Dan was slumped down in the corridor with David Burke rather kind of surreally dressed as this ghost all in white and silver leaning over him saying, "Dan are you all right, are you all right?" He was obviously not in a good state. He was kind of sobbing, saying, "I can't do it, I can't do it, I'm not going back on."
Daniel was taken off to stay with a friend in London.
He was sent to see first a doctor then a psychiatrist.
The diagnosis was that he was suffering from 'stress syndrome'. It was accepted that he was in no condition to continue and a statement was prepared.
'He is naturally very upset at having to withdraw so near the end of his scheduled run and we are very sad that he is not returning.' the National Theatre's spokesman said. 'He pours everything he has into all his roles and does nothing by halves. That's presumably why he is in such a state'.
The news sparked feverish speculation about what had led to his premature departure. There were rumours that he had seen his father's ghost on the stage that night.
It took Daniel two and a half years to offer an explanation. In a piece he wrote himself, in the Observer, to mark the publication in May 1992 of the Complete Poems of Cecil Day-Lewis, he answered the rumour that he had been confronted not with the ghost of Hamlet but with that of his father.
'Well, of course I was talking to my father, as I do every day. Wouldn't it seem stranger not to have been?' He went on to say that what his father had said to him 'seemed particularly hard to bear'.
'The ideas I had explored when I was working on the play began to torment me once my resistance had disintegrated. Images of my childhood, of my father,' he told Buck in the New Yorker magazine.
'Before going on stage every |
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vincent
Pioneer
USA
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May 20 2002
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Posted - May 31 2002 : 3:32:58 PM
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Theresa,
Wow! That's news to me. Thanks for the update.
Vincent
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Diane B.
Colonial Militia
USA
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May 19 2002
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Posted - May 31 2002 : 9:07:40 PM
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Hi, Theresa,
In your response to Vincent, you mentioned "The Fire Within, the biography written by Garry Jenkins." Is this a biography on DDL? If so, I wasn't aware that such a work even existed. As I understand it, our beloved Hawkeye isn't known for being easily accessible and he's reportedly not fond of giving interviews; so I would be most surprised to learn that someone actually managed to get his "life story" out of him!
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Theresa
Bumppo's Tavern Proprietress
USA
Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
May 17 2002
Status: offline
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Posted - June 01 2002 : 10:21:49 AM
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Hey Diane,
Yes, this is a biography of DD-L. It was published by St. Martin's Press here in the U.S. and first published in Great Britain by Sidgwick & Jackson. The copyright date is 1994. It is a very interesting and enlightening book on him. It has a few black and white photos from his childhood through his filming of In the Name of the Father.
I just happened to find a copy at an antique store and flea market in Salem, Va. while visiting there. Check your local library. My library doesn't have a copy but I live in a small community in Alabama...'nuf said!
Theresa |
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richfed
Sachem
USA
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May 13 2002
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Posted - June 02 2002 : 11:16:43 AM
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I found this pic that's been laying around on my computer - I forget who passed it along; probably Theresa? - anyway, here it is, DDL, Leonardo, and others:
Rich
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Theresa
Bumppo's Tavern Proprietress
USA
Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
May 17 2002
Status: offline
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Posted - June 02 2002 : 2:40:26 PM
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Yep, it was me Rich. Thanks for posting it here. I, for one, am really looking forward to this film. Quite a different look from ol' Hawkeye, doncha think? 
Theresa |
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